
10.7 Lion allows multi-user remote computing - solipsist
http://www.9to5mac.com/54102/10-7-lion-allows-multi-user-remote-computing?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+9To5Mac-MacAllDay+%289+to+5+Mac+-+Apple+Intelligence%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
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iuguy
It seems like Apple have discovered Terminal Services, or the basic networking
functionality in X11.

Hopefully it'll be much shinier than X11 and less restrictive than Remote
Desktop Protocol.

~~~
JonnieCache
I imagine it uses Apple Remote Desktop, which is apple's own version of RDP. I
don't know much about it but it works pretty damn well for me.

[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Apple_remote_...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Apple_remote_desktop)

~~~
nettdata
It's actually using a VNC based application, and uses the VNC protocol. I can
"remote desktop" into my desktop using a simple VNC app on my iPad.

It seems that they've provided the option of creating a new VNC server/desktop
process when connecting in, rather than just attaching to the existing and
current desktop.

Very cool.

~~~
cookiecaper
For the record, this has been a feature of VNC/X forever; in fact, it's harder
to run VNC on an extant X session than it is to just start a new one
specifically for VNC.

It's just a little annoying when Apple finally integrates tech that's 20+
years old and gets heralded as being "ahead of the curve" or "very cool" for
doing it.

~~~
nettdata
Get pissy much? I consider it "very cool" in the sense that this is a cool
feature that I finally get to use in the OS I prefer to work in.

I don't care if it's been around for decades or done a thousand times before
on other OS's, it's being done by them now, and I find it useful.

I'd rather see them do stuff like this and be praised for it than do stuff
like this and get shit on by people with the tiresome "it's about time" or
"Linux had this a zillion years ago and did it better" crowd.

~~~
nettdata
Actually, I won't have the same attitude... I'll be indifferent, and not
comment at all, as I don't really care what Windows does. Even though I use it
almost daily for various client work.

When it comes right down to it, I don't buy into this whole OS religion thing.
I've had more than a passing exposure to quite a few of them, and they all
have/had their place.

Case in point, I started my career on IBM 3081's and PDP-11's. I even have a
full rack of gear in my home office that includes a bunch of boxes with
various flavours of Linux installed, a Tadpole laptop running Solaris, an
operational NeXT Cube, SGI and HP boxes running their Unix variants, a cluster
of Sun Netras, and on and on. I've also got a few different laptops with
Windows and Linux installed. And a couple of MacBook Pro's.

They all have good features, and bad, but none of them have everything.

Do I care what someone else uses? Nope. Do I care if they gush over it and
think it's the coolest thing ever? Nope. Do I feel some overwhelming urge to
"educate" them on why their choices are "wrong"? Nope.

I just know what works for me, and am happy to discuss things with like-minded
individuals. I'm not a fanboy, and I haven't drunk the Cool-Aid. I also don't
think everyone who owns a Mac is like that either.

Call me crazy, I guess.

~~~
gonzo
Tadpole laptop? Really? Which one? I did the port of Slowaris to several of
the SPARCbooks back when I worked there.

(Started my career on a DEC-10, followed by a Vax 11/780, a couple 11/750s and
a smattering of PDP-11s (11/44, 11/70))

Had Linux (and NeXTstep) running on an early Tadpole P1000 (100MHz Pentium
laptop, it was the sh*t when it came out.)

Mostly all Macs now.

~~~
nettdata
It's an UltraBookIIe. Needed it when I provisioned 6 racks of Sun gear in an
off-shore co-lo for a gaming company, and it was the easiest way to auto
install/configure all the OS's and software into bare metal gear. Wasn't the
fastest thing on the planet, but it worked really well.

~~~
gonzo
Oh. That's the "other" Tadpole (previously RDI, who acquired Tadpole
Technology, Plc in order to trade its stock.)

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kaffeinecoma
I'd like to see a remote login implementation for OSX that allows you to login
remotely, and also adjusts the screen size to match that of the actual
physical device you're on.

The existing implementation of screen sharing is frustrating for me to use
because I'm often remoting in from a 15" Macbook to a Macpro tower with two
heads @ 1920x1200 each. So the options are scale to 1) down the display (slow,
fuzzy) or 2) scroll all over the place.

An ideal solution would be to let me log into a virtual display that matches
the size of my physical remote terminal. In other words, make the server think
it has a head the same size as the client.

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voxcogitatio
I'm glad to hear that they've catched up to the original UNIX. :)

~~~
yoda_sl
I would rather say that it is more OS X returning back to its roots where
NeXTStep/OpenStep use to have such capability when all the rendering was done
with the PostScript built in server. These feature disappeared from OS X, so
it is more like a welcome back with a user friendly UI. Back then you usually
had to use some terminal command line to make ir happen.

~~~
prodigal_erik
Amazing that this is the only comment so far that points out this wasn't even
Not-Invented-Here Syndrome, because their own OS already had this feature
(Display PostScript remoting) twenty years ago. At least until some architect
marking their territory was allowed to wilfully break it and replace it with
... nothing.

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emehrkay
My job wants to use a third party product to do the exact same thing.

<http://www.aquaconnect.net/mac-terminal-server.php>

This is a great addition to the os. Imagine your house having one
[desk|lap]top and a few tablets or phones. Hop on vnc on your docked tablet
while someone is using the computer and you're as good as using the desktop. I
see this as a move to push both os x and the i[pad|phone] as viable business
devices.

This is possible with windows right? I vaguely remember using remote desktop a
few jobs ago, but I dont remember if it was one account logged in at a time.

~~~
seabee
The server versions of Windows allow that, it's called Remote Desktop Services
(or Terminal Services pre-2008). Way better than using VNC, probably because
it hooks all the window control drawing on the server and does it on the
client instead, rather than sending over raw bitmaps for buttons/textboxes
etc.

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pnathan
Er, ssh?

I don't see what the big deal is. I've been able to remotely ssh into my mac
for years.

~~~
jasonlotito
now imagine this at the gui level. imagine being on your mac, pick up your
ipad, move to the next room, and swipe and have access to the same apps
currently running. jut look at what apples been putting out the last few
years. look at lions big features. full screen mode doesnt sound impressive.
but that would make those apps much easier to use on the ipad.

im nut saying this is all new stuff, rather, its going to be packaged by
apple, and that is going to mean something.

~~~
pak
If you want to do this right now, check out Screens for iPad.

~~~
jasonlotito
Yeah, I've seen that before. I'm not talking about _just_ that. What I'm
talking about is having the full screen mode Apple is developing will have
support for turning the app into an iPad version with little effort.
Basically, by following their API and implementing official full screen
support, when the time comes to implement Mac to iPad support like I'm
describing, instead of seeing the Mac's desktop, your seeing the application
on your iPad in an "iPadified" version of the app.

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guptaneil
This is going to be absolutely perfect for educational use. Imagine a
university computer lab that lets you remotely login from home after the lab
has closed to access all the expensive, specialized software the school has
already purchased. I know my university was trying to set something like this
up, but couldn't find any user-friendly way of doing this.

~~~
jonknee
I doubt there are a bunch of user accounts on a uni computer lab Mac, so this
wouldn't be much different than regular screen sharing. It's also still a mess
to choose which computer to try, doubly so if you're on an outside network.

~~~
akronim
Mac OS X Server had (has?) decent support for proper accounts, with the client
machines essentially just diskless terminals that boot from the server, and
with all accounts on the server - called netboot. So not like screen sharing
at all. This worked pretty well in a lab setup, but didn't support remote
logins - this sounds much better.

~~~
jonknee
The OP was talking about doing this so expensive university software... I'm
going to go out on a limb here and state that it's just not going to work well
when 100 students try and spin up instances of AutoCAD or Mathimatica on the
same machine.

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wangweij
This is nothing special. Lion says it would include a server version of Mac OS
X, and this is just a very basic function for any server OS. Although I
haven't played with OS X server before, I'm quite sure this feature has been
there for some time.

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tjarratt
The way I like to think of this feature is as a throwback to the days of
"dumb" terminals that would connect to a server where you stored your files,
account info, etc.

"Back to Unix".

~~~
jacques_chester
Why not? With HTTP we went back to the future vis-a-vis 3270.

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tambourine_man
If I understood it correctly, this has been possible for years in OSX. You
just need to be “fast user switched out” instead of logged out: \- Log in with
user A \- Fast User Switch to user B \- Log in to user A with VNC. It works
just fine.

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jasonlotito
a lot of the comments are fairly shortsighted. i called this some time ago,
and it makes sense. consider how mobile our live are right now. consider the
wireless nature of everything. imagine having your computer be situated out of
sigh, and your screen is mobile. your ipad and iphone connect to the same
central hub. the computer becomes an appliance at home. just look at lion and
the elements of ios its pulling in. now imagine apple making it easy to do all
of this.

airdrop, mobileme, app store, all of this are elements to a grand vision.

~~~
thefonz
yes, and especially with rumors that iPhone 5 having NFC technology. Imagine
being able to walk up to any mac and just swipe your iPhone and all your
settings, bookmarks, etc. will just transfer over and you will be able to use
it, just like you were infront of you mac at home.

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jpr
Is it just me or are 99% of tech "news" and "innovation" just reinvention of
stuff already found in UNIX, Lisp etc. decades ago?

~~~
gvb
It's not just you, Henry Spencer reportedly said it (first?) in 1987.

"Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#Quotes>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Spencer#cite_note-2>

~~~
thwarted
He was just paraphrasing the bible:

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is
nothing new under the sun." -- Ecclesiastes 1:9

