VNC Viewer – Remote Control Over Your Desktop From Your iPhone
Everyone has seen the commercials and Web ads, by now, for products like GoToMyPC and knows that you can get software to remotely control your desktop computer from any other computer, anywhere in the world. Now, you can control your desktop with your iPhone or iPod Touch!
It’s an obvious concept, but VNC Viewer does it well.
It requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later and installs on any desktop system: Mac OSX, Linux, UNIX, or Windows. If you’re running one of the latter three, you’ll be required to install a server system on your computer, but that is included and has full instructions for each of the systems.
Once everything is in place, though, you can securely access your desktop from anywhere your phone is on the grid. You’ll see your desktop on your phone’s screen and can run, manipulate, and use any software on your system that you would be able to use were you right in front of your computer. Useful if you forget something and need to email it to yourself, want to check your files or set up backups while on the train, etc.
On most occasions, VNC Viewer works very well and can be useful. Windows users have reported problems with the server sometimes crashing but, well, it’s Windows.
Of course, your home applications are running there, not on your iPhone, so you can’t retrieve files or save them to your phone, but you do have access to your Web browser and other tools, so emailing files or downloading them to your phone via FTP and other options are all there.
Overall, it’s a good app and could be very useful to those who need remote access to their desktops and would prefer to do it from an ultra-portable phone rather than a notebook or someone else’s computer.
