There’s bad news for anyone who’s still a fan of Back to My Mac: Apple is killing off this suite of remote-access applications.
The good news is that Apple’s doing so because all the functionality has been supplanted by newer options.
TeamViewer has been around at the App Store since 2010, when its first iOS app allowed users to remotely pilot a PC or Mac.
Now TeamViewer has pulled a pulled a 180; the company’s latest trick allows any Mac or PC user to remotely peer into an iPhone, iPad or an Android device equipped with their new TeamViewer QuickSupport iOS and Android apps.
Colligo Networks today announced a major revision of its award-winning line of iOS SharePoint clients. SharePoint has become an indispensible tool for many businesses. Having access to SharePoint resources on the iPad has become equally crucial to many mobile professionals.
Colligo Briefcase is designed to provide secure access to SharePoint sites, documents, and resources. The apps in the Colligo Briefcase lineup include core features like the ability capture, view, edit, and share files and list items. They also provide a range of ways to view SharePoint content, support for editing content in other iOS apps, and the ability to print to AirPrint-enabled printers.
Secure remote access has always been important for companies with mobile workers. As Apple and other mobile technology companies enable an increasingly mobile workforce, however, those remote access needs are increasing rapidly and can easily strain existing VPN setups.
Increasing capacity can be accomplished with the traditional appliance or server-driven VPN solutions, but that can get expensive and doesn’t guarantee that even more capacity won’t be needed in a few months or a couple of years. One company offering a scalable and cost-effective solution to these challenges is iSimplyConnect.
Parallels released an update to the company’s mobile access app for iPhone and iPad. The app offers an array features, particularly for iPad users. The current update adds iPad and iOS 5 optimization, international keyboard support, retina graphics on the new iPad, along with several bug fixes including Mac and Windows scrolling fixes.
Launched a few weeks ago, the Pogoplug Series 4 ($100) is Cloud Engines’ latest attempt at making their network-attached storage device as ubiquitous as the microwave oven. Like its predecessors, the S4 allows you to attach a hard drive or flash drive to create your own cloud, which you can use to stream media, share files or create slideshows, all of which can be accessed over the Internet and shared with others. Additionally, it can also be used for remote backup.
Popular remote access service LogMeIn has released an updated App Store app that gives iOS device users basic remote access to a Mac or PC. Instead of the previous $30/month free, customers can have remote access from iOS for free.
TeamViewer has been steadily updating its free remote-desktop app for the iPhone and iPad with big features ever since it first hit the App Store over a year ago. This big new update adds another meaty treat: the ability to transfer files back and forth between your iDevice and a Mac (or PC).
Just like Pogoplug and ZumoCast (the latter currently MIA from the app store), Tonido is a service that’ll let users stream media and access files on a computer from a mobile device. It sort of combines features from both — it’s completely free, works via a mobile app that connects to server software (free download from Tonido) running the user’s computer and allows access to music, videos, photos and even plain ‘ol documents. In fact, pretty much everything on a connected hard drive is accessable.
The big difference with Tonido though, is that virtually nothing is stored in a cloud — not even your account password (“think of the Tonido server like a giant router” says co-founder Venkat Ramasay). Don’t want to use your computer as the server? Tonido sells a remarkably-Pogoplug-looking NAS device for $99 that you can plug an external HDD or USB stick into. Ramasay says the software footprint is also very small, and that’s it’s also intended to run on home routers. The next version will also support Airplay.
The interface seems a little rough around the edges — I wasn’t able to stream music because I couldn’t figure out a way to simply select music to play, for instance — but it’s free, so worth taking a look at.
