VNC viewer for iPad

To contact us Click HERE

Before the seminar on Monday this week (Aug 29), I do not know that is VNC technology. For me, it sounds like Vietnamese Community :-)   (a real community in NUS which is also shorten as VNC) . So for those who do not know about that technology, VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. It is a graphical desktop sharing system that uses the RFB protocol to remotely control another computer.
I did see some of popular desktop applications that make use of VNC but I have not thought of and iPad application with the same features. That is actually a cool idea. Image how convenient it is for you to control your desktop at company even when you are on the go. VNC viewer (by RealVNC) is one of such iPad applications.  Aldrian, Kenny, Yingbo and Aravindh gave us a really great presentation about the app.


I believe that in the future, we will not be be tied down to any location or machine. Cloud computing, HTML5, mobile devices and VNC technology are shaping that future.
Why VNC viewer? Since there are a lot of communications between the iPad and the computer being controlled, the latency of VNC apps are usually slow. For such a not-so-powerful device like iPad, one may expect the VNC viewer to have really high latency .But the control is quite smooth.. It is easy to use and secured. I also find that the encoding technique and picture quality are automatically changed based on the bandwidth available. There are also many configurations that you can apply since the app is catered for difference kind of users. You can use graphical UI for ease of use or CL interface for more powerful control.
There are still things that I do not like VNC viewer. It has too many extensive configurations for the server and network. And new user may not have hard time to get use to moving from using mouse to fingers to control the computer. If it comes to the question of whether or not I will buy the app ($9,99), I will say no. There is another app that does the job named Team viewer and it is FREE. In addition, if you choose VNC viewer, then the syncing software resided in the other machine will cost you another $50 for better quality and support (quite pricey).
In general, I think the presentation is good. However, I would love to see more images or animations on the slides. A demo of how the application works can also make the presentation more successful.