VNC for iPhone, Now it is Getting Interesting

Cleve Nettles
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September 18, 2007
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A very interesting application just hit my iPhone's installer.app repository.  VNSea, the port of the venerable VNC Client that is used in many remote desktop installations, including Apple's own Remote Desktop.  Although the application doesn't appear to be working too well - we got just a flash of the desktop before the application crashed - the possibilities are endless for VNC client like this.  

Controlling a home computer or server from the road would give access to unlimited amounts of applications and data.  This is definitely something to look out for.

From the website:

VNSea is a graphical (duh) VNC client for the iPhone and presumably the iPod touch, based on Chicken of the VNC for Mac OS X. CotVNC is also hosted at SourceForge.

Please note that server passwords are currently stored in plaintext in the
preferences file and shown unprotected on screen. This will be fixed as
soon as the client is mostly functional. Right now, functionality takes
precedence over local security.

16 Sep 2007 - Source has been added to the repository.

16 Sep 2007 - The 0.2 release is now available in the project downloads. This release adds and fixes quite a few features:

  • Vnsea now has very basic mouse control. Scrolling is now done with two fingers, while a single finger controls the mouse.
  • Support for all encoding formats supported by CotVNC, including JPEG.
  • You can control the desired pixel depth from the server settings to cut down on bandwidth.
  • Better error reporting (i.e. no crash) if a connection cannot be made.
  • Shimmer is included so future updates can be performed automatically.

Comments (11)

macbookrocks (not verified) | September 18, 2007 - 2:57pm

What about the app iPhoneRemote??? You can access your Mac's iSight camera, all of its files (including music, video, etc.) and its applications as well. I ran into it at Google Code. Anyone else have any experience with it?

macmanager (not verified) | September 18, 2007 - 3:08pm

OH YEAH!
i was just waiting for that to get one (fuck the itouch, ill get the better screen, more apps, jailbreaked iphone, no activation)

ptone (not verified) | September 18, 2007 - 3:30pm

Remote Buddy has something like this:

http://www.iospirit.com/index.php?mode=view&obj_type=infogroup&obj_id=24...

niko34 (not verified) | September 19, 2007 - 2:25am

LogMeIn provide a remote access that work with safari. It should also work with the iPhone. No need for a native app with this solution.

macmanager (not verified) | September 19, 2007 - 7:15am

I have logmein and can get the page to load but cannot see users desktop, no flash I guess.

John Muir (not verified) | September 19, 2007 - 5:03am

Chicken of the VNC: blech!
I've never had any luck with that app over years of occasional trying. It's ARD for my Macs and RDC for the occasional Windows session. Why? CotVNC is so buggy even on the Mac yet alone the iPhone. I don't know anyone who can use it reliably.

macmanager (not verified) | September 20, 2007 - 5:50pm

never had ANY issue with COTVNC on my macbook pro

MacSavvy (not verified) | September 20, 2007 - 9:44am

ChickenVNC works fine on OS X with OSXvnc, Vines server and ARD. I use it every day to manage multiple servers from a far as well as locally.

Anyone that claims it does not is simply uninformed. You just have to know what you are doing. I have decades of experience with computers and networks not that anyone needs that much experience to be successful. Hardware is hardware, software is software and electrons do what they do no matter the logo(s) involved.

According to Roger Ebert life is too short to use anything but a Mac since Micro$oft Windows is just not a human environment.

Neil Anderson (not verified) | September 22, 2007 - 1:15pm

That is cool. Thanks!

BobOki | October 01, 2007 - 6:48am

I have yet to be able to get vnsea to connect. Be it edge or wifi, it does not connect to my machines (either of my 4 networks).
Too bad, I really would like this to work!

Moviespo (not verified) | October 01, 2007 - 12:25pm

I can use VNC on the i~phone but how do you open folders...It seems you can only watch, use the file menu, close applications or documents.

How would you open a folder or use the keyboard.

VNC for i~phone seems to be in stalker mode...

Edge is slow...Will try it in (why fi)

Re: I have yet to be able to get
If you need it to work you have to do the port forwarding. Watch this:
http://www.macminicolo.net/videos/ServerVideo3.mov