Mac OS X + Pocket PC = Portability

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,212...html?tw=rss.TOP

"Who says you can't run Mac OS X on a PocketPC? Consultant and columnist Teddy the Bear managed it by setting up a remote, wireless connection to his Mac in Austria. It's no speed demon, but Teddy the Bear can exert total control through his PocketPC. He manages e-mail, browses the web and queues up TV shows for his Mac to record using EyeTV."



At first I thought this was one of those W?BIC! scenarios, because my own experiences with Remote Desktop and the Terminal Services client have proven to be largely futile. But when I saw that screenshot, I have to admit I was impressed with the way the remote screen actually seemed to fit fairly well. Does OS X scale that well to 640 x 480 resolution? I assume he's using SE_VGA to get real VGA resolution out of his Pocket PC. But then he went and ruined it; this quote from Teddy won my Eye Rolling of the Day award:

"Of course, I can do e-mail and web browsing using the Pocket PC software, but because it's Microsoft, it's bad."

Oh please. :roll: I'll be the first to admit that Pocket Inbox and Pocket Internet Explorer need some serious improvements (especially with IMAP support), but even over WiFi I have a hard time believing that a remote desktop solution could be faster and easier than just firing up Pocket Inbox and hitting "Connect". And having the opinion that everything from Microsoft is "bad" seems to ignore the obvious point that the damn Pocket PC is running on Microsoft software. Teddy the Bear needs some more stuffing in his head - or less, I'm not sure.

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,212...html?tw=rss.TOP

"Who says you can't run Mac OS X on a PocketPC? Consultant and columnist Teddy the Bear managed it by setting up a remote, wireless connection to his Mac in Austria. It's no speed demon, but Teddy the Bear can exert total control through his PocketPC. He manages e-mail, browses the web and queues up TV shows for his Mac to record using EyeTV."



At first I thought this was one of those W?BIC! scenarios, because my own experiences with Remote Desktop and the Terminal Services client have proven to be largely futile. But when I saw that screenshot, I have to admit I was impressed with the way the remote screen actually seemed to fit fairly well. Does OS X scale that well to 640 x 480 resolution? I assume he's using SE_VGA to get real VGA resolution out of his Pocket PC. But then he went and ruined it; this quote from Teddy won my Eye Rolling of the Day award:

"Of course, I can do e-mail and web browsing using the Pocket PC software, but because it's Microsoft, it's bad."

Oh please. :roll: I'll be the first to admit that Pocket Inbox and Pocket Internet Explorer need some serious improvements (especially with IMAP support), but even over WiFi I have a hard time believing that a remote desktop solution could be faster and easier than just firing up Pocket Inbox and hitting "Connect". And having the opinion that everything from Microsoft is "bad" seems to ignore the obvious point that the damn Pocket PC is running on Microsoft software. Teddy the Bear needs some more stuffing in his head - or less, I'm not sure.

[powder2000]

Had a subscription to wired, but did not renew it. I couldn't get past the vast majority of their viewpoints......This anti-Microsoft bashing didn't surprise me once I saw where the article was from. Still, OS X looks pretty cool on that wonderful vga screen!

[felixdd]

The man needs a manicure....badly.

[DaleReeck]

...and because its Apple, its overpriced and proprietary

[capo]

<sigh> I try hard to like the Mac, and Apple products in general. It's not too tough - they make a lot of really cool stuff. What makes it more difficult than it should be is the near religious fervor of some Mac zealots. Ditto a few Linux fanatics. Choice benefits us all. I'm far from believing MS products are the be-all and end-all, but eventually they usually put out a decent product. Why does it have to be an either/or choice?

[juni]

He can't be that bad - he has a dauchshund in a superman suit as wallpaper.

Ours is aptly named "Pixel".

[ventivent]

hey,

my cat is named pixel. maybe he purposely left his thumbnails long and sharp for better typing on the software keyboard.

[jjdyer]

From the article...
The only problem is the lack of a keyboard or mouse. To make things easier, Teddy grew his two thumbnails to tap out commands on the Pocket PC's teeny touch screen.

[TMann]

Just for the record, there's a post by a Palm user (gasp!) on another website showing a picture of a Palm Tungsten T3, with a VPN connection to a Windows computer. It appears that this "trick" is pretty easy to accomplish on any combination of PDA and desktop OS's.

TMann

[surur]

Hey!! Thats my Loox!

With the Loox I have found landscape mode to be quite natural (but only in VGA mode, where most of the screen is not wasted on the status bar etc). The grooves at the side and the square shape makes it relatively easy to hold. Terminal service and logmein etc has been very usefull and easy to use also, and its nice to have full access to Word and MyIE etc.

With the higher resolution devices and wifi these solutions are finally coming of age. The only problem is the price of wireless data here in the UK (e.g $5 per megabyte), otherwise I would be doing this regularly using my 3G phone.

Surur

PS: Probably the reason why the Mac desktop scaled down so well is due to so much space being wasted on eye candy and rediculously large icons

PS2: Nice article. May I suggest he gets a folding keyboard instead of growing long nails, for all of our good.

PS3: Im glad to see he acknowledges that his mac also crashes (and it sounds like quite frequently too (but that his pocketpc setup is quite stable). Does he not know its not wise to use your main machine as a firewall also?