Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Mac OS X + Pocket PC = Portability
Posted by Jason Dunn in "ARTICLE" @ 08:00 AM
"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.
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.
