Firstly, just to clarify, I don’t rap – this is a post about a useful Remote Desktop server for OSX. Wait, I hear you cry, you’re a Windows developer! Well that is true but I also use Xamarin to produce apps for iOS and Android and to build and deploy iOS apps you have to have a Mac in your workflow. Xamarin have done a great job to minimise this – you can do your development in Visual Studio on your PC but you have to connect to a Mac running their Build Server and you need to use the Mac to deploy apps to the iTunes store.
Because it was only for occasional interaction I don’t want the Mac Mini (which is a very nice looking piece of hardware BTW) setup with a Keyboard/Mouse/Monitor taking up space so it’s running as a headless device. I originally used TeamViewer to occasionally connect to the device but randomly last month the PC client started crashing on load and even an uninstall/reinstall wouldn’t get it working again so I looked for an alternative. I came across iRAPP by CodeRebel. I’d not heard of it before but it seemed perfect – it’s a Remote Desktop provider supporting Microsoft’s RDP protocol which means you can connect using the standard Windows Remote Desktop app. The app is available for Windows, Windows Phone, Android, Mac and iOS and since I use other Windows machines I have it installed on every device I use. By installing iRAPP on my Mac it just works in my Windows environment with no hassles. I found it very reliable over the trial period and have just purchased a license – $79 for a year and even that process is straight-forward and just works. Purchase the license online and click Update License from the iRAPP control panel and boom it’s up and running again!
There is also an iRAPP client for Windows which adds an extra dimension – it allows you to “blend” your desktop – switching to it adds the OSX menubar and dock to your desktop and will open apps in windows transparently on your desktop so you can feel like you are running OSX applications side by side with your Windows applications. Fun stuff but I didn’t really need this.
If you’re interested take a look here – http://www.coderebel.com/products/irapp-client/. There’s no ulterior motive here – I’m not receiving a commission or anything, I was just really impressed by the product and it’s proved reliable and useful.
In The Hand Ltd 