From time to time it just so happens that an app falls through the cracks. No this is not a Lewis Black piece, it’s about a little program that allows you to control your PC through your iPhone and/or your iPod Touch and it’s been out there for a little while now. But it’s worth noting here in the digital pages of Gadget Addiction that this is a powerfully interesting little app.
First off, the rundown and let’s get a little technical. VNSea is the iPhone side of the software; the portable companion to your desktop Virtual Network Computing client. VNC has been around for some time, allowing users to remotely control the keyboard and mouse functions of another computer. Thus the ground work for an iPhone version was already established. All that was needed was a portable version of the software to operate over WiFi and presto! Well, not quite. The iPhone has a little-known feature called the touch screen and as such VNSea was tasked with translating those touch movements on-screen. The result is a surprisingly fluid means of control with rather accurate mapping of ‘touch points.’ And it’d have to be accurate since your computer’s monitor is several times over the size of your iPhone. In fact, once VNSea is finished resizing what’s on your monitor you’ll barely recognize the tiny little strip at the bottom of the screen as the taskbar. But have no fear, for Apple’s patented pinch-zooming is present here, allowing you to zoom in to your desired level of detail.
However it’s for this very reason that we’re reminded why developers spend millions of dollars on crafting portable operating systems; VNSea displays your entire desktop in its functional entirety and in doing so it becomes nearly entirely impractical. Plain and simple. However, it is an interesting experiment in user interfaces and portable interaction. And impracticality should not be construed as useless; some people will/have invariably found a niche this program fills and there’s an undeniable allure of having the contents of your PC available anywhere in the world. But the means by which you access that content have all but obscured the accessibility VNSea touts.
If you have a few minutes download a copy of VNC to your computer, setup a password, and then get VNSea through Installer.app. Chances are that if you own an iPhone/iPod Touch you’re the type to be intrigued by this intuitive experiment in gadgetry. It’s worth at least one spin.
