Apple Remote Desktop 2 Released

chasingporsches writes "Today Apple released Apple Remote Desktop 2, a major upgrade of their network management software. New features include new software management support, and VNC support, which allows you to control and view any VNC-enabled Mac, Windows, or UNIX-based machine. Unlimited client price is $499, 10-client $299. It's not available as a free upgrade, but you can get a discounted price if you purchased the previous version today or later."

Up-To-Date Program

[chlorophyl]

For those of you who have or will purchase version 1.2 (version 2.0 won't ship till July) - you can get the new version for $19.95 by using these forms.

Up-To-Date 10 Client [apple.com]
Up-To-Date Unlimited Client [apple.com]

Re:Whatever

[chromaphobic]

If 10.0 had been release in 1995, this might be a valid comparison. But back in 1995 the Mac was still on System 7.5, so if you want a valid weighing of the cost to keep a system up-to-date you need to start counting a bit earlier than OS X.

Try: (leaving out free updates)
7.5 - 8.0 - 8.5 - 9.0 - 10.0 - 10.2 - 10.3
versus:
95 - 98 - ME - XP

Assuming upgrade prices (and assuming I'm remembering prices correctly,) thats:
99 + 99 + 99 + 99 + 129 + 129 + 129 = 783
versus:
99 + 99 + 99 + 99 = 396

Which means, to keep the Mac OS up-to-date has been nearly twice as expensive (assuming you never got any upgrades "free" with a new system purchase) over the last (almost) ten years.

I love my Mac, so I'd MUCH rather have those ten years of Mac Operating Systems than Windows (yes, even System 7.5!) but that doesn't change the fact that it IS more expensive to keep a Mac up-to-date.

Re:chicken of the vnc, x2osx , tightvnc

[metamatic]

What's wrong with VNC?

Nothing, except that it's slower than a dead snail in treacle on a cold day. Those 24-bit Aqua bitmaps don't compress well.

Re:What?

[abulafia]

Any idea how many or which ports/services you need to have open on a remote UNIX (i.e., Solaris) client to run, say a shell script this way?

If you are referring to "using VNC" when you say "this way", you need 5900+N open, where N is the VNC server you're running, open to run it natively.

Alternately you can tunnel it over, for instance, ssh, and then you only need 22 open.

To be really sneaky, you can tunnel SSH over DNS [oblomovka.com], in which case you need 53/UDP open. (PPT slides: http://www.doxpara.com/bo2004.ppt).

Verdict: If you have an open port, you can run whatever you like to it.

Re:Up-To-Date Program

[sakusha]

I suppose you were even more pissed off to discover that ARD 1.2 Client was rolled into MacOS X 10.3 for free.

Re:What's this like compared to VNC? Win rdesktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

ARD and Windows RDP really have two completely different targeted uses. ARD is ultimately for system administration, similar to VNC, Timbuktu, or pcAnywhere (but with more/different features). Windows RDP is mainly used to deploy applications to users with those applications running on the server instead of on the client machine.

FWIW, I hate how slow VNC is, and ARD is faster (at least the current rev), but it seems to operate under UDP and is kind of irritating over lower-speed wan links. In terms of overall use of a server to run applications on (which require a GUI), there currently is no comparison to Windows RDP in the mac world. Not that I really need that, I prefer to run Mac on my workstation as well as for my server environment. Unfortunately I am forced to use Windows for certain business applications, and RDP works just great for that.

24-bit Aqua

[dad2viii]

The point about graphics hogging bandwidth is valid, but ARD is configurable to allow 16-bit (both 1.2 ad 2.0) and even 8-bit graphics (verified only for 1.2), too. Apple advises minimizing animation in the UI and otherwise to make the most of the link.

Re:chicken of the vnc, x2osx , tightvnc

[bursch-X]

This is wrong:

They don't make use of Rendezvous, so it get's a big pain in the ass if your clients use DHCP on the LAN.

And Remote Desktop does much more than VNC. You can send files, the admin can display his/her screen on several other people's screens (great for teaching), look at several remote screens at the same time, force reboot machines, put remote machines to sleep, wake machines up from sleep, etc.