[This is a TiPb AT WORK App vs. App Review! Last week, it was the To Do/Task App Showdown, with Things squeaking out the victory. But which blog commenter won a copy of the winning To Do/Task App? Alex! Congratulations!

This week, the TiPb iPhone Forums voted on their favorite Remote Desktop/VNC Apps, we took the top two, and now they're going head-to-head. But wait -- there's more! One of the forum voters has already won a copy of the winning App... Congrats avt! Want another chance to win? COMMENT BELOW! and make sure you leave a valid email address in the comment form -- it won't be made public, but it will be used to contact you if you win! Check out the full contest details, then grab your iPhone and get ready to get things done -- the TiPb AT WORK Remote Desktop/VNC Showdown is on!]

Like Brian, I use my iPhone for just about everything. So wouldn’t it be nice to use your iPhone to access your computer(s) when you are not at your desk? At work (no pun intended) I rotate with team members to “take” call, meaning, if something needs resolved on a weekend or evening, it is up to me to fix it. My work does not currently supply a broadband card, so it is up to my own devices to have Internet access wherever I go to remote into my PC. The VNC applications Jaadu and Mocha allow me to do just that! For those of you that don’t know what VNC is, it allows you to remotely control another computer. Now, this ability is available on your iPhone (side rant, why doesn’t Apple give us this ability as part of our MobileMe subscriptions? Ah, I digress…)

I can now leave my laptop behind and just use my iPhone to connect to my work laptop at home or my iMac desktop and save the day! Let’s take a look at these two VNC apps!

First Impressions

Jaadu VNC: Sells in the App Store for $24.99. Though this may seem steep, it offers ease of use its rivals do not match (more on this later). This application is very professional looking. The mixture of black and blue as well as animations while loading really give a good aura of slickness to the user, I was impressed. 

Mocha VNC: Sells in the App Store for $5.99. A little rougher around the edges that Jaadu, it still gets the job done. The lower barrier to entry might be more palatable for some not looking for a “regular” connection to their desktop. But who does it better? Let’s read on to find out!

Setup

Jaadu VNC: There is some configuration needed with Jaadu, but it is detailed and well worth the trouble. After installing the iPhone App, you need to install a free client on the Mac/PC. The Mac client is actually made by Jaadu, but for the PC they recommend using Tight VNC on your PC to get you started. After following the simple instructions I was up and going using Jaadu in about 5 minutes.

The setup screen contains the typical information such as Name, IP Address, Password, etc. The advanced button offers additional choices such as color depth (Hundreds-Millions or the server can decide for you based on your connection). If you are battery conscience, then you can even turn off “fast refresh” to save battery power. Honestly, I would never turn this off as it impacts the redraw of the screen…

Mocha VNC: Mocha VNC is a straight forward setup. You have to setup a VNC server on your own, but afterwords, setting up the connection on your iPhone is a piece of cake. Mocha allows you 20 different connections (wow, that is a lot) and similar configuration options to Jaadu. It does not have as many configuration options as Jaadu, but it covers the basics to connect. Setup is fast and seamless.

Keep in mind though, you will need to install a VNC server in order to use Mocha VNC. You can read more about this here. 
 

Use

Jaadu VNC: Once connected, Jaadu really is easy to use. There is a keyboard for you to enter information into your computer. You can use this for typing a URL into the address bar, sending an email, or whatever fits your needs! 

The cursor movement is nice to. You have an option for “momentum” which provides a “floaty” mouse feel. You can double click by tapping the screen twice and right-click by taping once with two fingers. You can also use multi-touch by pinching the screen to zoom all the way out, or zoom in to a useful level of detail. All of this is done very smoothly and accurately. 

If you swap often between portrait and landscape, you are in luck! Jaadu recognizes when you have rotated your device and orientates the screen to match, However, if this function does not appeal to you, there is an option to disable as needed. You also have your standard additional keys like FN, CTRL, etc.

It is important to note that you need to run the Jaadu application to access your Mac. On Windows you need to install a VNC server as well as the Jaadu app (with Back to My Mac, the Mac already has a server running, thus no need to install additional software beyond the Jaadu client).

Mocha VNC: Mocha behaves very similarly to Jaadu, but offers alternative input methods. For example, you have a series of icons located across the bottom of the screen. You have your typical options, etc, but what is different here is that instead of using two fingers and tapping on the screen for a right-click, you tap an icon. Once tapped, that icon turns green (the icon is of a mouse…) indicating that the next time you tap the screen, it will display the shortcut menu. 

One advantage that Mocha has over Jaadu is the extensive alternative keys. Mocha gives you full and easy access to all of the “F” keys as well as the FN CTRL, etc. keys. I prefer this input method (for the function keys) over Jaadu’s.

Additional Information (Tech Babble)

Conclusion

And the Winner is…

Jaadu!

The added ability of remoting in when you don’t have a static IP really makes all the difference in the world with VNC. The added “slickness” of the app also goes a long way. If you are using VNC on the same network, either will do. However, if you need to access your computer on the same network, Mocha will work just fine.

Pros:

• Easy setup
• Static IP configuration
• Ideal tool to access your Mac/PC on-the-go

Cons:

•  Difficult if not impossible to configure behind your corporate firewall

Jaadu Final Score:

Mocha Final Score:

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb AT WORK: Jaadu VNC vs Mocha VNC

[This is a TiPb AT WORK App vs. App Review! Last week, it was the Instant Messenger Showdown, with BeeJiveIM squeaking out the victory. But which blog commenter won a copy of the winning IM App? mr. Hi-Definition Congratulations!

This week, the TiPb iPhone Forums voted on their favorite Task/To Do Apps, we took the top two, and now they're going head-to-head. But wait -- there's more! One of the forum voters has already won a copy of the winning App... Congrats coreymol! Want another chance to win? COMMENT BELOW! and make sure you leave a valid email address in the comment form -- it won't be made public, but it will be used to contact you if you win! Check out the full contest details, then grab your iPhone and get ready to get things done -- the TiPb AT WORK Task/Do To Showdown is on!]

I use my iPhone all the time. At work or play, it completes me. I have a few gripes (no sense beating the cut/copy/paste dead horse) – there are some glaring omissions that make it difficult for people to take the iPhone seriously for business or just everyday productivity.

Some kind of sync-able task or to-do list is such a basic feature, and fortunately, the advent of 3rd party apps have made it possible for developers to provide a plethora of apps to remedy this deficiency. The two apps that you folks in the forum picked for this TiPb AT WORK smackdown is Things and Appigo’s Todo. Users have given them both a 4-star rating in the App Store and, quite honestly, it’s a VERY close call to me.

Which of these two get-er-done apps are the best? How do they stack up? Read on!

First Impressions

Things, available in the App Store for $9.99, is a task app that promotes it’s simplicity to use and offers a time-based and priority-based approach. The interface is clean and easy to use, with customization for creating specific task lists. A desktop sync app is also available as a separate download from the main site. The simplicity of the interface and layout of tasks by order of priority and project is very appealing at first glance.

Appigo’s Todo is also sold for $9.99 in the App Store and has a simple interface that allows for the creation of task lists and setting priority of importance and due dates for tasks. Rather than provide a desktop syncing app separately, Todo will sync online with either ToodleDo or Remember The Milk, both of which are popular web apps for the iPhone.

The Same, But Different

Both Things and Todo offer similar functionality in giving you the ability to manage tasks/to-do’s on your iPhone. They both have ways to sync your tasks in a location other than your iPhone. They both allow creation of multiple task lists. Both have an “In-Box” to hold hastily created tasks that you can add detail in the future, like categorization, priority, scheduling, and notes. Both have a nice, easy, and clean interface. There are differences though, and the differences just might give one an edge over the other, but this “edge” may also just boil down to personal taste.

Things

Things is the task app that gives you a timeline/priority approach to managing your tasks. First, you have your Today items – obviously, the items that need to be done today and not tomorrow! These are tasks that you have entered to be completed for the day or are scheduled tasks that have become due. The Next list contains single to-do items and also action steps from active projects. These are the tasks you will do as soon as you can get to them. If the Today items give you a up-close look at your tasks, the Next list is taking a step back and seeing things from the 100 foot view.

Scheduled items are things you will do in the future. These are tasks you will begin at a later date, and as the date arrives, they will show up in your Today view. This may be like looking at your tasks from the 1,000 foot level.

The Someday box is where you place the things you want to do someday, no specific date required. Store your dreams here, if you want. It is like the 10,000 foot view of your tasks – no pressure, just a place to capture your ideas for more shaping and molding.

Things makes it easy to move tasks from one box to another. Then, as you complete tasks, they will appear in your Logbook so you can review the completed items later.

A nice touch is the “+” icon located at the bottom left of each screen. This app wants to make sure that adding tasks at any time is easy and straight-forward. Just hit that “+” icon no matter what you are doing and you can enter a quick task that will sit in your Inbox until you can give it more specificity later. Cool!

Right now, you can download a functioning desktop app that allows you to wirelessly sync your tasks between your iPhone and Things. In the future, this desktop app will be on the pricey side: $39.99 for those that register before the official release, and $49.99 for the johnny-come-latelys. However, if you are a big-time to-do/task person, this is a good investment. You will have a stand-alone app on your desktop that is married to the app on your iPhone so you can both backup your tasks as well as enter them easily from your desktop.

Appigo’s Todo

Todo takes a different approach to syncing. Rather than a desktop app and the additional expense that goes with it, their app syncs online with both Toodledo and Remember The Milk, two popular web apps. The upside to this is that these apps are free and are available to you anywhere you have an internet connection. The bad news is you need an internet connection or you aren’t syncing, period.

Multiple task lists and projects are also available on Todo. You can create repeating tasks, prioritize tasks, and also create tasks quickly that are placed in your Inbox for adding detail later. You can view all important tasks by setting the filter to “All Lists” so you can knock out those urgent tasks no matter what category they are in or project the are a part of.

Another very useful feature offered in Todo is the linking of tasks to contacts and websites. If you need to call someone or send them an email, you can do some right from a task. You can also share tasks by sending them via email. This adds a very useful dimension to your task list when you can link straight to a contact for a call, email, or visiting a related web site.

And The Winner Is….

Both Appigo’s Todo and Things are excellent choices to manage your tasks. They bear several similarities and are available for the same price. The winner is really …. you! In my opinion, you can’t go wrong with either app and so it’s really up to your personal tastes. The desktop syncing app for Things is a little pricey, but for some of you it may be worth it to have local syncing that isn’t dependent on having an internet connection. For others, spending another $39.99 or $49.99 is NOT a good deal when you can have online syncing for free with Appigo’s Todo.

If you need multiple task lists, projects, an Inbox for lighting-fast task entry, and task prioritization, then it’s hard to choose. The differences reside in the syncing methods and some personal touches in customization (using custom strike-throughs in Todo or the prioritizing method in Things, for instance).

Since I get to choose, my personal favorite is Things because it gives me the option of syncing with a desktop app, which I find more convenient than using a web app. Things also seems a little simpler and straight-forward to me, something I really value in a task manager. I like that I can be very specific with urgent items or just dump ideas for later thought in the “someday” bin. But like I said before, regardless of which app YOU choose, they are both winners.

Things Rating:

Appigo’s Todo Rating:

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb AT WORK To Do/Task List Showdown: Things vs Appigo Todo

TiPb’s latest, greatest contest is AT WORK, where all the members of TiPb iPhone Exchange & Enterprise Forum votes on their top two Productivity Apps, we review them head to head and app-vs-app, and one of the voters wins the winning App!

Week 2 voting is now over, and the To Do/Task showdown is set: Things vs. Appigo To Do!

Brian will reveal the winning App tomorrow (Wednesday), but right now we can tell you which Forum voter will win it! So who gets the best Task/To Do App on the iPhone?

coreymol!

Congratulations! We’ll contact you with details on how to claim your prize.

And for everyone else, you’ll still have a chance to win the Task/To Do App by commenting on the blog post tomorrow, and come Thursday, we’ll post our next poll, and another Forum member will have a chance to vote for — and win — another great App!

(Full contest details can be found here!)

Congratulations again, coreymol, and everyone else — get ready, you could be next!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb AT WORK Contest: Week 2 Update + Forum Winner!

[This is a TiPb AT WORK App vs. App Review! The TiPb iPhone Forums voted on their favorite Apps, we took the top two, and now they're going head-to-head. But wait -- there's more! One of the forum voters has already won a copy of the winning App... Congrats duhockey! Want another chance to win? Comment on this post and make sure you leave a valid email address in the comment form -- it won't be made public, but it will be used to contact you if you win! Check out the full contest details, then grab your iPhone and get ready to get things done -- the TiPb AT WORK IM Showdown starts now!]

Instant Messaging has become one of the most popular forms of online communication because it offers instant access, no SMS costs, and unmatched convenience. How Apple doesn’t implement an iChat Mobile on the iPhone is simply beyond us, we at TiPb think an iChat Mobile would be a top contender for an App vs App.

With that said, 3rd party apps are beginning to fill the holes that Apple left open. Two of the more popular, argued about IM Clients available in the App Store are Palringo and BeejiveIM. Though at the core of each is an IM Client, they could not be more different. How do they perform? Which IM Client is better? Who will win the first edition of AppvsApp: AT WORK ?

Read on for the rest of the review!

First Impressions

BeejiveIM

Okay, the $15.99 price tag is hefty and borderline egregious but it doesn’t come without cause. BeejiveIM is perhaps the easiest, most intuitive, and slickest IM Client on the iPhone. Everything makes sense, it supports a ton of different Instant Messaging programs and is very, very stable.

I had no problems logging into my AIM and Google Talk accounts at the same time and was off to chatting in a moment’s notice. The buddy list supports buddy icons, groups and status. The basic layout of the application includes tabs for Buddy List, Favorites, Chats, Accounts, and More

It also provides a very neat feature where it can keep you logged in after you exit BeejiveIM (24 hour max period) and will send you a notification of IM through your E-Mail account. This works best if your E-mail account supports push since it serves as a pseudo-push notification feature. So if you reason that you’re using their servers to remain connected, the $15.99 price doesn’t look as bad.

To put it into perspective, BeejiveIM is essentially everything you want AIM to be but better.

Palringo

Palringo is free. That’s a huge selling point in itself. But make no mistake though, Palringo isn’t some second-class IM Client; it is capable, almost as stable, and possibly even more full-featured.

The unique aspect of Palringo is that it strives to be more than just an ordinary IM client. Palringo serves as a full communication tool—you can send text IMs, voice IMs, or even picture messages—all in Palringo. It is limitless fun to send your buddies snapshots of your daily life and accompany them with voice notes.

However, with Palringo you have to sign up for a Palringo-specific account. Though this sounds easy enough, there have been reports of spam reaching your linked E-Mail account because of Palringo. Also, when I first tried to log in, the app just kept loading and loading and loading. Not until I re-installed Palringo could I finally get access.

Palringo also supports pretty much all the Instant Messaging programs available but its buddy list doesn’t support groups and buddy icons. It also lacks a favorite tab and a chat specific tab.

I found that even though Palringo is free, it is absolutely a full-featured IM Client that doesn’t cut any corners.

Usability

BeejiveIM

I really believe if Apple were to design an iChat Mobile, it would look strikingly similar to BeejiveIM. The buddy list is clear, the fonts are wonderful, and the whole experience is unbelievably smooth. Even the colors and sounds used are consistent with iChat and the iPhone in general—if you showed a Mac user BeejiveIM they would automatically think iChat—it’s simply that well made.

When in a chat, the typing interface is unique and well thought out. Instead of offering a small linear box to type in, BeejiveIM instead chooses to offer a text bubble overlay—the overall conversation moves to the background and what you type comes to the forefront—this offers more seamless chatting. The conversation is still visible because of the transparent text bubble.

Though this method of inputting messages is smart, it isn’t consistent with the iPhone and almost looks out of place in BeejiveIM. BeejiveIM uses a lot of blues and muted greys in their interface so using a black text bubble sticks out like an eyesore.

Though I absolutely love using the text bubble over any other text input interface and certainly appreciate the innovation, I just can’t wholly agree with its design—a more streamline color would have been appreciated.

BeejiveIM also offers support for landscape mode so our fat-fingered friends won’t feel left out. As an added bonus, you can even e-mail the current chat to your e-mail account for future reference. It also has a contact search button so your buddies won’t get lost. One more tip, theres a dedicated SMS button that makes it easy as pie to send SMS through BeejiveIM (which should be cost free to you).

Palringo

Palringo is well implemented and looks good but you can’t deny the fact that Palringo just looks like a third party application. Though it does use a mixture of greys and blues, the base color of Palringo is a deeper black than the iPhone that doesn’t stay consistent with the rest of the iPhone’s apps.

Let it be known, when using Palringo, sending text IM’s becomes bland and boring because of the alternatives offered. When you have voice and picture options, who needs text? It gets to become a minor annoyance when you want to send a text IM because every time you open a chat, it gives you three options: Text, Voice, and Picture. Select the option, than begin typing.

Sending voice messages and picture messages are a breeze, over Wi-Fi and 3G it is absolutely snappy and even on EDGE it can be considered quick. There is also a search bar option for contact search and you can swipe screens to move over to the next window. Palringo also offers support for hyperlinks, making it easier to surf the web and IM at the same time.

Negatives/Annoyances/Gripes

BeejiveIM

Though BeejiveIM is absolutely well-designed, there are still a few missing features and odd choices that make you question your money spent. Firstly, its chat-to-chat movement is less intuitive than AIM and Palringo. Instead of swiping the screen to move to the next window, you tap the top of the screen and select the buddy icon of the chat you want to jump to. Though this method is sometimes more effective than swiping multiple times to jump to a specific conversation, it is largely less intuitive. BeejiveIM also lacks hyperlink support which makes it much more troublesome to access web pages.

I had a few more complaints about BeejiveIM until I realized the features I thought were missing were actually included. BeejiveIM has different depths and layers to grow accustomed to, you won’t learn them all overnight. It is probably one of the most well-made applications in the App Store and has features that make you go “Man, that’s just smart”.

Palringo

There’s also no way to keep your message history, so good luck looking up information on your old IMs. Also, if you misspell the last word in Palringo it doesn’t automatically correct the error instead choosing to send the message as is. I also preferred the font of BeejiveIM over Palringo. The interface just didn’t work as well as BeejiveiM’s, it did the job but it never really raised the bar.

Final Thoughts

It can be argued that Palringo offers an arguably more well-rounded service than BeejiveIM. But when comparing IM to IM, BeejiveIM manages to run away with a victory.

BeejiveIM is simply one of the best applications available in the App Store: it is polished, it is well constructed and it is stable. It overcomes the lack of background apps and push notification on the iPhone by coming up with its own solution. It handles multiple accounts very well and is designed almost perfectly. The BeejiveIM team certainly needs to be commended for such great work. In the end, both IM Clients are great but BeejiveIM is simply in a class by itself.

BeejiveIM Rating:

Palringo Rating:

TiPb At Work Winner: BeejiveIM

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb AT WORK Instant Messenger Showdown: BeejiveIM vs Palringo