DISQUS

frumpa · 1 year ago

Nice write up. A couple of screen shots of what you were describing would have been helpful (e.g. iSSH's landscape issue). Thanks, Al

felix · 1 year ago

frumpa, just added an image of that iSSH landscape issue. The easiest way, I think, was to show you the app running "top", so you could see that the summary lines at the top of the screen are clearly cut off.

EMO Kid · 1 year ago

Thanks for the review.

I am wondering how an ssh client works on the iPhone given the policy of no multitasking. If one leaves the ssh terminal for a while and comes back, what is the turnaround time to get back to where one was? Does the connection stay alive or does one have to log in again, how about the support for ssh public keys on the various clients?

felix · 1 year ago

EK, yeah, it doesn't work at all - leaving the app, even just to go to the home screen, ends the connection. I don't see this changing anytime soon. Apple's "fix" for background apps - that single alert pipe they are touting as a great replacement for backgrounding will not help this problem. Sigh.

Josh · 1 year ago

FYI, TouchTerm does allow you to turn off the text entry box, allowing you to type at the prompt.

felix · 1 year ago

Josh, yeah, I guess I wasn't clear enough - there's a preference you can set that will turn it into the more typical immediate response type of input. I actually didn't figure that out till I was in the middle of writing the post.

Clark · 1 year ago

Given how hard it is to type on the iPhone I kind of liked TouchTerm's approach since I could easily edit what I typed before sending it. I just wish it was easier to switch on and off. But this was one of the few things TouchTerm had that I liked.

neil kodner · 1 year ago

Nice write-up. The long-tail nature of the iTunes App Store makes finding the right app a tad difficult-not to mention expensive!

felix · 1 year ago

Thanks, neil, Yeah, it's tough. Fortunately, these apps were all pretty cheap. It'd have been a diff't story if they'd all even been $9.99. :)

Gorf · 1 year ago

I imagine GNU screen will help the termination problem. just log back in and resume your old session.

felix · 1 year ago

Gorf, yeah, I may be the last hold out that hasn't really used screen much. But if ssh'ing on the iPhone becomes a habit, I may have to. Maybe then, I'll convert to the church of screen. :)

Steve · 1 year ago

Just learn the magic command "screen -DR". Type that every time you connect. Creates a new session or reattaches to a previous one. Forget all the other options.

Erik · 1 year ago

FYI, most modern versions of vi allow you to use ctrl-c to exit input mode. I find this preferable even on a full keyboard, as ctrl-c requires that my hands move less.

Jeffrey · 1 year ago

New versions of these seem to be in the works - iSSH being one in particular that I'm eyeing. It sounds like public key generation/management will be added. Can you update your review(s) here as such new features hit these term's?

felix · 1 year ago

Jeffrey, I'm obsessed with these, so I'll definitely be following their updates. They can't come soon enough. :)

Jason · 1 year ago

Nice reviews. I'd agree that generally the prices can't be beat. My history with terminal clients is kinda funny; my roommate had a sidekick 2, and bought "Terminal Monkey" for $5. When I finally got mine, they had renamed it to simply "Terminal", raised the price to $10, and best of all, I don't think there were any new features. :P
While slow on 2G (GPRS, I think?), I managed and could do some cool things from many places.

When I got my Treo, pssh was my best friend, 'nuff said.

And now, I'm replying to your post on my iPhone, wishing I had bought iSSH instead of pTerm. Oh well, I'm hoping that they all mature pretty nicely over the next few months. I'll be watching for more followup posts from you :).

Thanks again.

felix · 1 year ago

Jason, I loved pssh on the Treo! My guess is that within one or two more revs of pTerm and you'll be a happy camper again. :)

Clark · 1 year ago

I bought TouchTerm when it came out but it's nearly useless since I can't run vi with it.

Realistically none of these programs are really there yet. A good ssh program needs at a minimum the following:

1. selection of width and height and gesture scrolling to see what is offscreen
2. easy typing of common codes like ESC.
3. a good selection of connections that you can edit
4. selection of font size (and preferably some font choices although that's less key) Sometimes you need a bigger font to see.

Not as essential but desirable given how hard it is to type on the iPhone

1. macros for common commands or control characters
2. cut and paste

Right now none of these programs really would make modifying configuration files on my server from the road easy.

felix · 1 year ago

Clark, I think that most of the apps will soon have all four of your minimums - probably next revision or the following. But I really, *really* love your macro idea - if there were "programmable" buttons that you could create in that top bar that most of them have - or even a sort of "macro" button there so you'd hit that button in the top bar and then any key on the keyboard to enter one of your programmed macros. Man, that would be amazing.

Ken · 1 year ago

The iSSH site says that exact macro idea will be in a future release.

Randolph Kirkpatrick · 1 year ago

Sounds like a really cool feature would be to have a Web-Kit view as part of the app. Like a mini-safari that you could jump to without quitting the app. That and proper support for vi, and I'd be sold.

felix · 1 year ago

I love this idea, Randolph! Having a built in webkit browser would be a great way to skirt the no multitasking rule. However, it might end up getting complicated because you'd also want bookmarks and maybe more? Who knows, but I'd definitely love to see this in place for all the ssh clients.

useEvil · 1 year ago

Thanks for the write up, it'll definitely help me when I get my iPhone. Not related to the reviews, but the one thing that always bothered me was the need for multiple connections. All you ever need is one Terminal window ssh'd into a server running 'screen'. Inside of 'screen' you can connect to any number of servers and stay connected even when not in use. 'screen' is a must have for anyone that uses the Terminal.

ptone · 1 year ago

Thanks for the post. At first I was bummed because I had just bought touchterm before seeing your review and it sounded like it was the loser. But after finishing the review many of your cons I consider pros and am very happy with it and am really looking forward to the changes coming in it.

Macka · 1 year ago

You think the iSSH font is usable? You must have very young 20/20 eye sight. I don't normally use glasses for screen reading, and only have reading glasses for small text in very low light conditions; and I hardly ever need to use them. But iSSH's font is almost unusable for me, even with my glasses on. Unless the developer provides a zoom in option or a way to increase the font size slightly, I'll be going else where.

felix · 1 year ago

Well, heh, my eyesight is actually the worst of anyone I know, Macka. :) But, the small font's definitely *small*. I wouldn't want to spend an hour looking at it, but for getting in for a quickie, I like the convenience of seeing more without having to scroll. Nevertheless, pTerm has a great larger font and TouchTerm provides a nice variety of font sizes to check out, which may make them more useful for you.

Stanley · 1 year ago

Thanks the review
Do both SSH clients support SSH2 ??
Because my server is running SSH protocol.

felix · 1 year ago

Stanley, I believe they all support SSH2, so grab them without fear!

Dave · 1 year ago

Thanks for the review... it's too bad that you don't talk about tunneling capability in any of them though - I still have to do some leg work to see if I can get to my work email.

Thanks
Dave

Ken · 1 year ago

Dave, how could you use tunneling on the iPhone if it doesn't allow background apps?

Patrick · 1 year ago

Great write up. I'd only played with pTerm, but I guess I have to give iSSH a review.

Drew D. · 1 year ago

Regarding iSSH, I too love this one more than any of the others. I'm still waiting for the new update though, as you cannot connect to SSH on any other port than 22. For those that run on a different port other than the default, you are pretty much screwed. This feature should be in play in version 1.1.

Regards,
Drew

Glenn Batuyong · 1 year ago

Thanks for the review. I ended up getting pTerm because it allows for alternate SSH ports. I'm not too crazy about the way it renders text as it doesn't scale fonts the same way Safari on the iPhone does. I hope these apps evolve as a whole and keep their prices low. I feel too cheated if I was disappointed in my initial choice and decided to try others because they're relatively inexpensive.

macnixer · 1 year ago

touchterm updated today and frankly i really like the way they handle the ssh-keygen part. I connect to my server without putting in my password now. Whoa. Also they have a great profile section which allows me to create various connection profile and save them. I am beginning to feel that the developers are doing a good job, just that the earlier version was taking baby steps.

I would love to see gestures as in mobileterminal (code.google.com/mobileterminal). Unfortunately you can use mobileterminal only on unlocked / jailbroken phones. I would not like to do that with my new 3G. i wish they did develop for the App Store.

steve · 1 year ago

I so agree about the TouchTerm 2.0 update -- it puts them in the lead in my book. (I can't believe they're still selling this for $2.99!) Key-based authentication is important for me, and they do it well -- with a well-organized UI to boot. For those that care about security, it's good that they have OpenSSH/SSL at the core too. From their web site, these guys seem to "get it". I'm looking forward to seeing what TTPro has in store!

felix · 1 year ago

steve and maxnixer, I just grabbed the 2.0 update, Jim Brink was kind enough to send me the 411 on this! I've updated the review and TouchTerm now stacks up at the top of the list. I think my biggest issue with it is the font - I'd love a crisply useable smallest font size.

Mark · 1 year ago

Nice comparison review, thanks. But you don't mention what is widely known, which is that only iSSH and SSH are available in countries other than the US at the moment. Also none yet provide public-key authentication, which put all of them out of the game for me at present anyway.

canadacow · 1 year ago

TouchTerm 2.0 only got out ahead of me due to luck of the draw. My latest version has been sittiing "In Review" for a week now. Time to call Apple, I guess?

imperator · 1 year ago

for the German iPhone user only iSSH or SSH are the only options. TouchTerm and pTerm are not available in that Store!

N. Miller · 1 year ago

You can manually set your terminal lines (vertical) and columns (horizontal) on the command line; the fact that the ssh client is not setting this properly suggests that the authors don't know much about specifying TERM types and/or the terminfo db. Most (not all) modern terminal emulation software (e.g. ssh, xterm, terminal.app, rxvt, etc.) dtrt with the OS/shell, which automagically sets it, so generally folks are not even aware that it's necessary until they come upon some software that doesn't dtrt.

Try: stty -a | echo $LINES $COLUMNS in the ssh clients you have to scroll L/R and/or U/D to see everything. You can set LINES and COLUMNS manually (use an alias to save typing). For certain classes of connections it is possible to do this programmatically in your dot files, but you'll have to explore the TERM, ssh environment variables, and other env variables to be able to do this reliably for all your incoming connections.

For the person mentioning web it: multiple sessions of screen on the back-end with one app per session--links or lynx in one screen session, irc client in another, curses based IM in another, etc. Now you have all the speed of your regular connection, and are only sending the immediate updates to the iPhone. If you are a graphics addict, not quite as pretty, but if your real need is ubiquitous computing in the smallest possible package, this would do the trick for a *NIX geek. This is also a low-rent (assuming you have some place to ssh into) work around for the "no multi-tasking" on the iPhone.

trutee · 11 months ago

one quick question, any of these app can ssh the iphone? Say transfer files to the iPhone just like OpenSSH without having to jailbreak our beloved iPhone 3G?

marcello · 11 months ago

Ehi! Thanks for the review, definitely thorough and well written! :)
M

Bill Paitch · 6 months ago

can any of these multi-task ? can I open sessions to multiple servers w/ any of these programs ?