Review: Splashtop 2 a free, innovative remote desktop Mac/iOS app with issues
The iPad and iPhone are powerful devices, but they can’t do it all yet. We still rely on traditional computers for a number of tasks, especially gaming and Flash videos. Splashtop 2 (iPad App Store link, iPhone App Store link, Mac App Store link) is a remote desktop app that promises to fill that gap, bringing the full capabilities of Macs and PCs to mobile devices. While there are numerous ways to access your computer from anywhere, such as VNC, LogMeIn Ignition, and GoToMyPC, Splashtop 2 is unique in that it emphasizes multimedia, and is capable of streaming audio as well as video. Even more interesting, it’s currently free for home use, with in-app purchases for additional functionality.
To begin, download the Splashtop Streamer for the computer(s) you would like to access. It’s available for the Mac, Windows, and Linux. Once installed, you need to create a login for the Splashtop service. While the original Splashtop required a Google account for remote access, Splashtop 2 now has its own login system.
This is where I discovered my first major problem with Splashtop Streamer: it won’t let you paste a password—a pain if you use a password management app, like the great 1Password. (At least you don’t have to reenter the password once Streamer is set up, but that itself is a potential security issue.) Splashtop support told me that this was disabled “in Splashtop 2 for security reasons.” Well, I’d like to be able to copy and paste my secure password, for security reasons. Fortunately, you can also create an optional 8- to 20-character security code that is required every time you remotely access your computer. You can’t paste that code in either, but at least it’s another layer of protection.
CPU Spike: The Splashtop Streamer tends to keep your CPU busy.
Once set up, Streamer stays in your menu bar and out of your way. However, you’re not going to want to run it all the time, as it has a habit of choking the CPU. On my MacBook Pro, with no clients connected to Streamer, I noticed my computer slowing down, and Activity Monitor reported that 98 percent of my CPU activity was dedicated to Stream. I restarted Streamer, but it did the same thing a couple of days later, using 91 percent of my CPU. Splashtop has told me that Streamer is being reworked and a new, improved version will enter private testing soon.
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