TeamViewer is a new iPhone / iPod Touch app that allows a remote connection to, and complete control of, a Mac or PC over the internet (UDP) or with a local WiFi connection. This application is $99 for professional / corporate use, however it is free for everyday individual users, yes free.

For professional situations, this app will see more use as a mobile admin / troubleshooting app for various remote desktops or servers, and its power makes it well worth the near hundred dollar price. But hobbyists and individual non-pro users can have that same power to control, most likely, their own laptop or desktop computer with their iPhone or iPod Touch.

Mac desktop controlled on iPhone with TeamViewer app

Some of the functions / features include:

- Both spontaneous support and remote access to unattended computers are possible

- Convenient control via multi-touch gestures: left click, right click, drag & drop, scroll wheel, zoom, change monitor complete keyboard incl. special keys such as Ctrl, Alt, Windows

- reboot the remote computer

- automatically decrease the screen resolution of the remote computer

- integrated partner list – see which computer or partner is online

- trouble-free use behind firewalls and proxy servers

- highest security standards: 256 Bit AES Session Encoding, 1024 Bit RSA Key Exchange

For this initial review of the TeamViewer app I connected an iPod Touch to a MacBook laptop in the same house, trying both a local (LAN) WiFi connection and a connection over the internet. The setup and use of both the TeamViewer iPhone app and the free downloadable app for your Mac or PC is extremely straightforward and simple.

Quick install Guide:

1. Install and start TeamViewer from the AppStore

2. Install and start TeamViewer 5 on your PC or TeamViewer 4 on your Mac (www.teamviewer.com)

3. Enter your PC’s or Mac’s ID and password directly in the TeamViewer interface on your iPhone / iPod Touch to connect.

(instead of using the default password that is a random number, you can jump into the app’s preferences and create your own unique and familiar password with any combination of numbers or letters)

This app works better than most of the current iPhone apps with similar functionality, and most all those other apps cost more than free. Imagine how nice an iPad version of this app would be!

Grab this app now, before someone gets some sense and starts to charge $9.99 for even a “light” version of it!

Updated (3.10.10 6:17pm): Upon some further analysis, there are still a few kinks to work out with this app…

1. Many settings on the TeamViewer iPhone app will not stick across quitting the app and restarting it.  Under settings I have to change the”Quality” from “Automatic” to my desired setting of “Optimize speed” every time I launch the app

2. When connecting via WiFi from your iPhone or iPod Touch to a Mac computer TeamViewer application is either a huge resource hog or there is a bug in this version (4.1.7835) of the desktop application.

DirectoryService and TeamViewer work together to create a rather extreme CPU load—in the range of 90%-100% as soon as a remote connection is made from an iPhone or iPod Touch. Actually, the CPU will begin to max as soon as you set up the desktop app to accept LAN connections—preferences>advanced>under “network” at the bottom of the dialog box—click “LAN connections only” and with either Activity Monitor or iStat Menus, watch your CPU spike. This load on the CPU will remain until “LAN connections only” is unchecked.

Oddly enough, this heavy CPU load is only found when making a remote connection via WiFi, when connecting over the internet (UDP) there is very little CPU usage at all, yet the performance is about the same as a strong and fast WiFi connection.

I am sure the minor bugs will be worked out with updates to both the iPhone app and the Mac/PC application. All in all, TeamViewer remains an excellent iPhone application.