iPhone, while great as is, lacks some very useful features. For server administrator / developers such as myself, the ability to access SSH to monitor my server while I'm on the go is a must. However, up until very recently, this was not possible. Well, that is no more. pTerm -- the "p", persumably for "pocket", or "phone", or reference to its source base "putty" -- is a SSH / Telnet client for iPhone / iPhone 3G / iPod Touch, available at AppStore for a slightly hefty price of $4.99. It is also my very first AppStore purchase!
I purchased it late last night (at around 2am), and haven't had time to really play with it until just now, and I must say, while there are still some features that needs to be added, this is one nice app.
The app starts out by asking you to create a connection; because, you know, what good is an SSH client if you cannot connect to anything? So I created an entry for my development server, and it quickly came up with a prompt telling me about the security key, I accepted it, and I'd imagine if anything were to ever happen to my server so the security key differs, it'd also inform me. Once connected, we see the all too familiar keyboard, and the standard ssh black screen, which prompts me to login. Once the login information was provided, I feel right at home, with my personalized colorized bash, and everything. After some brief usage, I figured out that the "screen" can be scrolled around by swiping the finger across the screen, and you can also zoom in and out of it using the pinch... just like viewing photos on the iPhone. At first, I didn't like this, becaause I can't see all the text I want in a neatly organized fashion; but as soon as I started to less /var/log/messages , it became evident that this is definetly a good choice.
Good-ness aside, here's a few things I think would be very helpful for this app (in no particular order):
- Ability to save username for server -- I don't want to type my username each time
- Ability for tab key input -- I want my auto complete!
- Ability to input arrow keys -- I want to be able to scroll around in less, or repeat previous command
- Tool to pre-define a few commands I use regularly, so I can just tap a button or two to access them quickly
Unlike other freebie apps, this one I have yet to encounter random crashes that sends me back to home screen. So I guess that's another plus worth mentioning. Hopefully more great apps such as this one will surface, so we can all have a wonderful iPhone experience without having to jailbreak!
Three weeks into my iPhone 3G, and I must say, it is still acting like an overly glorified iPod Touch...