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Introducing Prompt. Nice SSH for iOS.

panic.com

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Re: Introducing Prompt. Nice SSH for iOS.

#41

Post by statictype »

jrockway wrote: post #8

So, as a UNIX hacker, here's what I don't get about the iOS community. There is way too much excitement over the simplest things ever. Let's break down some of the copy for this app: Prompt is a clean, crisp, and cheerful SSH client What does that mean? What does a clean ssh client do; not commit any protocol violations? What is crisp? When you bite into it, it's like a ripe apple? What does cheerful mean? Is the ssh…

What you're pointing out is a quality of the Mac community, which has a certain amount of overlap with the iOS community. In this particular case, the company - Panic - is a highly regarded indie Mac developer so the copy reads like how it would for Mac apps.

Many Mac users geek out on user interfaces that are sparse and simple and uncluttered - this is the audience to which this SSH client is pandering so it's no surprise that they're marketing it that way.

In reality, most typical iOS users (not the same as Mac users!) want something functional that gets the job done and don't really give a hoot about having the app 'get out of the way' or be 'crisp' (and the AppStore top seller lists would seem to indicate this), which, as you have mentioned seem to have little meaning for a Unix command line crypto/networking/admin tool.

Re: Introducing Prompt. Nice SSH for iOS.

#42

Post by jcsalterego »

xyzzyb wrote: post #38
swombat wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a happy user of Terminal, what's wrong with it? It's fast, it's simple, it supports multiple colour profiles, it can be customised like any other shell... What more do you want out of your terminals?

Indeed. Paired with gnu screen and some bash scripts Terminal is very nice. I've got, for example, ctrl+a+t setup to trigger a script that opens a new screen tab, prompts for [user@]host:, starts up an ssh session to the host, renames the tab to host for easy reference.

I still use Terminal.app on a daily basis but here are some missing features:

- 256 color support (for your pretty emacs or vim)

- advanced bookmarks, with tagging

- send to multiple tabs

Re: Introducing Prompt. Nice SSH for iOS.

#44

Post by [deleted] »

swombat wrote: post #36
ezy wrote: post #30

iSSH is still better. Especially on an iPad, and most definitely if you use a bluetooth keyboard once in a while [1] Furthermore, I don't understand how someone could even make the remark that an ssh client reminds them of linux, and mean it negatively. :-) I certainly don't want an the equivalent IOS SSH client to the one Apple makes for OSX -- Terminal is rather shitty. [1] BT keyboards on ipads don't support CTRL…

As a happy user of Terminal, what's wrong with it? It's fast, it's simple, it supports multiple colour profiles, it can be customised like any other shell... What more do you want out of your terminals?

[deleted]

Re: Introducing Prompt. Nice SSH for iOS.

#46

Post by pluies »

ugh wrote: post #35
jrockway wrote: post #8

So, as a UNIX hacker, here's what I don't get about the iOS community. There is way too much excitement over the simplest things ever. Let's break down some of the copy for this app: Prompt is a clean, crisp, and cheerful SSH client What does that mean? What does a clean ssh client do; not commit any protocol violations? What is crisp? When you bite into it, it's like a ripe apple? What does cheerful mean? Is the ssh…

Making a good SSH client for touchscreen devices is hard. Touchscreen devices have limited screen real estate and non-standard (read: limited) keyboards. As to the language: Clean and crisp say both pretty much the same thing in that sentence, crisp is only along for the alliteration (as is cheerful). My Latin teacher would be delighted. It's marketing, but it also makes sense. Not all apps are created equal, even if…

> As to the language: Clean and crisp say both pretty much the same thing in that sentence, crisp is only along for the alliteration (as is cheerful). My Latin teacher would be delighted.

Technically, an alliteration is based on the sound. So while "clean", "crisp" and "client" are an alliteration (beginning with the [k] sound), cheerful (beginning with [tʃ]) isn't part of it.

Re: Introducing Prompt. Nice SSH for iOS.

#48

Post by jws »

jrockway wrote: post #8

So, as a UNIX hacker, here's what I don't get about the iOS community. There is way too much excitement over the simplest things ever. Let's break down some of the copy for this app: Prompt is a clean, crisp, and cheerful SSH client What does that mean? What does a clean ssh client do; not commit any protocol violations? What is crisp? When you bite into it, it's like a ripe apple? What does cheerful mean? Is the ssh…

It isn't the ssh protocol(mostly), it is the user interface.

Mapping a physical keyboard and display onto a touchscreen/display involves tradeoffs.

• The keyboard I am using right now is >50% larger than my entire iPad display. It won't fit even if I sacrifice the entire display to keyboard.

• Will you overlay the keyboard on the character matrix? How do you know where to put it that you won't cover the part I'm trying to see? I generally want to see the bottom, that is pretty much worst case.

• I need a control and escape key for command line editing, and I need a dozen symbols plus the digits to type normal unix commands. The keyboard is getting either pretty big, or multiplexed.

When you use ssh on a unix machine, you are taking advantage of infrastructure that isn't there on the iPad, like the ability to scp your keys and favorite configuration file into a .ssh directory.

• How bizarre is the sequence to get my encrypted private keys into my iPad?

• How complicated are you going to make the preferences? Just the default ssh client config on Debian is showing 34 options and I've got ones that aren't in the list in my personal config file.

What makes this unique to iOS?

  # aptitude search '?provides(x-terminal-emulator)' | wc -l
  32
… really? I need to sort through 32 terminal emulators to use ssh on my Debian machine? Is that before or after I choose between the 44 window managers? And they all think they are pretty special. At least I only have 5 display managers to choose from.

Nobody apologizes in their marketing copy for speciating.

Re: Introducing Prompt. Nice SSH for iOS.

#49

Post by rimantas »

bxr wrote: post #40
jrockway wrote: post #8

So, as a UNIX hacker, here's what I don't get about the iOS community. There is way too much excitement over the simplest things ever. Let's break down some of the copy for this app: Prompt is a clean, crisp, and cheerful SSH client What does that mean? What does a clean ssh client do; not commit any protocol violations? What is crisp? When you bite into it, it's like a ripe apple? What does cheerful mean? Is the ssh…

>Anyway, a lot of happy-sounding words for [...] I agree. I use ssh somewhere around 10 hours per weekday, have used a bunch of different clients, and really have no idea what sets this application apart from any other ssh client other than a bunch of vague adjectives. If they can't manage to set the product apart, at all, why am I going to give it a look? I know some of the other comments here excuse that by saying…

  assume you're talking to a slightly technical audience
Some, even in technical audience have a taste for good UI.

Re: Introducing Prompt. Nice SSH for iOS.

#50

Post by albemuth »

swombat wrote: post #36
ezy wrote: post #30

iSSH is still better. Especially on an iPad, and most definitely if you use a bluetooth keyboard once in a while [1] Furthermore, I don't understand how someone could even make the remark that an ssh client reminds them of linux, and mean it negatively. :-) I certainly don't want an the equivalent IOS SSH client to the one Apple makes for OSX -- Terminal is rather shitty. [1] BT keyboards on ipads don't support CTRL…

As a happy user of Terminal, what's wrong with it? It's fast, it's simple, it supports multiple colour profiles, it can be customised like any other shell... What more do you want out of your terminals?

I miss being able to copy paste by just selecting and pasting it with middle click, which iTerm does allow. Also OOTB it doesn't support fn + arrows for home, end so you have to use ctrl + a for home which is also used for screen. Tiny annoyances, I just happen to prefer iTerm.
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