Admittedly Telnet clients are not the sexiest of apps out there, you won't hear the internet screaming for it like say Angry Birds. However if your BlackBerry PlayBook is used for business, there is good chance that you're in need of a decent Telnet SSH client. If you don't know what this product is most likely you will not need it. If you do, then you're always on the lookout for a different one with more options.
The Good:
Telnet SSH is a port of a very popular open sourced client called Putty for Windows. It does work and will let you establish a SSH connection to your server. It does a lot of things like negotiate encryption protocols and exchange authentication methods.
The software will allow you to define multiple sessions which is a great feature. The price point is excellent at only $1.99 and in a pinch is a very acceptable SSH client.
The Bad:
Although you can define multiple sessions, you can only connect to one at a time. It is also not possible to close one session and return to the connections screen, your must completely close the app an re-launch it.
One of the biggest problems is that the terminal does not redraw when you bring up the keyboard, meaning you can't see the lower half of your command line and need to type blindly. They keyboard remapping for the ESC key and CONTROL key are listed on the App World page but not obviously in the app itself.
As well, here is no internal menu for the program by swiping down from top of screen.
Summary:
Telnet clients seem to still be a work in progress but as I mentioned for in a pinch Telnet needs, for $2 you can't really go to wrong.
Reader comments
Quick Review: Telnet SSH
sweet!
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in the time of your life, live so that in that good time, there should be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life that your life touches, seek goodness everywhere
Not sure I really need an SSH client anymore, but definitely cool that this is out there. Now we just need a good text editor for coding on the go.
If only there was a tablet that had BOTH a good on the go coding app, and an SSH client...
i need it. buy usually use it for serial cnx.
the keyboard issue and being forced to type blind is a show stopper...
Seriously. And no mapping. So no ... "C", "D", "Z", and for a screen session "A" by default.
$2 is not much, but this is a very raw port of Putty if it cannot do these things. I felt a BB tablet should have had a physical keyboard anyway, but I can currently do more with my $20 paid-for PaderSync SSH client on my BB Bold.
Umm yeah, for $2 you can go wrong. Very wrong. Typing blindly is wrong. That's a free or gtfo issue. Another example of poor quality from terrible coders. They know PlayBook users are starved for apps so they pump out complete crap and charge for it. Any coder who puts out an app that makes the user type blindly is a complete idiot.
Just something to point out with my own experience with the keyboard. It DOES redraw and resize the screen when you're in a screen session. I presume most people will be doing this as it is the most logical way of running a server.
Bought it. Athough it's functional but it does not support BIS traffic through your phone, so it's nearly useless for me.
We should thank them for trying and hope they will keep updating and improve the app, not bash them for their flaws.
Great app. It's based on PuTTY, so you'll feel at home if you're used to that application. I've used it a number of times when I've been at client sites and nowhere near my own computer in order to remote in to different network devices. I, too, noticed the issue with the keyboard covering over where you type on the first couple of releases, but this has since been rectified. I wonder which version the reviewer was using?
It's a lot better than the other SSH/Telnet apps out there and well worth the small price.
Which version of the program was used for the review? The typing blind issue was fixed a couple of updates back. Now when you bring up the virtual keyboard it does redraw the screen in the remaining space so you can always see what you are typing.
I bought this app the day it was released. I really wanted an SSH client on my Playbook and I use Putty on my laptop and PC. The updates are coming quickly. There have been 4 (I believe) since it's release. The keyboard hiding the screen fix came out a day or so after the first complaints about it in the forums. The next updates included key mappings for special characters as well as arrow keys.
I was so happy that this app even appeared that I downloaded it before anyone had reviewed it. The developer is VERY responsive to what people are asking for. I was so appreciative, that I transcribed the key mappings from the help screen in the app and posted them in the Playbook app forum. If I'm real careful, I can do simple file editing in VI with this app.
I do a lot of Drupal site work and this app allows me to execute server commands to do sophisticated command line maintenance. The Playbook's browser makes in-app site maintenance easy and accessible. Now if someone would write (or port) a decent FTP client, my Playbook could be a complete site admin tool. A context sensitive code editor would be nice too. But with the browser and now with this SSH app, I can do just about anything I need to wherever I have my Playbook and a data connection.
Great, just the thing I need on my newly purchased Playbook and $2 really is nothing if the developers are responding to customer updates with fixes & updates.