How can the brains of my computer be shared seamlessly across devices?
June 21, 2015 1:27 PM Subscribe
Ms. Stewie and I have a Mac Pro, Macbook Air and iPad and two user accounts. Is it possible for me to be working on the MP, log into the MBA and have my hard drive, apps, possibly even browser tabs be seamlessly synched between the two devices?
Ms. Stewie and I share three devices depending on our work needs. I'd love it if there was a way to seamlessly log out of the MBA and log into the MP and have the same desktop, apps, documents, iTunes, iPhoto that I was able to access natively on the MBA. It would be great if the iPad would also be part of this scheme, but unnecessary. Only looking at apple solutions right now since our entire menagerie is currently Apple.
I'm fine with having to do something to sync the devices prior to switching. iCloud gives me my documents, but doesn't create the seamless overlap. If it isn't possible, I'll continue to subsist using Chrome Remote Desktop and other workarounds, but I thought the clever people of Metafilter might know of something to bring this dream into reality. Does anything like this exist?
Ms. Stewie and I share three devices depending on our work needs. I'd love it if there was a way to seamlessly log out of the MBA and log into the MP and have the same desktop, apps, documents, iTunes, iPhoto that I was able to access natively on the MBA. It would be great if the iPad would also be part of this scheme, but unnecessary. Only looking at apple solutions right now since our entire menagerie is currently Apple.
I'm fine with having to do something to sync the devices prior to switching. iCloud gives me my documents, but doesn't create the seamless overlap. If it isn't possible, I'll continue to subsist using Chrome Remote Desktop and other workarounds, but I thought the clever people of Metafilter might know of something to bring this dream into reality. Does anything like this exist?
Tabs are also easy if you are using Safari. Just click the little symbol on the upper right--I don't know what it's called, but it looks like two sheets of paper, one mostly on top of the other. When you click it you should see a list of all the tabs you left open on any other Apple device you are logged into.
As for the rest, I think the newish Handoff feature will do some, but not all of that. That's the term you want to read more about.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:51 AM on June 22, 2015
As for the rest, I think the newish Handoff feature will do some, but not all of that. That's the term you want to read more about.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:51 AM on June 22, 2015
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General files, photos, etc can be done using Dropbox or Box.net, or any of the other file syncing services.
Not sure about apps, unfortunately, unless you can somehow get all the critical directories in OSX synced via the above mentioned tools as well or some other mechanism. The question was also asked on stack exchange here and here; there was a software solution suggested there but I know nothing about it outside of those mentions.
posted by cgg at 2:29 PM on June 21, 2015 [1 favorite]