Royal Apps

Royal TSi currently uses third party apps to connect to remote systems with RDP, VNC or SSH. Implementing these clients ourself is a very high effort task and requires a lot more resources.

Due to the iOS sandboxing our control over these apps is very limited:

1. we cannot check whether any other app is installed
2. we need to start an URL or file with the connection parameters
3. we cannot keep an SSH tunnel open while a 3rd party app runs
4. we have no control over which app will be started

Due to 1. you need to configure in Settings, which app you want to use.

When you connect, we construct a URL with the connection parameters in the format which the target app understands. All special characters in a URL need to be properly encoded. This can be a problem in passwords. We do encode those characters, but the target apps don't all do proper URL decoding. So if you have special characters in your password, then it might not be well received in the 3rd party app.

Unfortunately due to 3. a connection through a secure gateway is also not possible at the moment.

When we start a connection with e.g. a ssh:// url, then iOS uses the app which supports that url scheme and was installed or updated last. If you have multiple apps which support ssh://, neither you nor we can control, which app will be run.

Each third party app has different features and only a subset of these features can be controlled through URL parameters.

Please also note that the 3rd party apps listed below may break or change when vendors update their products.

To see the exact URL which will be constructed open Settings / protocol, select the app you want to use and then "View Configuration". If you want to change the URL, you can tap "Create Custom App Configuration" and adjust it in this copy as you wish. The original will always be available as backup.

All prices are only an approximation. They vary by country and they can also be changed by the developer or Apple at any time.

3rd Party Apps for Remote Desktop Protocol

Only two RDP apps are currently free of charge. Depending on which feature is more important to you, you should choose the appropriate app.

* Royal TSi offers to copy the password to the clipboard for easier logon before the Microsoft Remote Desktop app is invoked.

** Jump Desktop claims to support RD gateways, but we couldn't make it work and got no answer from their support.

3rd Party Apps for VNC

The VNC Viewer and Screens VNC can only be started with the vnc:// url scheme. But this scheme is also used by Remotix and iTeleport.

If multiple installed apps handle the same url scheme, then iOS starts the app which was installed or updated the latest.

We have no control over that. As the format in which they expect the parameters is different in each app, connecting may not work properly if the wrong app is invoked.

3rd Party Apps for SSH

Most SSH apps use ssh:// as url scheme so the same problem described in VNC also applies here: If multiple installed apps handle the same url scheme, then iOS starts the app which was installed or updated the latest.

Anders Borum who wrote Secure ShellFish is the only one who answered our support questions and he also worked together with us to make the URL support better. Therefore Secure ShellFish is the only app which accepts the password in the URL and also decodes it correctly. It also has the most features of all SSH apps.

* The password is not decoded properly. I.e. if the password contains special characters, then it won't work.

** With an additional confirmation.