Apple is now shipping Remote Desktop 3. It’s a lot more than a Universal (Intel/PowerPC) edition of Remote Desktop. Apple took advantage of the new release to make the tool more self-contained and closer in feel and functionality to Tiger itself. I just wrapped a briefing with Apple and have some details beyond the basics you’ll find at Apple’s Remote Desktop site. I’ll refer you to that site for the laundry list of features so I can focus on the details here.The take-away from that briefing is that Apple rewrote ARD according to my comments and requirements. I wish. Let’s just say that where ARD 3 is concerned, Apple and I are of one mind. ARD 3 diverges from ARD 2’s strict peer-to-peer model with the addition of the Task Server, an always-on machine (any box running 10.3.9 or later) that an ARD console admin can use to batch the gathering of reports, which are ARD’s incredibly detailed system inventories, and remote application installs. In both cases, the Task Server will shoot ’till it wins; it’ll keep trying to compile the report or install the app for each targeted client if an attempt fails. An ARD 3 console admin can also set the Task Server to pull reporting data at regular intervals. Report data is stored in a PostgreSQL database, so you can use custom apps to parse through the 200 or so detail items collected on each machine.The Task Server’s role is limited to reports and installs at present, but Apple’s going to extend Task Server to handle other scheduled and non-interactive tasks. One feature that Apple mentioned but didn’t elaborate on is that ARD client agents “call home” to the Task Server after being off-line or changing IP addresses. I don’t know whether the Task Server telegraphs changes in client IPs back to running ARD console(s).It is possible to run multiple Task Servers, even on the same subnet, but each ARD console can only be bound to one at a time. Remote Spotlight is a hugely useful feature. It launches Spotlight searches on multiple remote clients simultaneously and returns the results fast, grouped by client, to the ARD console. In other words, it’s a LAN-wide Spotlight search with the same criteria you use with Tiger Spotlight, and uses each machine’s local index and application-specific importers. Like Tiger Spotlight, you can narrow the results with qualifiers after the results are displayed.There is no equivalent to Tiger’s Smart Folders; searches aren’t saved. Remote Spotlight also isn’t part of ARD 3’s scripting dictionary, so results can’t be channeled through Automator or used in scripts. I also don’t know how or if it handles data gathered by app-specific importers, like Office and Mail, or how it organizes results according to users. Of course, knowing the folder should be enough.Application usage and user history reports give every admin what they really want: The ability to track users’ activities while the console’s off-line. The tracking data is distilled so that, for example, you can see how many times a given user has run Word. You can also see how many times a user has run Medal of Honor or some other unauthorized or unlicensed software. User history keeps a log of system accesses, the comings and goings for a particular Mac, as it were. It’s not physical access protection, but at least it’ll let you know if you’ve got a problem and with whom. The Control and observe facility has gotten some serious updates. The remoting protocol is still based on VNC, and Apple tells me that issues of stability and consistency across client types (e.g. handling of display resolution, color depth and mulitple monitors) that have dogged ARD since 1.0 are fixed. Control has gained a “curtain mode” that blanks the client’s display when the machine is being driven from the admin console.ARD 3 does not maintain curtain mode or the hands-off (user input ignored) mode across reboots–the user can defeat either by rebooting or cycling power. So there isn’t yet the ability to take ownership of someone’s console. However, ARD does make it possible to change a target’s IP address, boot volume or network boot image, so a box can be hijacked by an admin, and it’s always possible to revoke a user’s credentials.ARD 3 implements remote access to machines’ system and network settings using an approach brought over from OS X Server. I don’t know how many of the OS X Server command-line administration interface has been pulled into the client for ARD 3, but Apple’s Remote Desktop site includes a link to the PDF Command-Line Administration Reference for OS X Server. During the briefing, I was told that anything you can do with the ARD 3 GUI can also be done from the UNIX command line. That was in the context of our discussion of system and network settings, so whether it extends to other ARD 3 facilities is a question that’ll have to keep until I get the software. PowerCopy ships files and updates from the admin console to multiple targets simultaneously instead of sequentially. Apple claims this is 11X faster than copying in ARD 2. The X factor is irrelevant. Having everybody get the same updates at roughly the same time is wonderful. Drag and drop copy sounds like a godsend for interactive administration. During a control session, you can drag and drop files and folders from the admin console system to the target, and vice-versa. If you drop a file on a remote target’s desktop, it’ll land there. If the target has a Finder window open, you can place the target wherever you like, including the sidebar. As described to me, it works exactly like copying and moving by drag and drop between locations on a local machine. I’m looking forward to quick and dirty management by mouse of files on several Macs. Can you drag and drop between one control window and another?During the briefing, I asked the Product Manager about control/observe session persistence, something that Terminal Server is exceptionally good at. I didn’t get a clear picture of ARD 3’s use of Task Server to track targets as they change locations or power states. He did do a live test to show that a sleep/wake cycle on the ARD 3 console wouldn’t affect connections to targets. Targets that are locked come back up locked, but the lock will expire and free the client after a timeout (which the Apple briefing crew didn’t know offhand, as if I expected them to). That’s as much as I need to cover until the review product comes in. Software Development