It was raining when I picked up Sandeep’s call. “Hahaha,” he said with the joy of accomplishment. “Finally, I got it working”.

It has been a while since Sandeep started working on compiling the Chromoting for Android app from source. He is my go-to  Linux guy and blogs here at Technix.

So, what did we finally get working?

Chromoting for Android

Meet the Chromoting for an app for Android. Here is the official CL which explains what the Chromoting app for Android is for:

Add the beginnings of a Chromoting Android app

Currently, this has only the following capabilities:
+ Authenticate using a Google account on the phone
+ Query and display the host list from the Chromoting directory server
+ Connect to and communicate with the host service over XMPP/ICE
+ Establish peer-to-peer channels for communicating with the host service
Notable missing features are:
– Display the host’s desktop
– Handle any kind of input

It was sometime back in September. How far has the Android app come since then? Let us install the app and find out!

Installing Chromoting for Android App

Well, the regular installation steps, except for now, I had to check the “Unknown Sources” option that we all know of. Once that is done, the installation went smoothly.

Connecting to a Remote Desktop from Android

There aren’t many options available for the app yet. There are two icons. One for refreshing the list of available remote hosts. The second is a dropdown list-icon which is not working on the app that we compiled.

Below the toolbar and icons is the list of available remote hosts. You pick one from the list and the app asks for the pin number for the host. Once you enter the PIN number, you are in.

Here is me connecting to my Windows 8.1 PC from my Galaxy Note.

The App is still a work-in-progress. Things are not very smooth, and there are no settings or other features available yet. There was noticeable lag zooming in and out in the app. However, actions were happening near-instantly between the PC and my Android phone.

But stay tuned for more updates. (Yeah. We have the built environment ready, so compiling the app to see new features won’t be hard)

PS: I am not allowed to share the APK.