One Mac Studio Two Separate Usage

[phyesix]

Hello everyone,

I will be moving to a new house soon. My wife and I are working on software development. One of the things I was wondering is, can we buy 1 mac studio and use it separately? Don't make the suggestion that you can buy a new mac studio because it's really hard to buy in Turkey 😥

So 2 different screens, 2 different keyboards/mice can be connected? Can I virtualize the OSX? What path do you think I should follow?

 

[Chancha]

VNC should be able to achieve that, but you need to use some 3rd party VNC client app since Apple's own Remote Desktop client will instead take over the whole computer once connected.

On my iMac 2017, I have multiple user accounts (in your case, you and your wife need two different accounts)
Then Remote Management is enabled via Sharing in System Preferences.
On a second device that acts as an VNC client, in my case I use an iPad Pro 12.9", I use an app called JumpDesktop, preset a connection with the iMac's (static) IP and the user credentials.
I can then remotely login and access the iMac using one account, while on the actual iMac side if logged in with the other account it is unaffected over there. Of course you will share the same pool of computing resources like CPU cycles and particularly RAM etc.

The 2nd device does not need to be a powerful computer, as it is just streaming the screen as video and relaying KB/mouse input signals. You can use a cheap Mac or PC for this, or on an iOS device like me I can even do this on the road with 4G + VPN back to my home network. Also it should be obvious that this method will not give the best image quality, and sound is not going to work or if you make it work, it will be delayed. Also remote I/O like USB is very difficult since this not really a virtual machine.

 

[appltech]

If I'm not mistaken, VNC act only on a local network. Otherwise, a TeamViewer will be an easy to go option

 

[Chancha]

VNC works over IP, so it is not limited to LAN, you can extend it outside of your LAN if you set it up correctly.

Also I think the OP's intention is to deploy this in the same household anyway. VNC is better on wired LAN because the higher bandwidth and being more stable means the projected screen can be less compressed with less delay.

I normally use Apple's Remote Desktop (the client app, available in AppStore) for VNC purpose, but the OP specifically need independent user access which is where Apple's native app does not do or allow. Therefore using a generic 3rd party VNC client will probably work as they operate on user basis usually.

 

[Mailia]

If I'm not mistaken, VNC act only on a local network. Otherwise, a TeamViewer will be an easy to go option

You can do VNC over the Internet, but I wouldn’t recommend it for security reasons. If you need VNC over the Internet, you should setup a VPN between the devices and run it through that.

 

[Chancha]

I just found out an even easier solution:

Share the screen of another Mac

On your Mac, use the Screen Sharing app to view and control the screen of another Mac on your network.

support.apple.com

The Screen Sharing feature is already built-in to macOS Finder (it is a thin version of Apple Remote Desktop / VNC client)
upon logging into the target Mac, it will ask if you want to interrupt the current user, choose no and login as someone else then you can achieve what I described 3 posts above.

This way you don't need to buy any apps, but your 2nd machine needs to be a modern Mac with latest macOS I guess.

 

[edubfromktown]

I just found out an even easier solution:

Share the screen of another Mac

On your Mac, use the Screen Sharing app to view and control the screen of another Mac on your network.

support.apple.com

The Screen Sharing feature is already built-in to macOS Finder (it is a thin version of Apple Remote Desktop / VNC client)
upon logging into the target Mac, it will ask if you want to interrupt the current user, choose no and login as someone else then you can achieve what I described 3 posts above.

This way you don't need to buy any apps, but your 2nd machine needs to be a modern Mac with latest macOS I guess.

That's awesome.

Thanks for posting the info!

One note: if you already have Remote Management enabled on your Studio (and a separate login for the 2nd user), you can connect to it via browser url

vnc://192.168.68.70 (for example)

This brings up a prompt stating that Screen Share requires a username and password
Enter the 2nd account name and password and select Log in as yourself " " radio button.