Juno Connect: Jupyter Client Ratings and Reviews

Fantastic app, very easy setup

I’m a data science grad student and this app has been super useful and fun to use when I am bored of using my laptop. The developer’s setup instructions are very straightforward and I was able to set up and connect to a remote VM with a Jupyter instance running using a Digital Ocean droplet in a matter of minutes. I also was able to setup a connection to my own laptop, but dislike having to launch/shutdown the server and prefer the constant access of the remote server. It’s great to have those options. The app has been very reliable for me so far. Thanks and keep up the great work!!

Works reliably

*Original review:*
Hard to find any good documentation. What is within the app as well as on the faqs and docs pages online is not helpful. I found my way through by creating new connections until I felt like I understood how things work. But deleting and editing current connections appears to be impossible, so I had to reinstall the app to clean up the interface.

But once you get it working it will be quite reliable.

*Edit:*
After about two weeks, I was contacted by a developer. There is a way to delete and edit existing servers: either swipe the servers list or view connection details. Finding documentation of this is still difficult.

Because I was directly contacted and notified that my issue was a matter of ignorance, I changed the review from 3 stars to 4 stars. I would move the to 5 stars if I could easily find the Juno documentation describing precisely how to edit or delete servers. The documentation is the worst part of this app. I wish that it was just one big, comprehensive pdf so that ctrl-f could solve my problems instantly.

I have had no other issues with this app. Once set up, the app is a pleasure to use. Browser-based notebooks are a thing of the past on this iPad.

Developer Response ,

Hey 👋, you should be able to delete connections by swiping it in the servers list, which will reveal a 'Delete' button; alternatively, you can delete existing server configurations while viewing/editing connection details. Please reach out to help@juno.sh if you can't get your connection to work — we will also see how we can improve our docs further, thanks for reporting. 🙃

Jupyter on the iPad, Finally!

I’ve been wanting something like this app for years, now, as I’ve built up a large collection of Jupyter (formerly Ipython) notebooks. I can’t praise the fine folks who have built this app enough. I have a few notebooks on Microsoft Azure Notebook and they execute flawlessly when interacting with them through the Juno app. Editing is easy and intuitive. Try out the demo notebooks and pay for the full version. It’s an absolute joy to use.

Very good for what it is, would love more Lab integration

As a simple Jupyter notebook client, this works extremely well, and re-connects well to my notebook server after having a period of no activity, which has been an unexpected constant hurdle to doing real work on my new iPad Pro.

I hope that the developer continues to do work on this and push towards more full Jupyter Lab integration, because I’m now starting to lean towards running Lab in a browser to get some of the more advanced features (including its very good Python text editor and git integration). I would love to see Juno work well as a more robust and native front end to that, even though I understand that Lab is still pretty new and complex.

Near perfect except missing port forwarding

I suspect most people’s setup is to use ssh tunneling. Currently, I use the workaround of using Blink Shell’s port forwarding feature. However, that solution is not perfect because iOS does not allow a background app to maintain a connection for more than 10 minutes. So, currently, I have to either (1) switch back to Blink Shell every 10 minutes or (2) run Blink Shell side-by-side with Juno, which takes up much precise screen space on the iPad.

Had Juno supported port forwarding, then as a foreground app it wouldn’t have the 10-minutes connectivity issue.

Would love to bump up to 5 stars when that feature is finally implemented!

Developer Response ,

Hey! 👋 I am indeed planning to add SSH tunnelling in Juno, although I'm afraid I'm not sure when this will be released exactly — possibly in Juno 1.4, being the next significant update after soon-to-be-released Juno 1.3. Hope this gives you some reassurance, and sorry for inconvenience meanwhile. 😔

Almost perfect but needs text editor

I use this app almost daily and find it extremely useful for accessing notebooks on remote server. However, not being able to view and edit text based files (txt, CSV, py) is a serious limitation since this is fairly common practice in jupyter notebook and lab running in a browser.

UPDATE: Thanks for the response. I still believe this should be high on the list of updates. It would indeed be a game changer for an already solid app.

Developer Response ,

Hello 👋 — yep, I do plan to add editing of text-based files, either via file provider or with Jupyter's web-based text editor. I don't have any ETA I'm afraid, but this is certainly on the roadmap — apologies for inconvenience meanwhile. 😔

good concept but unusable for now

App is a great concept, well designed, and seemed to work well at first.

The connection to my home server was straightforward. I’ve got a ddns + port forwarding to a jupyter notebook server which I use for data science-y stuff.

After tinkering around for a few minutes. I noticed that cell execution would hang forever. At first I thought it was just a heavy load on the server side, but then even operations like listing the shape of an array wasn’t returning results until I interrupted the operation. There’s something buggy about how the connection works on Juno as I experience no such issues when I switch over to Safari on the same device.

I was hoping that this app could be a great solution, it showed promise, but I’ll wait until these bugs are worked out before I use again. Annoying that there is no free trial…

Developer Response ,

Hey 👋 — this sounds like a bug, I will look into it. Could you please reach out to help@juno.sh, so that I can ask for further details? Either way, thanks for reporting and apologies for inconvenience meanwhile. 😔

Useful for Students

The ability to access Jupyter notebooks on azure has assisted in my write ups for physics classes, facilitated my production of scripts for automating aspects of my research, and allowed me to create small computational programs for students that I TA all from my iPad. No bugs I’ve noticed. Very fast loading. Excellent editing options. Thanks for that tab key haha! Look forward to continuing to use this app. (I’m actually doing a Prelab rn on Juno lelll)

A 5+ App ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Everything is perfect except that you can not copy part of the code/text in a cell. You can copy the whole cell but not part of it. Hope developers consider adding more advanced editing tools.

Update: Thanks for taking back text selection. 5++ app. If you support google colab too, I will do all my coding using juno. As far as I know you don't have access to Google Colab api.

Disappointing

Incredibly, this app doesn't allow one to edit python files. Moreover the overall experience of this app--at $9.99--is not as good as simply running a Jupyter lab for free using Safari. And, under Safari, you can edit python files, even with vim bindings. Carnets is a free, open source app that has the same capabilities as the Juno's more expensive app. I'm not sure what value Juno offers over these free alternatives. Needless to say, I wish I hadn't given them my money.

Developer Response ,

Hey 👋, Juno Connect offers a lot on top of what Safari can do: its notebook editor is optimised for mobile, it has full hardware keyboard support (and extended on-screen keyboard, if you don’t have a hardware keyboard connected), it supports dark mode, as well as other Jupyter features, such as code completion. Furthermore, it offers more connectivity options, e.g. you can configure an SSH tunnel with your server, instead of exposing it publicly. As you rightfully noted, Juno Connect doesn’t currently support editing of text-based files (including .py sources), but it’s on the roadmap.

Carnets runs Jupyter locally on a device, so covers a slightly different use case — as you pointed out, it’s more similar to another app I’ve made, Juno. Juno’s notebook editor has same features you would find in Juno Connect, but it runs notebooks on device instead.

Unfortunately, my apps are not open-source, although I do donate a considerable share of Juno’s sales proceeds to Project Jupyter. My apps are not free either, but I’m doing my best to make them worth the investment by providing a mobile-first experience for all Jupyter related tasks, be it editing notebooks, or installing additional packages.

I’m sorry Juno Connect didn’t work out for you — feel free to request a refund. But I truly hope that you give Juno apps a go again some time! 😉