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Sackvillenb

macrumors 6502a
Mar 1, 2011
573
2
Canada! \m/
This is a fascinating concept, I'd love to test drive this out. To those who think it's useless or "old fashioned", wake up and smell the coffee of the real world. Some of us have to use Microsoft Office, for example. And while I can use Office on my macbook pro, having the added flexibility of of using on an iPad is only a positive thing. I imagine the lag might be annoying, but I guess that's the price we must pay until internet speeds improve. But it sounds like the lag is manageable... to be frank I get lag when I screen share my iMac to my macbook pro on my home network. Oh well.

I'm curious as to how they deal with the desktop interface when using an iPad screen for input. Like a touchpad I suppose? I'll just have to download the free version and try it...
 

faroZ06

macrumors 68040
Apr 3, 2009
3,387
1
Can it do the same for your comment?



Windows can make a nice toy OS for an iPad. Normally, I would not use it for anything real. That said, the local news station uses Flash for it's website and it is nice to be able to track a tornado or big hail when I am away from home. iPad based weather apps are good to see if it is raining, I would not use one to track the location of an EF-5 crashing down on where I am at.

There are news apps for all major news sites like CNN, ABC, and KCAL. I've never needed to use Flash for anything even on my PC besides stuff that has an app for it anyway.
 

Renzatic

Suspended
The biggest technical challenge I see with this is bandwidth. You need several mbps of bandwidth to use this type of thing, and it's not usable over 3G both due to lag, and the fact that you'd eat through your bandwidth cap in a matter of hours.

The internet connection requirements aren't all that bad. For the game service, you need a 2Mbps minimum, 5Mbps recommended. That's rural DSL speeds these days. You could probably even get that off free wifi at a restaurant or internet cafe.

And if those are the requirements for the game service, I can imagine it'll be an even smoother experience on the desktop. After all, you're more likely to notice a quarter second delay in a game that requires split second timing in comparison to moving windows around on a desktop.

There are news apps for all major news sites like CNN, ABC, and KCAL. I've never needed to use Flash for anything even on my PC besides stuff that has an app for it anyway.

Yup. The Weather Channel has an app that provides live radar updates and everything. You don't need to go all out and get a remote desktop app just to check out the weather. Not when you have about three dozen apps that do the same thing, and do it native inside iOS.
 

faroZ06

macrumors 68040
Apr 3, 2009
3,387
1
The internet connection requirements aren't all that bad. For the game service, you need a 2Mbps minimum, 5Mbps recommended. That's rural DSL speeds these days. You could probably even get that off free wifi at a restaurant or internet cafe.

And if those are the requirements for the game service, I can imagine it'll be an even smoother experience on the desktop. After all, you're more likely to notice a quarter second delay in a game that requires split second timing in comparison to moving windows around on a desktop.

At a cafe, I usually get less than 1mbps because it is so bogged down. Besides, people wouldn't want you eating all of the bandwidth with this. And what about your battery?

Face it, if the iPad was supposed to run a PC OS, they'd do it without this VNC thing. This is a bad way to run a PC OS on an iPad (a local thing would be much better), and there is a reason they don't do that. The iPad processor is more than capable of running some kind of mobile Mac OS or Windows.
 

firewood

macrumors G3
Jul 29, 2003
8,108
1,345
Silicon Valley
SplashTop is a joke. It's a paid VNC app. There is a great free one called MochaVNC.

You might want to benchmark the performance of those 2 apps before you make the claim that they are the same except for price. I haven't, and use neither, but at least one review says there's a diff in update speed.
 

faroZ06

macrumors 68040
Apr 3, 2009
3,387
1
You might want to benchmark the performance of those 2 apps before you make the claim that they are the same except for price. I haven't, and use neither, but at least one review says there's a diff in update speed.

The fact that SplashTop requires a client software to run on the target is already a turnoff.
 

figgnuttan

macrumors newbie
Sep 4, 2004
17
0
Earth
Online for iPad

Crap! Anything, to do with windows will fall flat!
Crap! A friend dared to download it.
Crap!
Waste of money.
Crap!
 

Renzatic

Suspended
Face it, if the iPad was supposed to run a PC OS, they'd do it without this VNC thing. This is a bad way to run a PC OS on an iPad (a local thing would be much better), and there is a reason they don't do that. The iPad processor is more than capable of running some kind of mobile Mac OS or Windows.

If you think of it as a permanent replacement for iOS then yeah, I agree with you. But I see it as a Windows on the iPad when you need it type affair. It's an app that's ready to go at a moments notice. For that, it is quite handy.

Or at least until Office for the iPad shows up. Once that happens, it'll be nothing more than a neat toy.

And the homebuilt VNC thing? Yeah, I agree with you there. If I wanted to run Windows on my (future) iPad, I'd just set up a remote desktop client myself. But there are people out there who either don't know how to set it up, or don't want to for one reason or another. For that, they have the OnLive option. If they want to spend $5 a month for it, then more power to em.

Crap! Anything, to do with windows will fall flat!
Crap! A friend dared to download it.
Crap!
Waste of money.
Crap!

Hey! I hate Windows!
OLOL BUY ONLIVE! IT'S WINDOWS YOU PAY FOR PER MONTH!
HOKAY!
 

RalfTheDog

macrumors 68020
Feb 23, 2010
2,115
1,869
Lagrange Point
There are news apps for all major news sites like CNN, ABC, and KCAL. I've never needed to use Flash for anything even on my PC besides stuff that has an app for it anyway.

News sites are good for news. Weather apps are good to see if it is raining. They won't keep you alive in bad weather. If you don't live in Tornadoland, you don't know what it is like. I have been in or near three different F5 class tornadoes as well more smaller ones than I would like to count. Just this year, one came within four miles of my house.

Weather apps are not accurate enough to keep you alive. The local TV channel has very good Flash based radar. If it were not for them, I would be spam.
 

Renzatic

Suspended
Weather apps are not accurate enough to keep you alive. The local TV channel has very good Flash based radar. If it were not for them, I would be spam.

Seriously, get the weather channel app. It updates alongside the website, and is about as accurate as you can hope for.

Course my experience with the local channels during a tornado haven't been all that good. My town got hit last year. Made national news and everything. The local channels were down about half an hour before it came rolling through. The only way I even knew we were under a tornado warning was because I looked it up on the weather channel website.

...not that it would've done much to save my life. I went out on the patio to get a good look at the sky after reading we were under a warning. Would've earned myself a Darwin Award if I went out 10 minutes later.
 

I WAS the one

macrumors 6502a
May 16, 2006
867
58
Orlando, FL
Browse the web for flash content with iSwifter app, not the best browser but everytime I need to see a website just with flash content iSwifter make my day. And you get no monthly fees for the same benefits and the same quality. DAMN! I need to call them and ask them for a 15% now that I sell them ruthless! Lol
 

faroZ06

macrumors 68040
Apr 3, 2009
3,387
1
Browse the web for flash content with iSwifter app, not the best browser but everytime I need to see a website just with flash content iSwifter make my day. And you get no monthly fees for the same benefits and the same quality. ****! I need to call them and ask them for a 15% now that I sell them ruthless! Lol

I don't know about this thing, but it is true that OnLive is a very clunky solution to Flash. Just use the app that the company makes. Any company that just has Flash versions of their videos are being left behind, and every major one has a good app. Adobe stopped making Flash for mobile devices.

So you're going to connect to a remote PC over the internet running Windows 7 using your iPad so you can open IE on it and go to a Flash-based site? It seems like less of a hassle to just use not use Flash or to use a PC if you need it for some reason.

I essentially have this set up on my Mac; my Mac is port forwarded for VNC. I can use my Mac on my iOS device whenever I want. I've never used it for anything of this sort, only for doing something on my Minecraft server (which is actually running on a computer that I screenshared to from the Mac I was screensharing to).
 

lamina

macrumors 68000
Mar 9, 2006
1,756
67
Niagara
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

How has this not been stopped? They let people use licensed software for a fee. I'd bet they don't have proper licensing for Office or Acrobat reader.
 

BiggAW

macrumors 68030
Jun 19, 2010
2,563
176
Connecticut
At a cafe, I usually get less than 1mbps because it is so bogged down. Besides, people wouldn't want you eating all of the bandwidth with this. And what about your battery?

Face it, if the iPad was supposed to run a PC OS, they'd do it without this VNC thing. This is a bad way to run a PC OS on an iPad (a local thing would be much better), and there is a reason they don't do that. The iPad processor is more than capable of running some kind of mobile Mac OS or Windows.

Yeah exactly. Bandwidth just isn't that reliable, and connections aren't always available... we're getting close, but there are still times you just don't have a connection. I could see this being cool for some, but I don't see it taking off bigtime.
 

MacintoshUser86

macrumors newbie
Jan 24, 2012
13
0
Primos, PA
The Future without computers

Think about how this could change the PC/Mac market ok? If this could be implemented into a monitor someone who just wants a computer to browse the web and check email would only need a wireless keyboard and mouse connected to the monitor.

No desktop computer would be needed.
 

obsidian1200

macrumors 6502
Jun 19, 2010
359
0
Albuquerque, NM
Well, not sure how I feel about this kind of app. On the one hand, I'm glad there's a way to finally use Adobe Reader on the iPad, since a lot of college e-books are protected and can't be unlocked without Adobe Reader, but on the other hand I wish this functionality was localized. I guess in other words, I'd be happier to see an Adobe Reader app for the iOS environment XD
 

leukotriene

macrumors regular
Aug 1, 2008
148
0
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

How has this not been stopped? They let people use licensed software for a fee. I'd bet they don't have proper licensing for Office or Acrobat reader.

Onlive is not some fly-by-night company. They've been around for a while now as a streaming video game service. Microsoft does allow volume licensing for use by third parties. It's all legit and legal.

----------

Think about how this could change the PC/Mac market ok? If this could be implemented into a monitor someone who just wants a computer to browse the web and check email would only need a wireless keyboard and mouse connected to the monitor.

No desktop computer would be needed.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing! I just got done Airplaying it to my HD TV, which served as a pretty nice external monitor. I actually just got some things done that I needed to do for school. I'm definitely considering deleting my Bootcamp partition now. And I'm very very close to just leaving my MacBook at home and bringing my iPad alone with me to school. 95% of what I need to do can be done in iOS, and for the times that I need to resort to using crummy MS Office, I can just switch into OnLive. The document syncing works great. I'm happy paying the equivalent of a cup of coffee per month to simplify my life and carry just an iPad.
 

BobbyRond

macrumors regular
Dec 13, 2011
139
0
The Hague, The Netherlands
Personally, I'm not very fond of recurring costs. I understand OnLive does it, but I do think OnLive is done for as soon as Microsoft would come out with Office for iPad.

Last reports said that the screenshot was no official Office App (pity). I can not imagine the amount of money missed out on.

Ok, tablets running Windows 8 with Office will probably do the trick nicely, but they shouldn't forget that the iPad has a HUGE install base. Asking $9.99 per app, they could easily sell 10,000,000 apps, no biggie. Ah well.
 

Lara F

macrumors 6502a
May 5, 2005
853
10
Montreal, Quebec
flash support? guys flash is dead

http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index/_/channel/espn3 (and no, the Watch ESPN app isn't an option atm on Comcast)

http://www.cbc.ca/video - only selected shows are on their app - no live streams

http://web.icenetwork.com/index.jsp - substitute most Olympic sports here :p

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/4od - this is their full archive, not the Catchup app

Regular Hulu (not all shows are on Hulu Plus!)

Sorry, but it's not dead to me. Hopefully someday, but until HTML5 offers more protection to the content providers it's not going to happen anytime soon.
 
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