Windows 7 squeezed into Android tablets

OnLive may be better known for its cloud gaming service, but the advantage of running a heap of virtual Windows PCs on a server farm somewhere is that you can run Windows desktops on them as well as games. Which means, if you have OnLive's new Android terminal app, you can run Windows 7 - and Windows 8 soon too, presumably - …

[bigphil9009]

US only at the moment

Looks like this is only available to our US cousins at the moment, maybe worth updating the article? (although I do note that you quote the price in US$)

[MGman]

Re: US only at the moment

If you are on iOS you can sign up for a US iTunes account, download it, and then sign back into your UK account.

This gets you the free version. Not managed to work out how to update to the paid version yet as the onlive billing system knows where you are.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow VNC

Wast of time, money, computer power and electricity just to use bloated office.

We have quad core tablets that have plenty of grunt that have OS's written for them, this is just a ten steps backward to accommodate yesteryears desktop on a tablet.

[the-it-slayer]

Re: Wow VNC

No-one wants to get off their arse and snatch the tablet market with a really good suite of word, spreadsheet, presentation apps.

Open-source world? Knock, knock? Anyone there?

[Ocular Sinister]

Re: Wow VNC

Calligra, perhaps? http://blogs.kde.org/node/4521

Note that Nokia already ship Calligra on some devices. I haven't tested it myself, but they claim to have better compatibility with MS Office than {Open|Libre}Office.

[Miek]

Who would want this? $MS office is shit and bloaty, just what we don't need on tablets. If you're that excited about running office, wait for the Windows 8 paper-weights.

[Anonymous Coward]

M e h .

Yeah right, who wants VNC for free when you can pay for this?

[MGman]

Re: M e h .

For a start this is free too and secondly I'm not sure you know what it is!

It's not VNC or Remote desktop, it's access to a virtual standalone windows 7 PC running office with file share between your real computers.

How useful that is to you may vary per user, but having played with the iOS version it works well (it's easy enough to get a US iTunes account to get the free version, not worked out how to get the paid version) and even played good quality video well over my wifi connection.

The paid for version is interesting for iOS users in particular as that will give you a web browser with full flash compatibility too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: M e h .

Oh please, minus the petty semantics it's VNC Citrix, blah blah blah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could just use the free PocketCloud RDP.

[robin penny]

What tablet

What tablet is that in the picture? Not a Viewsonic 10e because of the silver or white border and er um I can't think of any other Android tablets that are not wide screen format...

[Jolyon Smith]

Re: What tablet

It's either:

- a white iPad (no Android status bar, which is unavoidable on an Android tablet as far as I know)

or

- an "Adobe Marketing" tablet. i.e. photoshopped for the marketing peeps. :)

[Anonymous Coward]

So this is like rdp/vnc then?

Apart from I'm remoting into an imaginary box floating about in the fog, rather than one in my house?

[Graham 32]

Asus Transformer compatible?

I'm at work and don't have my fondle slab to hand, so I thought I'd trigger a remote install to test it out when I get home. But, contrary to the article, the android marketplace says the app is not compatible with my TF101.

[Graham 32]

Aah. I thought my Asus Transformer wasn't compatible. I should have read the error in full... "This item cannot be installed in your device's country." I am in the UK. So is this a US-only story then? Should be used to this sort of thing from the reg by now, but I still keep thinking it's a British site. Silly me.

[Bill B]

Yup, commented on this before .. the habit of States based authors to assume that the only people worthy of reading their articles are in the good ol' USA.

Pity really. An international mindset would sometimes be sooo welcome.

[Matt_payne666]

this isnt rdesktop, vnc, et al....

all those applications require you to supply a licened copy of windows and office. this model appears to give you access without paying a bean to microsoft....

I quite like the idea...

[Andy Farley]

Right. So all it needs to be useful now is....

a mouse and keyboard.

Hang on...

[Richard Lloyd]

Find the apk source, Luke

The Onlive Desktop seems to be blocked for my HP TouchPad running CyanogenMod 9, so a quick Google trip for "onlive desktop apk" found the .apk file and a bit of playing with SSHdroid (why oh why has Android 4 ditched mass storage USB?!) and Astro File Manager and I was up and running...or not.

Was downloading something else when I fired up the Onlive Desktop app and it claimed my bandwidth wasn't good enough and refused to start! Even worse, when the download finished and all my capacity was available (about 8Mbit/sec), it started up the desktop, then after 1 min or playing around, promptly chucked me off again for no reason. Total pants for even the free version - Onlive desktop, you're useless.

[b166er]

VNC, rly? Troll on!

[Anonymous Coward]

rdp client

Yeah why would I pay gor this service when I can just rdp back into my work station from anywhere for free, have unlimited storage and know I own the data I create and not some company who runs a higher chance of getting hacked or going offline leaving me without access to my data.

[Ken Hagan]

Licensing?

Last I looked, making a copy of Windows available over a network to lots of users required a bloody expensive licence. Yet the article implies that end-users get the basic desktop for free. How does that work, then?

[Mikel]

Works fine on my tf101

Though it is US only. Will probably wait for the whole package with sw installation before subscribing.