Windows on the iPad, and Speedy
The New York Times
February 22, 2012
You’re probably paying something like $60 a month for high-speed Internet. I’m paying $5 a month, and my connection is 1,000 times faster.
Your iPad can’t play Flash videos on the Web. Mine can.
Your copy of Windows needs constant updating and patching and protection against viruses and spyware. Mine is always clean and always up-to-date.
No, I’m not some kind of smug techno-elitist; you can have all of that, too. All you have to do is sign up for a radical iPad service called OnLive Desktop Plus.
It’s a tiny app — about 5 megabytes. When you open it, you see a standard Windows 7 desktop, right there on your iPad. The full, latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer and Adobe Reader are set up and ready to use — no installation, no serial numbers, no pop-up balloons nagging you to update this or that. It may be the least annoying version of Windows you’ve ever used.
That’s pretty impressive — but not as impressive as what’s going on behind the scenes. The PC that’s driving your iPad Windows experience is, in fact, a “farm” of computers at one of three data centers thousands of miles away. Every time you tap the screen, scroll a list or type on the on-screen keyboard, you’re sending signals to those distant computers. The screen image is blasted back to your iPad with astonishingly little lag...
---------- Post added February 25th, 2012 at 03:44 PM ---------- Previous post was February 24th, 2012 at 04:20 PM ----------
More on OnLive Desktop - Readers' Questions Answered - NYTimes.com
February 24, 2012
My column on Thursday, about the remarkable OnLive Desktop service, set off a torrent of reader e-mail. Not surprising, really, since the concept of OnLive is so radical and, at least behind the scenes, a little confusing.
To save any further electrons from dying in the service of answering the same questions over and over again, here are Frequently Asked Questions about OnLive Desktop:
Q: I couldn’t find the app “OnLive Desktop Plus” on the app store!
A: It’s just called OnLive Desktop. (It’s the service that’s called “Plus.”)
Also, OnLive Desktop is available only in the United States at the moment.
Q: I downloaded the iPad app, but it asks me to log in with name and password. What name and password?
A: You have to sign up for a free account at desktop.onlive.com first. Then put that name/password into the app.
Q: How can you say that this service is good? It says “Service is full”!
A: OnLive’s servers were swamped Thursday, as thousands of people tried to sign up simultaneously (a k a the Pogue Effect). The company reports that it should be fine today.
Q: Your opening line says, “You’ve probably paying something like $60 a month for high-speed Internet. I’m paying $5 a month, and my connection is 1,000 times faster.” Does that mean I can get rid of my Internet service?
A: No. Your iPad still needs an Internet connection, either Wi-Fi or 4G, to connect to OnLive. I really should have said “I’m paying $5 a month MORE, and my connection is 1,000 times faster.”
Q: How can you write about getting online with 4G? There’s no such thing as a 4G iPad!
A: As I wrote in the column, you could get yourself a 4G MiFi from, for example, Sprint or Verizon. (A MiFi is a pocket-size personal Wi-Fi hot spot. It gets online over the cellular airwaves, and broadcasts its signal via Wi-Fi as a hot spot.)
Q: I just don’t see how it’s possible that this service can deliver the Internet at 1 gigabit speeds, if my home connection is 500 or 1,000 times slower. It seems like I should get the speed only of the SLOWEST link in the chain. How can I download a 30-meg file in one second, if my home Internet is only standard DSL speed?
A: OnLive Desktop Plus is sending your iPad a video stream. It’s like watching a streaming Netflix movie. If you can watch a movie on your iPad now, then you can watch this “movie” of OnLive’s virtual Windows PC.
When you call up a Web site through OnLive, it appears on your iPad screen instantly. The Web site was actually fetched for you by that superfast connection — all you had to wait for was the streaming video image of it.
When you download a big file, you’re not actually downloading it to the iPad. You’re downloading it to your virtual Windows PC. That’s why it downloads instantly. You’re free to open, edit and transmit that file as if it’s right on your iPad. But if you actually want a copy of it on your iPad, then you’ll have to transfer it at your usual Internet-service speed.
(The streaming video is downscaled to the iPad’s screen resolution, which greatly reduces the amount of data you’re receiving. Which, by the way, is why OnLive Desktop Plus could actually save money for anyone whose Internet service poses a monthly cap. You consume a lot less data using the Web this way than if you were connected directly.)
Q: Is this service available on my Kindle Fire? My PC? My Casio watch?
A: Right now, it’s available for iPad only. The company plans to bring it to Android, iPhone/iPod Touch, PC and Mac in the coming months.
The New York Times
February 22, 2012
You’re probably paying something like $60 a month for high-speed Internet. I’m paying $5 a month, and my connection is 1,000 times faster.
Your iPad can’t play Flash videos on the Web. Mine can.
Your copy of Windows needs constant updating and patching and protection against viruses and spyware. Mine is always clean and always up-to-date.
No, I’m not some kind of smug techno-elitist; you can have all of that, too. All you have to do is sign up for a radical iPad service called OnLive Desktop Plus.
It’s a tiny app — about 5 megabytes. When you open it, you see a standard Windows 7 desktop, right there on your iPad. The full, latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer and Adobe Reader are set up and ready to use — no installation, no serial numbers, no pop-up balloons nagging you to update this or that. It may be the least annoying version of Windows you’ve ever used.
That’s pretty impressive — but not as impressive as what’s going on behind the scenes. The PC that’s driving your iPad Windows experience is, in fact, a “farm” of computers at one of three data centers thousands of miles away. Every time you tap the screen, scroll a list or type on the on-screen keyboard, you’re sending signals to those distant computers. The screen image is blasted back to your iPad with astonishingly little lag...
---------- Post added February 25th, 2012 at 03:44 PM ---------- Previous post was February 24th, 2012 at 04:20 PM ----------
More on OnLive Desktop - Readers' Questions Answered - NYTimes.com
February 24, 2012
My column on Thursday, about the remarkable OnLive Desktop service, set off a torrent of reader e-mail. Not surprising, really, since the concept of OnLive is so radical and, at least behind the scenes, a little confusing.
To save any further electrons from dying in the service of answering the same questions over and over again, here are Frequently Asked Questions about OnLive Desktop:
Q: I couldn’t find the app “OnLive Desktop Plus” on the app store!
A: It’s just called OnLive Desktop. (It’s the service that’s called “Plus.”)
Also, OnLive Desktop is available only in the United States at the moment.
Q: I downloaded the iPad app, but it asks me to log in with name and password. What name and password?
A: You have to sign up for a free account at desktop.onlive.com first. Then put that name/password into the app.
Q: How can you say that this service is good? It says “Service is full”!
A: OnLive’s servers were swamped Thursday, as thousands of people tried to sign up simultaneously (a k a the Pogue Effect). The company reports that it should be fine today.
Q: Your opening line says, “You’ve probably paying something like $60 a month for high-speed Internet. I’m paying $5 a month, and my connection is 1,000 times faster.” Does that mean I can get rid of my Internet service?
A: No. Your iPad still needs an Internet connection, either Wi-Fi or 4G, to connect to OnLive. I really should have said “I’m paying $5 a month MORE, and my connection is 1,000 times faster.”
Q: How can you write about getting online with 4G? There’s no such thing as a 4G iPad!
A: As I wrote in the column, you could get yourself a 4G MiFi from, for example, Sprint or Verizon. (A MiFi is a pocket-size personal Wi-Fi hot spot. It gets online over the cellular airwaves, and broadcasts its signal via Wi-Fi as a hot spot.)
Q: I just don’t see how it’s possible that this service can deliver the Internet at 1 gigabit speeds, if my home connection is 500 or 1,000 times slower. It seems like I should get the speed only of the SLOWEST link in the chain. How can I download a 30-meg file in one second, if my home Internet is only standard DSL speed?
A: OnLive Desktop Plus is sending your iPad a video stream. It’s like watching a streaming Netflix movie. If you can watch a movie on your iPad now, then you can watch this “movie” of OnLive’s virtual Windows PC.
When you call up a Web site through OnLive, it appears on your iPad screen instantly. The Web site was actually fetched for you by that superfast connection — all you had to wait for was the streaming video image of it.
When you download a big file, you’re not actually downloading it to the iPad. You’re downloading it to your virtual Windows PC. That’s why it downloads instantly. You’re free to open, edit and transmit that file as if it’s right on your iPad. But if you actually want a copy of it on your iPad, then you’ll have to transfer it at your usual Internet-service speed.
(The streaming video is downscaled to the iPad’s screen resolution, which greatly reduces the amount of data you’re receiving. Which, by the way, is why OnLive Desktop Plus could actually save money for anyone whose Internet service poses a monthly cap. You consume a lot less data using the Web this way than if you were connected directly.)
Q: Is this service available on my Kindle Fire? My PC? My Casio watch?
A: Right now, it’s available for iPad only. The company plans to bring it to Android, iPhone/iPod Touch, PC and Mac in the coming months.
