Windows 7 On Your iPad thanks to OnLive

We covered the bandwidth sucking giant of streaming gaming that is OnLive a little while ago, leaving us subtly impressed with their gaming service. Now they bring OnLive Desktop to the your iPad.

During the deepest darkest nights of winter, my modest macbook pro (late 2009) is running the PC version of Splinter Cell  via it’s streaming service. Sure at times it’s laggy enough to induce a WTF rant at the screen but of the most it’s a darn fine service, just make sure your ISP plan gives you PLENTY of bandwidth or you’ll soon be getting the “nearing your limit” warning.

Seeing an opportunity here for more than just gaming OnLive Desktop  brings promises of Windows 7 on your iPad. Of course you could setup your own system with either teamviewer or VNC but those tend to lack the sheer speed which OnLive can offer.

Here in the UK on ADSL we suffer with maddeningly slow upload speeds which hinder remote desktop experiences being served from home. Once in the Online Desktop experience there is the promise of Office applications.

At the time of writing no one seems sure of how this will be charged for. Do you hire time or pay a monthly fee for the online time. Will it be a pay as you use product and of course the most important thing, if you are creating documents with the service, how do you get a hold of them locally?

**Update**
It’s seems that OnLive will offer the service in different levels. The most basic starter service that’s free, coming with2 GB of cloud storage and access to a limited suite of office apps.

The Pro version, starting at $9.99 a month, with 50 GB of cloud storage, priority server access, more apps and accelerated browsing. What will priority server access be exactly, faster speed, less waiting in a queue?

Finally there’s an Enterprise offering that allows the kind of control and customization you’d expect if deploying this to dozens or hundreds of client iPads. Think desktop deployment but on a virtual level (i.e stop people looking at pron with their virtual desktops)

If you have a fiber connection and a decent upload please share your remote desktop or VNC / Team viewer experiences with us!