Last month we gave you a first look and review of OnLive Desktop, a free cloud-based solution for accessing Windows 7 -- including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint -- on your iPad that takes advantage of technology used in OnLive’s cloud gaming platform. Now, the company is back with a $4.99 per month sequel offering priority access, Internet Explorer, and much more.
Tonight, OnLive, Inc. will introduce the follow-up to its free OnLive Desktop app. OnLive Desktop Plus is a new $4.99 per month offering intended to bridge the gap between the free and upcoming Pro versions, adding priority access with a cloud-accelerated Internet Explorer 9 browser, lightning-fast transfer of web mail attachments and cloud storage files, and full desktop Adobe Flash and Acrobat PDF support.
All of that comes in addition to the free OnLive Desktop, offering cloud-based access to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and now Adobe Reader, in an instant-action cloud computing Windows 7 experience with 2GB of secure cloud storage for uploading your own documents to use with the service. Android, smartphone, PC, Mac, and monitor/TV support are still in the works, in addition to a $9.99 per month OnLive Desktop Pro which promises to increase cloud storage to 50GB while allowing customized access to additional Windows applications.
For now, OnLive Desktop Plus brings a full desktop Adobe Flash experience to the iPad for $4.99 per month, coupled with the new preinstalled Internet Explorer 9 for quick access to OnLive, Dropbox, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Box for quick cloud file transfers back and forth. While we’re still not big fans of the virtual keyboard -- which OnLive continues to work on -- pairing a Bluetooth keyboard to your iPad makes for a much more pleasant experience.
Speaking of pleasant experiences, if you’re a fan of the desktop flavor of Adobe Flash and simply can’t live without it, OnLive Desktop Plus may become your new best friend. We visited one of the most Flash-intensive websites we know of -- SesameStreet.org -- and were able to play games, watch videos, and browse around with the kind of speed that rivals using a desktop browser, all on our iPad 2.
Likewise, the new Adobe Reader X (which is also now included with the free version) was quite zippy at opening even a graphics-heavy PDF exported from Adobe InDesign, as well as being able to fill in forms, sign documents and the usual tasks you’d expect from the desktop version.
One of our biggest headaches with OnLive Desktop hasn’t been fully addressed with the Plus version, but it’s definitely improved: Quitting the app and then returning later resumes your previous activity, although you’ll still have to log in -- a process that’s a bit more automatic now, as long as you tick the “Remember Me” box when doing so.
All in all, OnLive Desktop Plus is a nice step forward from the free service, and with future improvements already on the way, it’s definitely worth considering for road warriors and others who need occasional Windows 7 access on the go for one low price.
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