Non-iPad Tablets

Wyse has a VMware View client for iPhone that I plan on trying once we rollout VMware View desktops at work.

If someone comes up with a virtual machine for the iPad that runs Win7 (or, hell, even WinXP) at full speed I’ll be the happiest asshole on the planet.

http://www.wyse.com/products/software/pocketcloud/index.asp

Some people like tablets but I prefer capsules, especially Contac with all those little colored balls inside. Do they still make Contac?

Thing is, VM OSes run a little slower. I’m curious to see how well it’d handle Lightroom 2 (which is sluggish on the best of days) in an XP VM.

That’s not actually running the VM on the iPhone/iPad; it’s just a remote console for a VMware instance running on some other machine.

It’s funny. Mainframes with dumb terminals are sort of the model, but you replace “mainframe” with “internet” and make the dumb terminals not so dumb and you get where we seem to be going.

Oh, okay. So it is like the Citrix system.

The thing I wonder about that is, do you have any say as to what gets installed on the remote system? Are you connecting to your own virtual machine, or a generic one that other people also have access to?

Requiring Lightroom makes it pretty difficult to really recommend any tablet. It’s a rather power-hungry application and requires a largish screen and resolution for proper work. I don’t think you’ll see an adequate, non-bulky, pure-table solution anytime soon.

Using VNC or similar to remote control Lightroom running on your own home PC might be a passable solution, but it’ll probably only be fast enough in your own home LAN, so if you need to use the table on the go, forget about it.

I have it on my Mini 9 right now and it’s a passable working solution. A little sluggish, but still plenty usable. So I know that, at bare minimum, the ExoPC will be able to do it.

The Wyse client is useless to a home consumer unless you happen to have your own VMWare View server on the home LAN.

Ah, okay. So it’s a server/client package? I had assumed it was just a client app that dialed in to a central server.

On a much smaller scale, you can buy Win-Admin iPhone app to remote desktop.

VMware View is a whole enterprise-level virtual desktop infrastructure that competes with Shitrix. For home users, it’s not yet known what will be easiest.

I find it hard to believe that you do anything productive with Lightroom on a Netbook. Leaving aside the memory and CPU deficiencies, Lightroom is an app that demands a large amount of screen real estate in all of its modules.

Also, unless someone manages to develop a wifi technology that can achieve Gigabit speeds with lower power consumption, I don’t really see anyone being able to use Lightroom (or Aperture for that matter) remotely with any great success. They’re tools that require a degree of precision and laggy wifi connections and <10 fps screen refreshes aren’t really conducive to that. Bearing in mind, of course, that you’re not going to want any artefacts introduced by lossy compression in your remote framebuffer protocol when you’re working on a RAW photograph.

You’d be surprised. I specifically chose the Mini 9 because it’s got the best netbook display for photo editing, [B]beating out even the Macbook 15[/B].

I’ve taken my Mini 9 with me on every trip I’ve been on in the past year or two, and edited hundreds of photos on it with Lightroom. It’s sluggish at times, sure, but it performs remarkably well for its shortcomings. As far as screen real estate goes, I keep the modules hidden by default. At most, I’ll have the right-hand module open under the Develop window.

One thing to remember is that Lightroom is primarily a global editor, so you don’t need a huge display to do your work - you just need a good view of the image. And while yes, a big part of LR2 is local adjustments, I can easily zoom in when making those. All said, I’m able to do quite a bit on such a teeny machiney.

Also, unless someone manages to develop a wifi technology that can achieve Gigabit speeds with lower power consumption, I don’t really see anyone being able to use Lightroom remotely with any great success.

That’s what I was wondering about these Citrix systems. I remote desktop on a nigh-daily basis, and it’s slow as shit without even dealing with photo editing. It’s just got too much data to send; even the most basic of work comes through at 5-10fps. I don’t know how they can provide a virtual machine experience that isn’t shit.

The JooJoo will supposedly have an earlier release date than the iPad, supports Flash (and OMG HULU) and has a larger screen. Expected to cost just as much as the iPad.

I was looking at it (it’s been all over Giz and Engadget lately), but it’s a proprietary OS, which means no Windows apps.

It’s Linux-based. It also looks very much like vaporware to me, largely because of the lawsuits that TechCrunch are bringing against Fusion Garage.

Taiwanese Innoversal recently showed off their tablet protype.

Specs:

  • 10.1" 1,024 x 600 resolution screen
  • 1.66GHz Atom N450 processor
  • an integrated SSD (16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities will be available)
  • an SDHC card slot
  • 8 megapixel camera
  • 3.5mm headphone jack
  • a SIM card slot (for 3G data)
  • USB 2.0 connectivity
  • 802.11b/g/n WiFi
  • Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
  • a 6-cell (5,300mAh) battery
  • will support Windows 7, Android, Ubuntu and Chrome OS