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New Windows Virtual Desktop Feature Will Finally Make the iPad Useful (mspoweruser.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MSPoweruser: Last year Microsoft released Windows Virtual Desktop, an Azure-based service that delivers a multi-user Windows 10 experience on any operating system. Now Scott Manchester, Group Manager for Microsoft's Remote Desktop Service, has shown off a new feature for the iOS version of the app which makes the client much more powerful on the iPad. Windows Virtual Desktop will soon support mice in the virtual environment. Unfortunately, only specific mice will be supported -- in the video the Swiftpoint GT and eventually Microsoft's own Bluetooth mice. The feature is said to becoming soon.
I had a swiftpoint gt for a month to use with vmware horizon on the ipad. Died after a month.
Boots have ditrix
I can remotely access a Windows box from my iPad... when will you release an app that let's me access a Mac the same way?
#DeleteChrome
Now THAT would be useful!
No, it helps us identify the sheep.
Every other OS handles it fine other than apple. The problem is apple's to fix.
iOS doesn't support mice at all, so there's no way for Microsoft to simply support generic Bluetooth mice. Instead, they have to connect to the mice using a non-standard Bluetooth profile to bypass the restrictions built-into iOS. But that requires the mice themselves to have support for the aforementioned non-standard profile.
So, I can by an ipad, just to I can buy a keyboard and buy mouse to run RDP and have it behave like a windows tablet?
Tell my why I bought an Ipad again?
I thought all those apple fanboz told me that the ipad was windowz killer.... hmm.
Every other website handles it fine, so itâ(TM)s actually slashdotâ(TM)s problem.
Apart from a handful of niche applications (assisted communication for certain disabilities, things that involve GIS in the field) it still seems like a lot of money for what is essentially a magazine-sized e-reader.
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Why the fuck hasn't Apple allowed bluetooth mice at least on an application-specific basis?
I'm mostly willing to go along with the idea why they're not allowed generically as input devices because Apple's precious touch interface would quickly get corrupted by mouse UI logic, but on a lot of apps the touch screen is totally worthless.
I don't understand how this is news? With Citrix XenDekstop you've been able to do all this crap for literally a decade. I joked then that it made the first ipad useful. With slightly newer versions you even had real video card support so I could throw a QUADRO or two in my server and then my autocad designers could use tablets out in the field to take measurements and show renders to people live which makes selling sponsor space at venues much much easier.
If I link back to the original article from September, I can see that with the Windows desktop, you will be able to run Office 365 and some Windows Apps but I think there's a lot of hubris on Microsoft's and TFA's writer to assume that the iPad needs a Windows desktop or would be better because of it.
I'm sure there are some people and companies out there that with this desktop will consider the iPad over Android and Surface tablets but I would have to think there are a lot of people and corporations would just as happy being able to run their apps, businesses, etc. without a Windows Virtual Desktop (especially one that you have to pay for).
I would think a better subject line would be "New Windows Virtual Desktop Provides iPad With Windows Capabilities".
Saying that this desktop *finally* makes the iPad useful is marketing hype at its worst.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
It's just like all the other reasons for their choices.
Because fuck you, and your wallet
Jump Desktop, an RDP and VNC client, works with mice in the same way.
Except it's done so for 8-ish years now instead of 'coming soon'
Horseshit. I've been creating on an iPad for years. Just because YOU don't know what it's used for doesn't mean it doesn't have a use.
It's a terrible value proposition for 95% of users given that a $100 Kindle Fire can do nearly everything the iPad can. Some Apple fanboi modded me down for my post though, lol!
This has been on Amazon Workspaces for a while now. I'm using a Swiftpoint mouse with my company iPad pro and Windows on Amazon Workspaces. I think it's been a year already. And I only use AWS as a last resort. Web browsing, email, and even Office work well on the iPad Pro 99% of the time. iPad isn't a desktop, but it's improved. A lot. When it comes to productivity, it is more limited by the app developers than the platform itself at this point.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Itâ(TM)s news because youâ(TM)ve stupidly posted an on topic comment to the thread about slashdotâ(TM)s refusal to support Godâ(TM)s own Unicode
Android has supported mice since basically forever. Recently purchased a new TV with Amazon FireTV built in (which is based on Android). Just for shits, I sideloaded the Microsoft RDP android app onto it. It is actually surprisingly quite useful on the TV. I no longer need any dongles, or PCs, or anything else hooked up to the TV other than a keyboard/mouse to have a desktop when I want it, leaving all the bulk to the wiring closet.
Apple, you still have a long ass ways to go to catch up.
Very true. Actually, in order for slashdot to know that there is a problem with iOS comments on there site, they would actually have to read the comments. This is something that they clearly never do as evidenced by the nazi spam they donâ(TM)t even know exists on their site.
This article should not have been published with this headline. Get a life!
I don't understand what was wrong with the original ASCII apostrophes, etc.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Corporations will use the Azure hosted PC in the cloud to prevent users from having a personal computer. You'll only get a chromebook like Windows laptop with no power which ALWAYS requires an internet connection.
Expect it to move to home use laptops as well where Windows 10 someday won't run on anything other than an Azure machine.
*Shudder* thinking of MS forcing us to use JavaScript/html in browser control wrapped in a win32 EXE file instead of full featured applications.
Think convenience for MS convenience for IT/security departments but in-convenience for users.
Having my company force me into Office Teams / Office 365 this first week of 2019, I worry for persons about to enter the workforce as they will only know low quality, buggy, bloated html/css browser control in an EXE file applications. MS Office Teams 365 started ad 450 MB ram and increased from there for a chat application with skype like audio/video/screen sharing.
Expect a train wreck like how MS failed to release SQL Server and Exchange and Wdnows during 2001 - 2005 yet sold corporations on a 5 year licensing deal promising updates faster than 5 years.
They aren't smart enough apparently.
You need a PiQuote. It's a raspberry pi with software installed that translates your apostrophes. Put it in a 3D printed case of course.
or maybe slashdot should just null posts with those characters.. It's the same reason it doesn't allow emoticons.. It would turn this site into a twatter shitfest..
I have an ipad mini, and it's useful even without remote desktop. I have a friend who's does some flying and he uses an ipad to refer to charts and the like (many pilots do this). So the ipad is most definitely useful.
to make an ipad useful.
Maybe if you can install Windows in it; that would be useful; a real OS
Wait, so if the Kindle Fire is useful, then the ipad is useful. The assertion wasn't that the ipad was overpriced, but that it was not useful.
In fairness android tablets and chromebooks (tablets with a dock) are also fairly useless. They are too big to replace a phone and not powerful or functional enough to replace a laptop.
The only people who have no use for a laptop are people who do nothing productive, even for recreation. Laptops are easy to sell because people love the idea of mobility, tablets get sold because laptops don't end up delivering on being a desktop that is mobile because you have to lug around bags and backpacks. The problem is that a desktop interface, full size keyboard, numpad, mouse, large screen, and multiple physical screens all actually bring substantial usability benefits to the table. Using that compared to slapping a mouse on a 10" tablet with a portable keyboard and touchscreen is like having a an all electric flying limo with bar, wifi, massage seats and lumbar support, self-driving capability vs a scooter. Nobody would want that trade-off unless they've just gotten used to a scooter being their only option.
Mobile devices are great for mobility but make unavoidable tradeoffs in usability to get it and in a world that gets LESS mobile due to advances in technology every day... it really just doesn't make all that much sense. Remote workers are not mobile workers, people who travel to work every day are MORE mobile and there are less of them. People travel for business less and less, students actually have to be physically present for classes less and less, people socialize virtually more and more, activities are virtual more and more. People are less mobile than ever.
In fairness android tablets and chromebooks (tablets with a dock) are also fairly useless. They are too big to replace a phone and not powerful or functional enough to replace a laptop.
A decent Android tablet with Kodi, VNC, RDP and Moonlight (and maybe an X server, but a good one of those is surprisingly hard to find) can serve as a remote interface for practically anything, and play pretty much any media. I've found that fairly handy. The trick is to get it cheap, yet to get one with decent networking.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So-called smart punctuation is an option under iOS, so Apple have 'fixed' the problem of users needing to make allowances for dated website software. Still, it would be nice if /. handled Unicode more elegantly,
Posted from an iPad.
I wish Microsoft would give us the ability to treat connected RDP clients as additional monitors that the current desktop can be extended onto. For example:
1. Boot into Windows with laptop.
2. Boot into Windows with large-screen dual-OS tablet like a Chuwi Hi12
3. Launch RemoteDesktop on the tablet, and set up a new connection... but check the new, extra checkbox that says, "use this as an external monitor and extend the Windows desktop onto it"
4. Connect Remote Desktop on the tablet to Windows on the Laptop. Voila, instant second monitor.
Sadly, AFAIK, there's STILL no good way to achieve this. I know there are a couple of third-party Android apps that try to accomplish this (by running a host app under Windows and using VNC at the Android end)... and they all suck miserably. RDP is unique, because it hooks directly into the Windows rendering pipeline and has extraordinarily high performance. I'm pretty sure that (in theory, at least) you can even run DirectX at nearly full performance over RDP (as long as the GPU at the client end is powerful, since IT'S the one that ultimately gets used). I know that in the past (when I still had a normal desktop PC), I used to routinely run programs on my desktop PC, then use them over the LAN via RDP on a lower-powered laptop elsewhere in the house because they ran faster than if I tried running them directly on the lower-powered laptop itself.
I also wish that Linux had something with performance remotely close to that of Windows via RDP. VNC is dog-ass slow, and remote X11 over a network is (surprisingly) even slower. I'd originally had high hopes for Wayland, until I read that approximately four years ago, its architects declared point-blank that high-performance remote rendering over a network wasn't even on the table or open for negotiation as a design goal. Period, full-stop, end of story.
https://symless.com/synergy
From the website:
Synergy is a software download that shares one mouse and one keyboard between multiple computers. It combines your desktop devices together into one cohesive experience. You can even copy and paste between your computers. Synergy works on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Raspberry Pi. You only need a regular WiFi or Ethernet connection. Simply move your mouse between your computers effortlessly.
I've used this, and, apart from not being able to move windows or applications between the different systems, it's actually quite usable.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Wait, so if the Kindle Fire is useful, then the ipad is useful. The assertion wasn't that the ipad was overpriced, but that it was not useful.
The person I responded to said it wasn't useful. I strongly implied that it was overpriced.
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LUL. Why didn't you tell us the kind of content you "create"?
Animojis! Animations of my face on poop of course. Can you do that on your "content creation"-focussed desktop or laptop? No!
I tried to find an X server for DOS some years ago and came back empty. A bit surprising for me.
its always up to other companies to make iToys even semi-useful
Is apple that bad at writing software?
I once accidentally did something like this. I used two graphics cards for dual screen on my PC, running Ubuntu 11.04 or similar (because I used some cheap PCIe 16x back up card and an older PCI one with 8MB). The damn system did make them work but as separate X sessions. I was kind of pissed, and for some reason one of the session was my usual desktop, the other one had a desktop too (Mate) but with its default colors/panels/theme.
I was glad it worked but the moment your moving a terminal or window and it doesn't work it's infuriating. I also worried that shit may break (Firefox famously can't use the same profile twice at the same time. But you can use it twice with firefox -p and using a different profile). I didn't think of testing copy/paste or don't remember (I bet it didn't work and should not?)
With Synergy, I bet you may be happier with the result. At least it's separate computers, separate user sessions, shouldn't cause a mess. It enables something while in my case I crippled myself. There *is* software to make two X servers behave like one!, if you're ok with no 3D graphics etc. It's called xdmx. So it might be of some use as well. I didn't want to do all that sys admining to get it to work (and break my Xorg configuration on my only machine all the time)
How animojis ever became a selling point depresses me deeply
The average person is fucking stupid and Apple takes Full advantage of that
Those that remember the long ago past remember that Apple has always fought against 3rd party functionality, easily going back all the way to the Apple IIgs and first Macintosh (mid 1980's.)
Back then, even development tools were part of the growing idea of a walled garden, creating an entire "Free Tools" movement written about extensively in magazines at the time. Apple tried really hard to stop you from developing for their hardware unless you first gave them money for their tool chains, and every application developed with their tools looked exactly the same because fuck you we know whats best.
"His name was James Damore."
You should try one of the 2 in 1 machines like the lenovo yogas etc
Exactly
I was part of a team at one point that made equipment for the disabled and we had to do the same to have mouse support in iOS
When I think of Apple Animoji, I think of a woman lip syncing Big Boi's All Night...
I've used Synergy too. It's an extraordinarily useful program, but it's NOT a way to extend computer #1's desktop onto computer #2 via RDP... it's a way to have computers 1 and 2 running independently side by side, but use a single mouse and keyboard with both (treating them both AS IF they were actually one computer with its desktop extended onto a second monitor).
Or you could turn off smart punctuation in the keyboard settings with no loss of functionality
My wife has one. They are just laptops with a touch screen.
I had an RDP client on my gen 1 iPad the first year they came out.
So what is the innovation here?
Finally made the iPad useful? There's some Grade A fucking marketing bullshit.
or maybe slashdot should just null posts with those characters.. It's the same reason it doesn't allow emoticons.. It would turn this site into a twatter shitfest..
Yeah, only support ASCII art trolls- that suits you old timers much better than a proper quote character.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I don't understand what was wrong with the original ASCII apostrophes, etc.
And I don't understand why the ASCII guys wasted so many bits on supporting so many different braces - the !|! should be enough to replace them all |see, just like that|.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I tried to find an X server for DOS some years ago and came back empty. A bit surprising for me.
There apparently used to be a commercial xfree for dos called xappeal but it seems to have pretty well vanished.
There were several commercial X servers for Windows 3.1, like Chameleon Xoftware. Chameleon also had a good TCP stack for Windows 3.1, but the one that Microsoft eventually released is also adequate for this purpose. Or if you can find the TGV stack, that was the fastest. It seems unfortunate to have to run Windows just to run an X server on your DOS machine, but it's an option.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
WTF no mouse support on iOS?? From Apple? One of the key popularizers of the GUI??!
And seriously, how hard is it to support a mouse? Aren't generic mice like, one of the simplest HID devices ever??
That headline is completely unprofessional and uncalled-for. Not to mention demonstrably untrue.
Why the fuck hasn't Apple allowed bluetooth mice at least on an application-specific basis?
Their "computer replacement device" is designed to be used by touching the screen, even the "Pro" version. That should tell you everything about Apple's approach to serious work.
if you're not an old timer, why are you on slashdot? You belong on reddit or some other millennial garbage site.
Slashdot advertises UTF-8 support in meta tags in this page and in the HTTP headers. When the iOS device submits the form, it also sets the content type to UTF-8. Slashdot then interprets this as some random 8-bit codepage. If Slashdot advertised ASCII support, then iOS would use ASCII for form submission. Advertising that you accept UTF-8 and then breaking on any non-ASCII characters is just plain broken.
Soylent News' fork of Slashcode fixed these issues ages ago.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
And no, asking slashdot to bend over backwards because iPads are doing the wrong thing
You mean the wrong thing where they parse a page that sets its encoding to UTF-8 in both meta tags and HTTP headers, send a response with HTTP headers indicating that it contains UTF-8 data, and are surprised when the server then incorrectly handles UTF-8 data?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I don't mind the lack of a mouse so much - it's a small-screen device and the touchscreen is usually better in this form factor. It does bug me that the 'Pro' keyboard has an emoji button but no escape key though.
I suspect that the argument for not supporting mice is that they don't want people doing crappy ports of desktop apps that require a mouse and then getting complaints from users that they don't work well with touchscreens. Apple's decision to ship one-button mouse worked out well for them in the era of resistive touchscreens, where a UI designed for a single-button mouse worked well but using Windows on the same devices was painful (you typically had a button in a floating window that you had to tap to make the next mouse click a right button).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I suspect that the argument for not supporting mice is that they don't want people doing crappy ports of desktop apps that require a mouse and then getting complaints from users that they don't work well with touchscreens.
Like I said, this tells you everything about Apple's "Pro" strategy: Must be child friendly.
iOS, for users that are so fucking retarded, that a one button mouse has one button too many.
Why the fuck hasn't Apple allowed bluetooth mice at least on an application-specific basis?
So lets ignore that there was no problem with Apple allowing it in this app - and more importantly also ignore all the other apps that already support them for years (including 3rd party RDP apps) - isn't self righteous indignation great even if it means you have to ignore reality?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I feel like the loopholes of non-standard bluetooth profiles miss the point and are a worse problem than allowing generic bluetooth mice generally. It's happened, but it feels like some kind of weird exception.
Apple *could* have allowed BT mice, but totally ignored them in standard UI APIs, so that nothing was mouse-enabled by default and required apps to use some other UI API to obtain mouse functionality. They protect the touch UI, apps that want to enable mouse functionality gain it without going down the road of a custom mouse with some weird BT profile.
Apple *could* have
... included a 8" floppy in the iPad. The End.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.