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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 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
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.
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'
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.
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.
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.
Mac users were telling us for years that macos didn't need touchscreen support because that would result in gorilla arm. Apple then release a touchscreen laptop - the iPad Pro with keyboard accessory but no trackpad. Yay, gorilla arm!
So now Apple's solution is Marzipan - porting your favourite iOS app to the desktop. But still no touchscreen convertible macbook Air, nor mouse input for the iPad Pro.
It's a strategy that avoids the debacle of Windows 8 but the elephant in the room is Google: tablets running Chrome OS - PWA, Android, Gnome/KDE in a Wayland container with the option of dualbooting into Windows 10 if you need to get "real work done".
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.
The mouse in the elephant's room is Google very short support window for ChromeOS products. Zillions of Chromebook will "expire" by getting a bottom-right notification that your computer will not get further updates, buy a newer one. I'm not sure whether the users will buy the same thing over again when they're free to get anything else anyway. Likely, they will use their EOL Chromebook until youtube or something doesn't work anymore.
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.'"
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.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
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."
chromebooks are even less useful than ipads and ipads are nearly useless.
"His name was James Damore."
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.
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.'"
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.
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.
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.