Every once in a while, I won’t be able to wake the computer and work will be lost. I’m always shutting the case in the middle of work, causing it to go to sleep. Whereas my computer at home is rock solid, my laptop is constantly being put in situations where my work can be compromised. One of the most important advantages for me is reliability. However, once you have everything up and running, remote computing has a number of benefits beyond enhancing the utility of an iPad. Jump, Remotix, and Parallels offer applications that will take care of the networking, but even their solutions are not foolproof. ![]() Additionally, you need a reliable internet connection both at the remote site and from wherever you will be accessing the remote computer. Configuring remote access to a computer can require a bit of networking proficiency, necessitating a public IP address (or forwarding address) and port forwarding on your local router. A better way to access a Mac might be Parallels Access, which requires a $20 annual subscription for up to five computers. Mac OS has employed a different protocol called VNC-it is nowhere near as seamless (the screen will not automatically resize to the tablet, nor is the interface touch-friendly), but it definitely works. From Windows 8 on, Windows is designed to work with a touch-based interface, so on a tablet, Windows via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) works almost like it was designed to be touched. In fact, iOS and Android have a number of remote desktop clients that work exceptionally well (my favorites include Jump and Remotix. Microsoft has offered a sophisticated remote desktop application for over a decade, providing nearly seamless interaction with a remote computer. Generally speaking, accessing a computer over the Internet can be a great experience when properly configured. But don’t give up hope just yet!Įnter remote computing. At the end of the day, the lesson is probably that tablets and PCs are just different animals, products built up from the manner by which users interface with them (touch versus keyboards and mice). ![]() It is a difficult proposition-Microsoft has tried to accomplish this with the Surface, but to me, that device feels just like a very portable laptop and not much like a tablet (in large part due to the lack of quality apps compared to the iOS and Android offerings). Last, many of the apps I use on a daily basis do not have fully comparable iOS equivalents (Microsoft Office has improved greatly, but it is still clunky compared to a computer-based experience, especially with regard to accessing files.).īasically, I want to keep all the cool things about my iPad (great video and music playback, easy ways to procure content, extreme portability, long battery life, etc.) without giving up my computer’s desktop. With updates to iOS 9, external keyboards have become more useful (they now work with AutoCorrect and support a number of common shortcuts, for example), but using a keyboard with an iPad only begs the question, “why am I not using my laptop?” As for other means of inputting text, the dictation feature continues to improve, but it is still too inconsistent for my purposes. There also is the browser problem, where many websites still do not quite function properly, especially if plug-ins are required. Even to this day, printing from an iPad is unreliable and slow. But the devil is in the details and a number of very specific problems made going all-in impossible. Given how far iPads and other tablets have come, both spec-wise and software-wise, it just seems like something one should be able to do. ![]() Making the iPad Useful It’s Not the Perfect Computer, but it Might Be the Best Way to Access One…Įver since first iPad came out in 2003, I have been on a mission to replace my laptop (I was motivated by Tim Cook’s assertion that he can do 80% of his work on an iPad.).
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