Parallels Mobile app : Use your iPad as a Mac and a PC
Read this article to know how Parallels Mobile connects an iOS device to your Mac so that you can use its operating system, or a guest OS that you're running using Parallels Desktop, on your mobile screen. Read the working procedures and pros and cons of Parellels mobile app
You'll need Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac with Windows or Linux installed as a guest OS, or version 7 to stream OS X from your Mac to your iOS device. Parallels Mobile, which receives the stream and transmits your input back, is an iOS app that's been updated to take advantage of the new iPad's Retina display. Bearing in mind that this provides a higher resolution than most Mac monitors, the concept of operating your desktop OS from a portable device sounds like it just might have come of age.
Installation of Parellels mobile app
It was put to the test running Windows 7, Google's Chrome OS and OS X 10.7. Setup was a breeze: there's a dedicated Mobile pane in the desktop app's Preferences which ties it to your account on Parallels' servers. Using the same login details in Parallels Mobile on the iPad or iPhone connects it to your desktop over any internet connection, or you can use a local IP address to stream it over your internal network if you prefer.
It's essential that you have Parallels Tools correctly installed. There was a glitch in our Windows 7 installation that incorrectly mapped our taps in Parallels Mobile to the desktop client screen; reinstalling Parallels Tools fixed this. There was no such problem with Chrome OS, which we'd installed directly from Parallels' servers.Working with Parelles mobile app
Once up and running, some simple but smart multitouch gestures get around the problem of the missing keyboard and mouse. Tapping three fingers on the screen calls up and dismisses a menu overlay from which you can shut down, suspend or pause the remote client, open the virtual keyboard and settings, or draw a marquee to select multiple objects or lines of text iii the guest OS.
The other gestures are a hybrid of conventional iOS actions and traditional track pad motions. Pinching in and out zooms, and swiping in any direction pans the display. Dragging up and down in a window scrolls it, as with iOS, while tap, double-tap and tap- and-hold cover a click, double-click and right- click of the mouse.
Tapping two fingers calls up the on-screen keyboard. This has extra keys for Shift, Ctrl, Alt and Cmd, while tapping an arrow reveals a secondary hidden keyboard containing cursor keys, function keys, Insert, Delete and PageUp and Down. The modifiers are 'sticky so they remain active while you go on to press other keys; so you can reboot a virtualized Windows machine by activating Ctrl and Alt and tapping Delete.Compatibility of Parelles mobile app on directs operating systems
Compatibility with OS X and two guest OSes was excellent, except that accessing Windows 7 from the iPad caused it to change the color scheme to Windows Basic. Even when Windows was set to run at full screen using the monitor's native resolution of 2560
x 1440, the resolution of the new iPad was fine enough to be able to read on-screen text in dialog boxes perfectly clearly. If you find it sluggish on your network, you can adjust the image quality using a slider in the Settings drop-down. It was found best to set Windows' resolution to match the new iPad (2048 x 1536), but by no means essential.
Parallels' Coherence mode, which lets you run Windows apps in discrete windows over the OS X interface, doesn't translate so well thanks to iOS's one-app-at-a-time policy. As they can't be overlaid on top of iOS as floating windows, the active remote apps are instead set against a plain grey backdrop.
One of the key benefits of working remotely like this is that you can use applications for which there's no iOS equivalent. However, while it would be traditional to manage data traffic between the remote machine and your iPad using an email client on the guest OS, Parallels Mobile also lets you copy and paste data directly between iOS and remote apps, as long as you're using Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac. Version 6 is also compatible, but it's missing the audio parsing and copy/paste functions. This is a shame, as it's a viable solution for anyone who wants to access Flash through Parallels Mobile.
It might seem a roundabout way to run windows apps on your iPad, since it's not even remote-desktopping a PC but a virtualized instance of a guest OS poking a hole through OS X to your Mac's hardware. In practice, though, it's responsive and easy to use, and if you have Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac it's just as good for using OS X from your iPad.
Parallels has very effectively done away with the need for any physical controllers. Although there's the cost of Parallels Desktop (£64.99 including VAT for version 7) to add in, and that of any guest operating system, this is an affordable and excellent way to extend your desktop environment to iOS. Specs of Parellels mobile app
Price: £2.99 including VAT (£11.99 after launch offer)
Seller: App Store
Requirements: Parallels Desktop 6 or 7 for Mac. iPad, iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 4 or later
Pros: Easy to use. Little cost on top of Parallels Desktop. Fast and efficient
Cons: Copy, paste and audio transport only available to Parallels 7 users
Very informative article to get used to the parallel computing services. It would have been appreciable if we get the similar advantages on Android as well.