OnLive Branching Out to iPad and Android, Can Stream Windows Apps

Posted 12/07/2010 at 4:00pm | by Ryan Whitwam

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Cloud gaming service OnLive is giving us a little glimpse into their future offerings with an iPad version of the client. This app will only allow spectating in live games, as there are no games with touchscreen controls yet. What's perhaps more interesting, is that OnLive will let you run Windows 7 apps on the iPad through their service. That's potentially huge if executed well. The iPad is currently the only device supported, but an Android beta should be available in the near future according to VentureBeat. 

So here's the big question: how will Apple take this? Apple would probably prefer that any enterprise Windows apps be adapted to iOS and submitted the old fashioned way, but if OnLive is successful, that could be unnecessary. If developers get in bed with OnLive, and users can just pay a flat fee to access a ton of games in the cloud, Apple might see a hit in the App Store.

OnLive recently released the Micros Console unit for customers to plug into their TV, and also announced a $10 flat fee gaming plan. OnLive may have seemed like a pie in the sky fantasy last year, but it's becoming more interesting as time goes on.