AlwaysOnPC – A Virtual Machine for your Mobile Device

by Brent on July 28, 2010 · 2 comments

by Brent on July 28, 2010 · 2 comments

Always On PC

Over the weekend, I stumbled on an interesting concept that I figured I would look at and leave behind. Imagine how happy I was to find technology that has real use to me and on multiple platforms! AlwaysOnPC is a cloud-based Virtual Machine (VM) that is running RedHat Linux, and gives you desktop-level apps on your mobile platform. It is currently available for iPhone/Touch, iPad, and now Android and it supports connections via 3G or Wi-Fi.AlwaysOnPC for the iPad

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This app for the iPad can be purchased in the App Store for $9.99 (for a limited time) and that is all you ever pay to use your VM. You get 2GB of online storage to save your apps, etc. In horizontal mode, it fits perfectly to the iPad screen and although it does take a few minutes to get used to the touch controls, I found it to be extremely useful in quick order. It supports multi-finger touch gestures and gives you everything you would expect from a desktop level machine except sound and full or full-motion video but I believe those are in development. The software has been around for awhile on the iPhone and is already more expensive at $24.99. The Android version is also $9.99 through the Android Market. I will mention that I have not been able to get the Android version working yet, but it seems to be just me and I will have it resolved shortly. Integration with Dropbox, Sugarsync, Pogoplug, and Evernote were drop-dead easy! Next up is to try editing Blog posts from this VM.

Here is a list of some of the apps that you get with AlwaysOnPC:

  • OpenOffice suite: open, edit, save Word (.doc/x), Excel (.xls/x) AND PowerPoint (.ppt/x) files with FULL MS compatibility
  • PDF viewer includes thumbnails, search & goto-page features
  • Edit, crop and retouch photos such as GIF, JPEG, TIFF and more with the included image editing program
  • PC-class email clients to open attachments, edit, and reply-all or forward documents as easily as you do on your PC
  • Browse the web on Firefox 3.5.10 with Flash support (No sound and no full motion)
  • Free software so you can access your AlwaysOnPC from your PC or Mac
  • Even more: Image editing with Photoshop-like features; Drawing program, Chess (many times more powerful than any mobile chess app), games

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A few reasons why customers LOVE AlwaysOnPC:

  • Blazing Fast on Big Files: AlwaysOnPC gives you “cloud power”: open huge office docs, PDFs, images or almost any file type in seconds – even on 3G — up to ten times faster than other apps!
  • Copy and paste between Office applications and the photo editor, drawing program, email and more
  • Full “What You See Is What You Get” display for Office files
  • Included storage: 2 GB of online disk space to store your files
  • 3rd party Online Storage support: DropBox is pre-installed. Other vendors such as Box.net, Jungle Disk, Carbonite, SugarSync, Google Docs and others can be accessed via Firefox
  • Open multiple windows, tabs & apps at once
  • BROWSE WITHOUT TYPING! Install free Firefox Addons like xMarks to import & sync your bookmarks and passwords with your PC or laptop
  • Install your favorite Firefox toolbars like Google or Yahoo! Toolbars
  • Maximum security: The connection is fully encrypted

Note on Flash: The app does not yet support audio or full-motion video – these improvements are coming soon!

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Tagged as: AlwaysOnPC, Apple iPad

  • Guy Northrup

    This article is particularly interesting to me. A short while ago, I have bought a Droid X in the states, and I have several computers that I go back and forth using. As a result, I had files and pictures and videos and such all over the place, which is mission impossible to organize. I’ve looked into apps in the Android marketplace, but came up empty for a solution that was easy enough to fit my needs. Well I now use Syncables to sync all of the computers on my network automatically. It is quite simple and as you mention in your article, a solution such as this is of real use to someone with multiple computing devices. Plus, it works so nicely with both PC and Mac platforms. Well, having my important files & spreadsheets always in sync and accessible on each of my computers is essential. Syncables accomplishes this with simplicity. I have not yet tried it with the AlwaysOnPC app that you have reviewed here, but it would seem to be a good complimentary service to Syncables.

  • http://simplemobilereview.com Brent

    I accomplish essentially the same thing with Microsoft Live Sync. I do not care to sync everything between multiple computers (that is what Windows Home Server backup is for!), but I do have 10 or 12 folder sets that I like to keep current on all my machine, and so I have the Live Sync for that. I can also manage it from a central web page, so it make it very easy. Also great to fast load a new PC image. Unfortunate, it only works with Windows machines, go it can’t help with AlwaysOnPC. I sync way more than 2 GB anyway. Thanks for your comments.