I was pretty excited about CloudOn when it was announced. The idea of having a “real” version of Microsoft Office on the iPad was pretty exciting, at least until Microsoft gets around to doing the inevitable.
However, upon real world usage I found the general lagginess and overall complexity of the interface to be a bit much for me.
I’m pretty excited to try the competing OnLive app which was announced recently. I just installed the app. Unfortunately, using it requires you to set up an account at their website, rather than within the app. Bad form! Also, you have to enter a fair bit of info including your birthday in order to get an account. Again, bad form. Finally, your account doesn’t immediately go live. I assume I’m waiting for an email activation.
Sigh. I guess OnLive takes its cues from Microsoft – let’s make it as cumbersome as possible for people to even try to use our software!
Anyway, once they decide to let me actually use the app I’ll be testing it and reporting back here. Stay tuned.
By the way, this is my first post using Blogsy, recommended by commenter Jen. Pretty interesting so far…
The iPad Alone 
I believe the no direct link to account is likely related to apples new rules on revenue sharing and purchasing products within an app cannot have links to where you can purchase outside of apple ecosystem as online has premium functionality.
Ah yes that could be. Otoh for now at least I am only signing up for a free account. So they could allow that in app, then leave paid sign up for their website. But with Apple’s no doubt convoluted and shifting rules about this stuff, I guess I can see why onlive would be conservative here.
Been playing around and it works very nicely. Feels like you have a windows pc inside your iPad. Incredible.
Thanks for posting! I’m about to post my thoughts. It is much as you described…a windows machine inside the iPad. For my part, it feels more like a possession though! Can’t get past that keyboard 😦