ipad

This week we launched a new free iPad app - Splashtop Remote Browser. With this app, iPad users can connect to their PC or Mac, and use their regular browser, such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or IE for a familiar web surfing experience, complete with their bookmarks, stored passwords, all of the plug-ins, etc.

I hope that most of the readers of this blog already have Splashtop Remote Desktop installed on their iOS or Android phones and tablets. So you may be wondering why we are making a new app just for browsing. Afterall, it only takes a second to open up any browser within a Remote Desktop session.

Our decision to make a new product came from an observation that there are lots of regular folk looking for better iPad browsing alternatives. Many of these people are not familiar with the concept of "remoting", and may think of the remote desktop technology as a potential headache rather than an elegant solution to their needs: easier shopping, social gaming, and watching online video.

Splashtop Remote Browser does just that. When you start the app, it connects to your computer, and opens up your default browser full screen. The rest - whether you want to shop, play, or watch - is the same as on your computer.

If you are like many of us here at Splashtop, you may be waiting in line now to pick up your very own iPad 2. We told our management that we had to get several of them right away, because analysts are predicting that iPad 2 will claim an 80% share of the US tablet market this year, and thus will be a key platform for our Splashtop Remote product line. But, really, we just wanted to play with it over the weekend!

Whenever a new computing platform - like tablets - reaches millions of customers, new opportunities are born. It is indicative that several of the "hot" opportunities mentioned at the recent Montgomery Tech Conference involve new experiences on mobile devices, tablets surely being at the forefront. We think that we have only scratched the surface with our Splashtop Remote product, by enabling tablets to access all of your PC and Mac content and apps remotely. Many other usage models are upcoming - stay tuned!

And here is the photo of the line wrapping around the block outside of the Apple Store: