OnLive on Wednesday boosted its Desktop for iPad with a new subscription tier. Desktop Plus gives access to a version of Internet Explorer with both Flash and PDF support. To help justify the software additions, OnLive gives high-priority access to its streaming virtualization service.
The measure led OnLive to boast that it had the fastest implementation of Flash on a mobile device, since it was connecting to a more powerful virtual desktop instead of relying on the mobile native chip. Adobe has already planned to stop making mobile Flash.
Access costs $5 per month. Desktop Plus is currently limited to the iPad but should eventually reach Android, Macs, and Windows PCs. Every connection currently talks to a version of Windows 7 with a preloaded copy of Office and 2GB of storage.
