LogMeIn has been helping users access their PC desktops from their phones and tablets for a while now on both Android and iOS devices. Today, the makers of the popular remote access software demonstrated an upcoming Honeycomb version of LogMeIn Ignition and an Android version of its recently launched join.me screen-sharing service (pictured above).
LogMeIn Ignition for Honeycomb
To take advantage of Google's new operating system and the wider screens afforded by tablets such as the Xoom, LogMeIn Ignition for Honeycomb has a few new and intriguing features. A virtual mouse appears on top of the remote desktop, and dragging it around moves the pointer, while left- and right-clicking its virtual buttons works the way it would with a real mouse. Tapping anywhere on the desktop also moves the pointer directly to that location. When you access the settings menu in Ignition for Honeycomb, the list of settings appears in a drop-down box rather than taking you to a separate screen as it does on earlier versions of Android.
At the top of the screen, in Honeycomb's new action bar, LogMeIn has added a search widget to help you search through the list of available computers. This feature is mainly helpful for organizations where a lot of computers can be linked to the same account.
Ignition also takes advantage of Honeycomb's "fragments" feature by offering slide-out panels with contextual information at different points in the software, such as when you hit the "information" icon on the home screen. It also uses notifications to alert you to things such as inactivity logouts while you are in another application.
LogMeIn expects to launch LogMeIn Ignition for Honeycomb later this spring. To get a closer look, check out the hands-on video below.
join.me for Android
join.me is a free service that allows users to share their windows desktop screens live with other users. While the service already works with Windows PCs, an Android version that will allow mobile users to view shared PC screens is coming soon.
At Mobile World Congress, LogMeIn demoed join.me for Android, showing us how a user on either a smart phone or a tablet with Android 2.2 or 2.3 can log in to a join.me session and view events happening live on a friend's desktop. Though mobile users cannot control the desktop using join.me, they can chat with the host using an embedded chat client. LogMein expects to launch join.me as a free app in the Android Marketplace later this spring.
See the video below for a full demo.
