Citrix launches ‘Receiver’ for iPhone
by Theo Priestley on 08/05/09 at 7:52 pm
Theo Priestley is the Director of Process Maverick, a business process management consultancy firm and Senior Editor for iPhoneCTO.
Citrix has recently launched Citrix Receiver for the iPhone, dubbed as giving users “thousands of Windows apps on any device in high definition”. The official line reads very impressively:
“Citrix Receiver delivers applications as a service to users on any device, anywhere. Now you can access any Windows application or document right from the palm of your hand with the iPhone. By leveraging the easy-to-use interface that has revolutionized mobile computing today, Receiver enables you to open documents, update reports, approve expenses, even join a webinar from anywhere – straight from your iPhone.”
After using their very clever GoToMyPC solution a few years back, I decided to have a look at what appears to be a similar mobile version. Receiver allows you to gain access to your PC environment, Windows applications and documents stored on the enterprise network via XenApp, their corporate application delivery solution. This is a must to be able to use Receiver which requires XenApp to be part of your corporate IT environment.
I used their ‘cloud’ demo connection to test out the application. Sign up was painless and via 3G connection. You’re presented with a selection of folders (this will differ in actual enterprise deployment). With a little luck, I managed to find a Word document to open. You’re then presented with Word 2007 hosted centrally via XenApp to access a contract sample document. It was fairly impressive and smooth to say the least. Keyboard, Return and Tap/Scroll icons are at the foot of the image and Citrix claim this is really all you need. The official blurb says:
“A configurable keyboard puts the power in your hands with one-tap access to functions like Cut, Copy, Paste, Undo and Save. Plus, Doc Finder provides Windows style file navigation – tailored specifically for the iPhone form factor.”
In practice, you triple tap and then drag to highlight a section which can be a little hit and miss with the iPhone’s screen. Not sure how ‘configurable’ the keyboard is, I could see Alt+Tab, Del, End and Esc keys listed but all other functions mentioned above are really invoked through the native Windows application, not Receiver itself. Seems the real iPhone Cut and Paste is still reserved for QuickOffice.
I managed to change the document, search for an image and then save. Over a 3G connection, it was slightly laggy, but bearable. The ability to navigate via multi-touch presented only one glitch; the screen image itself is displayed at the iPhone’s screen resolution which meant you could scroll past it and lose the image altogether. What is interesting is if your iPhone locks automatically or you lock it yourself, the app will still be running when you unlock the phone.
It’s a really good attempt at an enterprise solution for accessing your office environment and working remotely. The barriers are that you really need a minimum of a 3G connection to make it work wirelessly and XenApp installed in the office. Coupled with the iPhone’s screen size you have to balance out whether something like a NetBook with it’s larger screen and XenApp/XenDesktop wouldn’t be a cleaner solution.
