Wednesday night I bumped into VMware Product Manager Tedd Fox at the Palazzo pool side party. You may remember Tedd as the man behind the VMware View Client for iPad. He invited me to stop by the VMware EUC booth for a look at “something”.  The following day I met up with him at the booth.  He grabbed his second generation iPad, I rolled camera, and he showed me some never before seen footage of the next release of the VMware View Client for iPad expected to be released within the next few weeks to both iPad generations.

This particular release sports security minded features as well as enhancements to improve ease of use.  Following are some notes on what Ted talked about during the demo of his production environment:

• Blurred thumbnails of previously opened desktop connections
• Certificate checking
• Three native levels of security: High, Medium, and Low
• Embedded RSA Soft Token
• The above keyboard toolbar has been modified to display most of the commonly used function and arrow keys above the keyboard instead of on a separate “floater” which consumed valuable display real estate
• Plugging in the video out dongle converts the iPad into a Macbook pro sized trackpad and keyboard
• Release expected within the next few weeks in the App Store
• Will be compatible with Apple IOS 5
• An Android version (minus presentation mode) will be made available at the same time, in addition to Cisco Cius

Following is a video capture of the demo and below that a static image of presentation mode trackpad and keyboard:

Tedd didn’t have video dongle at the time of the interview but he did follow up with an email showing what presentation mode trackpad and keyboard looks like on the iPad:

I’d like to thank Tedd and VMware for their time and the exclusive demo.  As a gen 1 iPad owner who already has gotten a lot of mileage out of the View Client for iPad + View 4.6 and now 5.0 beta, I’m pretty excited about this release and future developments.  The iPad and other comparable tablets are convenient for conferences such as VMworld because of apps like the one Tedd develops.  Just Enough Device to access email, access my calendar and schedule, access my home lab remotely while in a VMworld session.

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