Splashtop Brings Windows 8 Metro Testing Grounds To iPad

Windows 8? On an iPad? It might sound bogus at first -- perhaps even dirty -- but it's going to happen, come heck or high water. Splashtop is known for bringing operating systems to places they weren't designed to go, and now they're turning an iPad into a Windows 8 tablet with native Metro UI touch gestures for Win8 app developers. All you need is an iPad, a copy of Win8 Consumer Preview and this software.


"Since Apple's App Store generates over 80% of all tablet app revenue, nearly every software developer that writes apps for tablets has an iPad," noted Mark Lee, Splashtop CEO and co-founder. "With Windows 8 Metro expected to ship on over 400 million new PCs and tablets annually, these developers have high expectations for an enormous new market. Splashtop lets them turn their iPad into a development testbed to evaluate touch gestures and functionality of their app in a Windows 8 environment."

The Win8 Metro Testbed enables native Windows 8 Metro touch gestures, including the ability to:

Swipe from the right to view the Charms menu
Swipe from the left to switch apps
Swipe left/right in Internet Explorer to move between pages
Swipe down to bring up additional menus
Swipe down on an item to select it
Pull down from the top to close an app
Swipe slowly from the left to run two apps side-by-side ("snapping")
Swipe from left-and-back to show running apps
Pinch to navigate files, folders, apps and data with Semantic Zoom

Need to see more? That's what the video's for. And as for pricing, it can be downloaded for $24.99 right now, though the regular price will eventually swell to $49.99.