Onlive on Android

Onlive is a cloud based gaming platform that allows people to play high end games on low end devices so long as they have a high speed internet connection. All of the processing is done via remote servers in order for this magic to work. More on Onlive can be found HERE however for this article I will be focusing on the new Android application that the company has released.

Officially the application is only available for the HTC Flyer android tablet however with the help of some developers on the XDA forums it is now open for other devices. So far it is only a viewer which means that sadly, you will not be able to play any of the games, having to settle only for watching other peoples adventures. You also will have to be connected to a WiFi network as being on 3G will have the app kick you off. So far installing and getting Onlive to work has been hit and miss with devices and as of now I have gotten it to work on my original Droid, Droid 2, and rooted Nook Color. I can not comment on other phones however I have heard of many people having success.

Actually using the app so far has been simple and I was able to immediately sign in after installing it. I found right from the start though that using a physical keyboard will cause the program to force close so try to avoid that. Once signed in I was brought to the familiar home screen with all of the normal options. When I attempted to play a trial from the market I received a notification telling me that would not be possible and so I decided to test out the arena. Selecting options was easy on the touch screen and fun to just scroll around, videos loaded up quite nicely and I could easily get to other options as well. Because I am using a tablet oriented application on a smartphone screen I have noticed text a little small and hard to read however that's what you get and I can't really complain to much. I am uncertain if this is just because of the distance from my router or what but I constantly got the Network Error message and the app would lag for a bit before returning to normal. For what is currently available I have to admit that it works quite well and I will be impatiently awaiting some updated functionality and the ability to play games so I can brag to some friends. The system is smooth and works quite well even on unofficially supported devices. The link to the download can be found HERE so go ahead and install and play around.

Let me know what you think so far and if you got it to install on your Android below in the comments and don't forget to subscribe for the latest news in the techniverse.