Web Conferencing Blog

We were surprised at the range of functionalities TeamViewer offers users on an iPad.

On your iPad you can chat, alter the size of the screen you are viewing, and have full mouse and keyboard control. You can even decide on your own which screen you want to view if the host e.g. has a second, hidden screen. One member of our testing crew wasn’t too happy about that specific feature as it turned out…
This points towards the restrictions of the tool: You only have all these functionalities if you participate in a meeting with a Mac user. And you can only have meetings one-on-one as soon as an iPad user is participating. Also, we could find no way for the host to restrict the iPad user’s access.

TeamViewer advanced keyboard functionality on iPad

So really, it’s more of a remote access to a Mac – comparable with Citrix’ GoToMy PC –  than a meeting, since you can do everything from your iPad. You can even shut down the host’s Mac if he doesn’t watch the iPad user every second of the ‘meeting’.

On the iPad, FastViewer falls into the category ‘look, don’t touch’. According to the vendor, a meeting host should be able to transfer mouse and keyboard control to participants using an iPad, but in our tests we were not able to verify this.

FastViewer status bar on iPad

Apart from this FastViewer performs nicely. You can chat – not privately – and can check out the list of attendees any time. We liked the status bar at the bottom of the screen. If somebody sends a chat message during a presentation you can easily switch to the chat window and then back again.

In a nutshell, Saba allows participants of web conferences with an iPad to view another participants’ screens or content that has been uploaded by others. Unfortunately, with your iPad you cannot have a look at the list of participants, which we think would have been a nice feature.

Saba Centra's whiteboard viewed on an iPad

Saba Centra allows you to interact with other participants of an online meeting a little when you are on your iPad. You can chat and at the bottom of the screen you have icons that allow you to show your agreement or dislike of whatever is being presented. If a presentation is really good you can click on the “applause” icon. We are sure the presenter will appreciate it.

This was another interesting test: Cisco WebEx is the number three in our ranking of online meeting solutions. So we were anxious to find out how it would perform on an iPad.

The answer: so-so! You can schedule and host a meeting, view the attendee list, and chat with the other participants.

WebEx' chat functionality on iPad

What bugged us in our tests was that you cannot upload any content from your iPad. Also, it is not possible to share your iPad’s desktop with others.

If you disregard these two issues, the performance of WebEx on the iPad really is solid.

Fuze Meeting is an average online meeting solution. But it runs on iPad, and there the performance isn’t half bad.

You can host and participate in a meeting, which is a neat thing. Fuze Meeting offers you to enter a virtual room rather than share your desktop. So you can upload and look at files.

Fuze Meeting intro screen on the iPad

You can do a lot from your iPad. You can schedule and initiate meetings, you can invite someone while a meeting is running, and you can chat with the other attendees.

What is really neat is the chance to leave the Fuze app for a while if you need to. Returning to an already running meeting is no problem.

Find out more about Fuze Meeting for iPad on the vendor’s website.

We knew that our number-one-ranking tool, Citrix GoToMeeting, was compatible for iPad. Now we tested its actual performance.

It comes as no real surprise that the quality was very good, with no latencies for VoIP and shared screen. Additionally users always have an overview of who is in the meeting with the attendee list displayed to the right.

Overall, a really convincing performance, BUT: only as a participant. iPad users can only watch others present. All the usual goodies like desktop sharing, app sharing, and chat are not available.

You can find all the details on GoToMeeting and iPad on the GoToMeeting website.

Well done! After re-evaluating BeamYourScreen, which is now available in version 3.0, we found great improvements in ease of installation, structure, and security. The missing chat function is a big turnoff though. Still, if the overall trend is carried on with future developments, BeamYourScreen might very well find itself in our top 5 after the next evaluation.

Check out the complete test results here.