By Kristina De Nike, Senior Product Manager, End-User Computing, VMware
Originally, we thought this client release would include some small fixes to the hosted applications we launched last quarter. But we’ve gotten such a positive reaction to Horizon 6, the team was excited to add even more features. When the dust settled, we realized there’s a lot in this release. We have features that improve the usability of hosted application and we added some features sure to make all users happy.
Hosted Application Improvements
Our customers asked and we listened. We’ve added hosted application support to the Horizon Clients for Linux as well as our Windows Store client, bringing them to parity with our other desktop and mobile clients.
We also added printing from hosted applications. All clients that previously supported printing for virtual desktops now support printing for hosted apps, in other words Linux, Windows and Mac.
Some Windows applications have features that are only available from the Windows system tray, for example Skype and Evernote. That functionality is now accessible for hosted applications. In Figure 1 you can see the Lync availability menu in the Mac’s menu bar.
Figure 1: Hosted applications system tray functionality available
If you launch your hosted applications from saved shortcuts, URIs or VMware® Workspace™ Portal, you’ll see a streamlined launch flow. Additionally, saving a hosted app in the Mac dock now works to launch that app. Plus, you can save a hosted app to your local Windows programs list by right clicking the app icon in the client launcher window.
Improvements for All!
Don’t use hosted applications yet? Don’t worry, there are features in the 3.1 clients for you too. All clients boast an improvement in the time it takes to connect to the View connection server and open the client launcher. If you use USB, you can now connect USB 3.0 devices to USB 3.0 ports.
We aim to support for new OSes as soon as they ship. Our latest clients are updated to work with the upcoming Apple OSes: Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) and iOS 8. One note, we will need to release an updated version of the iOS client to work on the iPhone 6 screen.
The Horizon Clients include Microsoft Lync’s VDI integration. In this release, we’ve extended the support to a VM desktop running Windows 2008 over PCoIP.
The Horizon Clients for Windows and Mac are available from the VMware Horizon Client download site. Updates to the iOS, Android, and Windows Store clients are available from the application stores; use your in-device update mechanism to get the new versions. Work with your hardware manufacturer to get the Horizon Client for Linux.
For more information, see the VMware Horizon Clients documentation.
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