I use one of Brown Bag’s mini iPads, and love it. Even got a highly responsive keyboard to go with it and it looks just like a little laptop with touch screen capability. Some of my co-workers use their iPads all day – we develop and maintain specialty iOS apps for our clients and it pays to keep the iPad close. Annoyingly, though, we also have to carry our actual laptops to do typical day-to-day tasking: email, Word docs, spreadsheets, slide shows, etc.
I so rarely click on ads served up while I’m doing research. But I surprised myself a couple days ago by clicking an ad for Parallels® Access.
I used Parallels Desktop extensively in a previous life because I’m a Mac snob and was required in my position as Studio Director to use Windows software. I struggled for a bit to get as proficient on a Dell with Windows as I was on a Mac. (To this day I still fumble Mac command with Windows control when executing keystroke commands.) When our IT service (who, ironically, used Macs) sympathized and told me about Parallels Desktop, I was elated. BAM! I could use Windows apps.
Enter Parallels Access – and a welcome entry it is. This new SAS app will let all of us – Windows and Mac users alike – remotely use the apps we have on our desktops right from the iPad. AND with the expected gestures we are accustomed to on the iPad.

I understand it isn’t without a minor flaw or two (I can’t recall an app that is), and it costs $79 annually, but what a fantastic tool for our iPad-using brothers and sisters! They no longer have to play the laptop-iPad shuffle when in meetings or traveling. And in the scheme of things, $79 isn’t that awful. We paid $50 a year for the Desktop app several years ago. The increase for a tool that frees up our team to be more nimble and less encumbered is worth the extra spend, I think.
Check out what folks are saying about the beta version:
TIMEtech: http://techland.time.com/2013/08/27/parallels-access-ipad-izes-windows-and-os-x/
Mashable: http://mashable.com/2013/08/27/parallels-access-review/
and MacLife: http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/parallels_access_review
And the app can be found here. http://www.parallels.com/products/access/
I say give it a shot!