<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/bball.jpg"><img class="aligncenter  wp-image-6206" src="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/bball.jpg" alt="" width="161" height="180" /></a></p>
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The ACC tournament is officially over and the NCAA tournament is about to begin.  The weather is warming up; the flowers are blooming.  I love this time of year.  That’s why I am bringing you readers “FLISH MADNESS” this week.  Five days, Five blogs, all Flish!

For the first blog of the week I am going to go over the totally awesome Xen App Citrix Mobility Pack.

“With this feature installed, XenApp shared desktops are automatically re-skinned for more intuitive touch-friendly use on tablet devices.  Tablet Optimized Desktops work with the currently available Receiver for iOS and Receiver for Android.

The pack also provides users with a true Native Device Experience  for hosted apps by recognizing the type of endpoint operating system and enabling mobile device features such as auto-keyboard popup, local selector controls, and auto-scrolling.  The new <a href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.citrix.Receiver&amp;feature=more_from_developer#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEwMiwiY29tLmNpdHJpeC5SZWNlaXZlciJd">Receiver for Android</a> is required to take advantage of these enhancements.

This pack is required to make the unique capabilities of a mobile device such as GPS, camera and other sensors available to application developers who may use it in conjunction with the XenApp 6.5 Mobile Application SDK to create custom, mobile-friendly applications hosted by XenApp in the data center. “

Let’s take a look.  (all screen shots taken from my iPad, thanks Ian!).

The First thing you’ll notice when you login to an optimized shared desktop is that the start bar is at the top and the application short cuts are centered at the top of the screen.

<a href="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/start-bar.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-6209" src="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/start-bar-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /></a>

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All applications open with one “touch” as you would expect them too natively on a mobile platform.

<a href="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/appsWord.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-6205" src="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/appsWord-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /></a>

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When you press the navigation arrow at the top you get the following drop down.

<a href="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/navigation.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-6208" src="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/navigation-300x27.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="27" /></a>
<ul>
	<li>The home button brings you back to the Citrix Receiver login screen where you can log into another desktop or launch a Citrix “presented” app.</li>
	<li>The Blue Tooth button allows you to pair a BT device with the desktop</li>
	<li>The arrow keys bring up the four directional arrow keys.</li>
	<li>The pointer brings up the mouse pointer to interact with OS or apps if needed.  Though while just using Microsoft office apps I saw no need for this.</li>
	<li>The magnifier enlarges any thing that’s in the diameter of the magnifier ring.</li>
	<li>The gesture button shows all the very nice touch functionality built in to the mobility pack.  My personal favorite is the three finger tap that brings up the native iPad keyboard.</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/GestureGuide.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-6207" src="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/GestureGuide-300x261.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="261" /></a>
<ul>
	<li>The switch button allows you to go back and forth between the native Windows start bar and switch between applications.</li>
</ul>
The last thing to note is the optimized task bar at the bottom of the screen. The arrow buttons allow the navigation for browsing when you have multiple applications open that span larger than what can fit on the one screen.

<a href="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/taskBar.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-6210" src="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/taskBar-300x13.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="13" /></a>

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As I test more with this solution I will post additional findings.  For me the biggest take away is the “smoothness” at which the applications and desktop behave with native mobile like behavior!