Parallels Access

Parallels is an awesome way for me to access my desktop on the go. My iPad is my main computer on-the-go, but every now and again, I need to accomplish one little task on my computer while I’m out. Unfortunately, in my work as an artist/game designer, I often find myself struggling to “paint” anything because this app does not support clicking and dragging. If I want to edit a level in my game engine for instance, this means drawing one tile at a time instead of using more fluid motions. If the devs could make it possible to use clicking and dragging interactions through parallels, this would be a 5 star app. Strongly recommend for 90% of workflows.

It only supports the primary display. If you have multiple displays, it’s supposed to aggregate open apps/windows on the primary display, but it doesn’t. Even if you force close apps remotely and reopen them, they open on other displays. But it gets worse, you can’t even access a parallels virtual machine (which might be running on 1 display). Mine, for example, always loads on the 2nd display. I guess if you run 1 display, it’s fine. In 2023, most of us don’t, so it’s an exercise in frustration. Who wants to physically unplug the other displays when they’re rushing out of their home or office? That’s the whole point of Remote Desktop. In the boards, Parallels advises users to just use the web portal. If you do that, though, you need to delete this app or it will load instead. In terms of user experience, web portals are just plain terrible on iOS b.c of browser limitations. They really need to fix this issue that’s been active in the parallels community for years. They have a great dev team (parallels desktop is incredible), so it’s just not a priority.

It’s a super slow lagging app. The connection is disconnected every so often it refreshes the user interface is cumbersome. It works sometimes on a Mac and work sometimes an iPad or a regular computer but it’s never really reliable. It’s always refresh rate that’s really liking all the time..

This app does not appear to do anything of any value. A desktop is shown but there is no way to control or manipulate anything.

Terrible and cannot be used on iOS or iPadOS looking at a windows 11 screen, the text is just blurry even after trying all suggested config changes. Unusable.

This does not work for mobile whatsoever. Maybe it works better from PC to PC but not from PC to phone.

I have a Mac Mini (M1) running Ventura, and am trying to access it from an iPad 11” (4th Gen). The Mac is a new home installed system that was used to replace a Mac-In-The-Cloud VM that could not be upgraded beyond Carolina due to the cloud provider’s configuration. So I bought the new machine, and hosted it myself. Set it up, and can access it with a keyboard and monitor perfectly. Installed the Parallels Access configuration, and have regretted it ever since. Every few moments, it freezes with the message ‘Pasting from “computer name”’, and will not release until I press cancel. About 70% of the time, the screen stops responding to mouse clicks, and I am forced to exit the session, and log back in. This gives me about 5-10 minutes of use at a time. And there does not appear to be any way to configure it to stop trying to paste from my remote machine. I tried to contact support, but they make it very difficult to actually ask them anything, only read their FAQ, which by the way is only a glowing review about how awesome their program works. Very annoying when their program is not working awesome, and simply adds to the frustration. My best suggestion is to skip this program, and go with one of the other Remote Desktop solutions on the market… This one is not worth the money, and their support is even worse.

Pad App

There are many remote access options but this is the best I’ve tried. Very slick, not perfect, but a great addition I’ve come to count on. I was quite worried when this was made part of Corel, but I have not seen any issues with stability or updates.

I’ve used Parallels Access for years and when I am working remotely I will sometimes use it for 3-4 hours a day, controlling my iMac at work remotely through the iPad. I can say with 100% surity, after examining all the other options for controlling a Mac or PC through an iPad, that this is the best. BUT, it’s not perfect. My main beefs with the control system is that, on a Mac at least, certain keys cannot be typed through the controlled computer, because the developers ignore the tickets I open when I ask them to fix these small but frustrating control issues. The following keys cannot be typed (they get ignored when typed on a Bluetooth keyboard or Apple Smart Keyboard while controlling a Mac): *, ~ (shift + `), and +, though there might have bee a few more. So Parallels, fix this frustrating usage issue and I’ll give you a 5 star rating!