OnLive has announced the availability of a new application called "OnLive Viewer" for Apple's iPad. The free software allows users to spectate games being played on the service, but it won't actually let iPad users play games – at least not yet anyway.

The company said its new app is just a taste of what's to come. Most games aren't optimized for touch controls yet, but full game capabilities will be supported in the future. For now, OnLive has kicked things off by focusing on spectating and social features.

OnLive Viewer isn't limited to Apple's platform mind you, a version is also being developed for Android devices such as the recently launched Samsung Galaxy Tab. That project is currently in beta, but we haven't seen an official release projection.


What's possibly more exciting, however, is OnLive Viewer's potential beyond gaming. Just as OnLive allows you to stream high-end video games on low-end hardware, it could be used to access intensive desktop software from mobile devices.

During a conference today, OnLive CEO Steve Perlman showed how the OnLive Viewer could be used to access powerful enterprise software such as Autodesk Maya. The viewer was also shown running Flash web pages as well as Windows 7 Touch.