A company known as Splashtop has released a Windows 8 Metro Testbed app for the iPad. As the name suggests, the program allows developers to test their Metro apps on a full size tablet - in this case, Apple's iPad. The whole idea behind this app is to allow developers to test touch functions of their apps. Similar in theory to Air Display, Win8 Metro Testbed is installed on a Windows 8 PC and streams the desktop to the iPad.

From here users are free to test their Metro Apps on the iPad with full touch support including swiping from the right to access the Windows 8 Charms menu and swiping from the left to switch between apps. There's also pinch-to-zoom and Windows 8 "snaps" support that allows the user to run two apps side by side. When finished with an app, simply swipe down from the top to close it.

ZDNet tested the app and generally liked what they saw. Responsiveness was excellent and there was hardly any lag over WiFi. The only real issue was the native screen resolution of 1,024 x 768 on the iPad they tested. This is the minimum resolution for a Metro app which is fine for testing a single program but if you want to use the snap feature, you'll need at least 1,366 x 768.

The Metro Testbed app is available now in the App Store for $24.99 (50 percent off the normal price for a limited time) and requires a separate PC with Windows 8 to use as a streamer. Of course, if you are an app developer, odds are you already meet this requirement.