Ipad used to play World of Warcraft

Great news for MMO-loving Apple fans...

Web streaming firm Gaikai apparently has managed to stream World of Warcraft (WoW) to the Ipad.

The company, which is about to launch a beta of its service, aims to stream games to devices with an Internet connection and an web browser. Unsurprisingly, being able to show that it can stream one of the most popular games onto a fashionable device is unlikely to do the firm any harm in generating interest in its service.

WoW still remains the most popular massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) by some margin and has legions of devotees, much like Apple's products. The interesting aspect of all this isn't the actual streaming but rather how the firm managed to circumvent Apple's restrictions on the Ipad and what implications this might have for the company and devices running the Iphone OS.

Given that the cappuccino firm is fervently against Adobe's Flash for its ability to bypass the App Store and enable applications such as Gaikai's streaming platform, Gaikai has brought forward the possibility that other applications can run on Apple's devices and avoid the firm's draconian application development and approval process.

Gaikai claims that its technology will let users overcome hardware failings on devices, calling the reliance on purchasing pricey computers and hardware to play games "archaic". Perhaps Apple's expensive toy is a bad example to show off the firm's service, but nonetheless this centralised approach to games deployment takes Valve's content distribution service, Steam, to the next level.

WoW has already been shown to work on Ipad's mini-me, the Iphone, some years back using a similar remote streaming system, Telekinesis.

The Ipad with its larger screen should make for a better gaming experience, if and when Gaikai's service is rolled out.