Citrix Receiver for Windows Phone 8 now available for Enterprise Individuals

citrix-receiver-for-windows-phone-8

citrix-receiver-for-windows-phone-8

Microsoft and Nokia’s partnership is making progress slowly but in a right way. The new partner Citrix in the relationship makes the availability Citrix Receiver app possible on Windows Phone 8 platform.

The name “Citrix” won’t be unfamiliar with the individuals from the IT/Software development companies working remotely on their server machines with “Citrix Server” applications hosted on them. As being the same individual, it’s an addition to my pocket tools while having a Nokia Lumia Windows Phone. iPhone, iPad and Android versions have also been available on their respective stores and have been downloaded/installed thousands of times. The partnership of the three companies really did great to bring Citrix Receiver for Windows Phone 8 users giving them a helping hand to their online/remote jobs.

You can just go and grab the Citrix Receiver app for your Windows Phone 8 device from the Windows Phone Store, but do read the following for more information on key features of the app as well as the features which are not yet ready to use.

Citrix Blog: It works just like other Windows Phone 8 apps and other Receivers. When used with the Citrix Mobility Pack, Receiver automatically displays the device keyboard when an editable field has the focus. And, the desktop session scrolls if needed to make the input area visible.

It works with Citrix XenApp 5 and up, XenDesktop 5.6 and 7, VDI-in-a-Box 5.3, StoreFront 1.2 and 2.0, Web Interface 5.4, Access Gateway 9.3 and 10, as well as Netscaler Gateway 10.1.

Key Features

Citrix Support: Receiver for Windows Phone supports these features in an application session:

  • Pan and zoom gestures
  • App bar buttons to:
    • Hide or show the menu, where users can return to the Receiver home page or switch between running apps
    • Hide or show the keyboard
    • Send Ctrl+Alt+Delete
    • Toggle between panning/zooming and app scrolling
  • Gestures for mouse clicks: Single tap for left-click and long press for right-click
  • Citrix Mobility Pack features:
    • The use of mobile device controls instead of native Windows controls such as combo boxes.
    • Automatic display of the device keyboard when an editable field has the focus. The desktop session scrolls if needed to make the input area visible.

 

Thoroughly looking into the details on Citrix support pages, we found that the app is not yet finished with its features and made public in a hurry. There may be other partners (Microsoft, Nokia?) influencing the release of the Citrix receiver app to be quick. Well whatever reasons there could be but the first release of any app usually lacks features. The same way the current release of Citrix receiver lacks features listed below.

Known issues are already told officially as Citrix Receiver for Windows Phone does not support multi-touch gestures, Landscape orientation, logon issues with StoreFront and Access gateway.

Some workarounds are as follows

  • When Receiver for Windows Phone is deployed with StoreFront and Access Gateway, users cannot log on to Receiver if Access Gateway is configured with a SmartAccess logon point. To work around this issue, configure Access Gateway with a Basic logon point. [#401110]
  • When Receiver for Windows Phone connects to a XenApp Services site through an Access Gateway, a user who selects Remember my password and then logs out of the account is unable to log on again. To work around this issue, restart Receiver. [#404190]

Operating Requirements for Citrix Receiver on Windows Phone.

Minimum device requirements

  • Windows Phone OS 8.0

Citrix server environments

  • XenDesktop (any of the following products):
    • XenDesktop 7
    • XenDesktop 5.6
  • XenApp (any of the following products):
    • XenApp 6.5 for Windows Server 2008 R2
    • XenApp 6 for Windows Server 2008 R2
    • XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2008
    • XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2003
  • Citrix VDI-in-a-Box:
    • VDI-in-a-Box 5.3
  • For connections to virtual desktops and apps, Citrix Receiver supports StoreFront and Web Interface.
    • StoreFront 2.0 (recommended) or StoreFront 1.2:Provides direct access to StoreFront stores and to applications managed by XenMobile App Controller.
    • Web Interface 5.4 for Windows with legacy XenApp Services or XenDesktop Services sites and the PNAgent plugin (not supported for XenDesktop 7 deployments):Provides access to virtual desktops and apps from a Web browser.

If you configure a Receiver for Web site, users can obtain a Receiver provisioning file from that site by clicking Activate in Receiver.

Connectivity

Receiver for Windows Phone supports HTTPS connections through the following configurations.

  • For LAN connections:
    • StoreFront using StoreFront services
    • Web Interface 5.4 for Windows with XenApp Services and XenDesktop Services sites (not supported for XenDesktop 7 deployments)
  • For secure remote or local connections from StoreFront or from Web Interface 5.4 with XenApp Services and XenDesktop Services sites:
    • Citrix NetScaler Gateway 10.1
    • Citrix Access Gateway Enterprise Edition 10 (Maintenance build 69.6 is the minimum version supported)
    • Citrix Access Gateway Enterprise Edition 9.3
    • Citrix Access Gateway VPX
    Note: Receiver for Windows Phone does not support connections to App Controller through NetScaler Gateway.

 

Download Citrix Receiver from Windows Phone Store

Sources: Citrix blog, Citrix Support