System, method, and graphical user interface for controlling an application on a tablet

A computer-implemented method for managing an online application from a tablet based client, comprising:

• providing data to the tablet based client for displaying an interactive image of a virtual controller on a display of the tablet based client for a user, the data includes program code defining a configuration of the virtual controller previously defined for a context of the online application and includes user specific adjustments to the configuration provided by a user, wherein control provided at the interactive image of the virtual controller rendered from execution of the program code substantially mimics control provided by a physical game controller to operate in the online application, and wherein the virtual controller provides omnidirectional, free-form movement in a synchronous direction in which the user moves a finger on the display of the tablet based client, wherein the interactive image of the virtual controller is drawn on the display of the tablet based client, in accordance to the configuration data defined for the virtual controller, so as to track position and direction of the user input and correlate to input of the online application, wherein the data for rendering the interactive image for a user is stored in a database and provided in response to detecting selection of the online application for user interaction;
• tracking user input of the user provided via the virtual controller, the user input received as control signals from the tablet based client via the virtual controller;
• and
• executing the online application on a server at least partially based on the control signals provided through the user input of the user via the virtual controller, wherein the user specific adjustments to the virtual controller from a session of the online application is updated to the program code of the virtual controller stored in a database on a hosting service and sent to the tablet based client as configuration data for execution for each subsequent session the tablet based client is used by the user for providing the control signals to the online application.

A computer-implemented method for enabling interaction with an online application from a tablet computer over the Internet, comprising:

• receiving access from the tablet computer at a server of an online service, the online service providing access to a plurality of applications, each application is configured for online streaming such that execution is performed by the server that is remote from the tablet computer;
• detecting selection of an application from the plurality of applications;
• accessing a database on the server to identify a virtual controller for the selected application for a user, the database including program code defining a configuration of the virtual controller previously defined for a context of the selected application and includes user specific adjustments to the configuration provided by a user;
• executing the application and the program code for the virtual controller on the server;
• and
• sending compressed audio and video data from the server to the tablet computer, the tablet computer is configured to decompress the audio and video data, the video data including data for rendering a graphical user interface (GUI) for presenting an interactive image of the virtual controller on a display of the tablet computer, the interactive image of the virtual controller is drawn on a display of the tablet computer in accordance to the configuration defined for the virtual controller that includes user specific adjustments to the configuration defined by the user, so as to track position and direction of user inputs and correlate to inputs of the online application, wherein the user specific adjustments to the virtual controller from a session of the online application is updated to the program code of the virtual controller stored in the database on the server and provided during subsequent sessions where the tablet based client is used by the user for accessing the online application, wherein the virtual controller is configured to capture inputs that simulate inputs of a physical game controller, wherein the inputs are useable to provide control inputs to drive interactivity for the selected application that is executed on the server remotely from the tablet computer, wherein the inputs enable omnidirectional, free-form movement in a synchronous direction in which the user moves a finger on the display of the tablet computer.