Enjoying Online Poker No Matter Where You Are
It's a great time to be an online poker fan, as it's easier than ever to enjoy your favorite game no matter where you are or what type computer or mobile device you have. In the past many poker sites limited you to playing on a desktop or laptop running Windows, but now even Mac owners have a lot of options in addition to increasing support for smartphones and newer tablet devices such as the iPad.
Poker sites obviously want to reach as wide an audience as possible but they have to balance other factors such as security and usability, so they can't always provide a client to play on their sites for all the operating systems and devices out there. With Apple staging a big comeback in recent years, though, the support for Mac poker has increased, with an increase number of sites such as PokerStars, Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker, and Bodog offering Mac clients, including free poker money bonuses for trying them out; some even offer no-download options for the ultimate convenience. As long as Macs maintain their popularity more and more online poker sites will likely offer Mac versions, as the market is too large to simply ignore.
Another big trend in the poker world is the exploding popularity of smartphones and mobile devices, as a growing amount of poker fans turn to their iPhones, iPods, and iPads, as well as Android powered devices, to get their poker fix. Games of all sorts have been hugely popular so far with iPhone users, and poker is no exception, with hundreds of poker apps available in Apple's App Store, including free and premium editions.
One key factor to keep in mind, however, is that so far the options for real money poker iPhone apps are very, very limited. The reason is two-fold, as many online sites aren't yet convinced that mobile gaming is secure enough for real money play, plus Apple has been very restrictive as far as not approving gambling apps for real money for distribution in the App Store. It remains to be seen whether or not Apple's stance will change, as it's not anti-poker, Apple itself has developed a popular iPhone poker app that lets you play against computer opponents for play chips, but so far Apple has been determined to bypass getting entangled in any legal difficulties related to enabling users to gamble online for real money.
The Switch Poker app is the first real option for real money poker on the iPhone, but even it is limited to non-US players and it can be difficult to find a game due to a small player base. Full Tilt has recently announced that its Rush Poker tables are now available in a mobile version for real money play, but it's only for devices that can run Flash, which rules out all of Apple's products and largely limits it to users on Android powered phones. While the situation is improving for poker fans who want to play for real money on their smartphones and mobile devices, there's still a long way to go before it's as easy as playing on desktops and laptops.
