SAN FRANCISCO—OnLive, the cloud-based, on-demand video-gaming service is going mobile — sort of.

At Tuesday's D: Dive into Mobile Conference, company founder and chief executive Steve Perlman unveiled new apps for the Apple iPad, and Android devices like the Samsung Galaxy Tab, that will let you watch others play games on the OnLive service, turning video games into a true "spectator's sport."

According to company officials, the OnLive Viewer is, for now, focused on "spectating and social features" because the console games currently available to play on the service (which charges a monthly service fee, and for some of the games) simply weren't designed for the iPad. OnLive may, however, release touch- and motion-aware games sometime next year.

Those who download the free app can watch either live game play or "Brag Clips", which are videos of especially good game moves. Users can also rate these clips. OnLive is simultaneously releasing a Samsung Galaxy OnLive Viewer, a move that clearly pleases Google.

"We're delighted to welcome OnLive to the Android ecosystem," said Andy Rubin, vice president of mobile platforms at Google. "OnLive has been able to take advantage of Android's open platform to deliver an advanced user experience in record time."

OnLive's ambitions, though, seem to extend well beyond gaming. During today's session at D: Dive into Mobile, OnLive's Perlman demonstrated how he can not only run a series of high-end applications on a Samsung Galaxy Tab through OnLive's Viewer, including Autodesk Maya, but also how he can browse Flash-based Web sites and run Windows 7 Touch—again, all through OnLive's mobile Viewer. In essence, OnLive's viewer is acting as a terminal viewer for cloud-based services, apps and platforms.

"The OnLive Viewer mobile App is the last piece of the puzzle to unify the worlds of TV, computing and mobile all under one real-time cloud-based platform, enabling previously inconceivable experiences, capabilities and live, video-rich social interaction," said Perlman.

OnLive doesn't allow you to watch everything; the game obscures portions of the game if a user is asked to enter personally identifiable information, like a password or real name.

This Viewer, however, may not be the "last piece of the puzzle." According to a recent report, OnLive, which already offers HD gaming on the PC and Mac, as well as a standalone network-connected console you can use to play OnLive's cloud-based games on an HDTV, may start offering streaming movies in 2011. Such a move would put the company in direct competition with streaming-movie leader Netflix.

PCMag's hands-on report for the OnLive service is here. We'll have a first look at the new mobile viewer shortly.