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Why Tablets Haven't Taken Off In Business
An anonymous reader writes "On PC World's blog, Keir Thomas suggests reasons why tablets have never taken off in business, and explains how Apple's iPad was able to waltz in and steal the entire market. It's all about giving users freedom to figure out how useful tablets can be, he says, rather than forcing them into narrow usage scenarios: 'There's a lot to be said for having faith in users to make best use of their computer, without pushing and pulling them in ways you think are best for them.'"
So that's why the first tablet that doesn't let you do everything a laptop would succeeded?
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
>> why tablets have never taken off in business
No cupholders.
"It's all about giving users freedom to figure out how useful tablets can be, he says"
Umm, aren't people buying these *because* the software ecosystem is more locked down and controlled than a traditional computer is? To a lot of people that is an advantage if it reduces their risk of malware.
Something seems backwards. There are far less restricted machines out there, but people prefer the iPads instead of those.
However, there exists another key to Apple's success: its products are built around giving people freedom in the user experience. Apple lets you figure out how best to make use of their handhelds. The App Store is a beautiful demonstration of this--it's all about choosing what you want to do with your iPhone or iPad, and not being badgered into using them in a particular way.
Err no. Apple locks down the user experience and rejects apps that change it or threaten it in any way, like widgets and alternate browsers etc.
By way of a demonstration of how not to do it, take a look at Windows Phone 7. Everything is built-in, making for a very focused device. You want Facebook? It's built-in. You want Gmail? It's there. It feels like Windows Phone 7 is trying too hard.
Although it might sound like built-in tools present a lot of usability, what Microsoft is actually doing is limiting the user by pushing them into particular usage scenarios. It's feels too limiting. The user has little freedom to adapt the phone to their way of working without a significant amount of tedious configuration.
That makes no sense whatsoever. Slow news Saturday?
This space for rent.
The reason the tablets we've had since the 90's never really caught on was because they didn't do enough beyond what a notebook did to justify the difference in price.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
giving users freedom to figure out how useful tablets can be rather than forcing them into narrow usage scenarios, plus liberal use of the reality distortion field.
I'm not sure I'd say the iPad has "stolen the market". Nearly every presentation I've been in/been a part of still has a laptop as the primary source of information. An ipad is great to carry around if you're just trying to get email. If you're trying to do any real work, it fails miserably.
The reason the tablet never took off is because it's just a more expensive, less powerful laptop. The iPad isn't REPLACING the laptop anytime soon. Hell, it isn't even REPLACING the tablet. The people who have adopted the tablet will continue using it. Everyone else will continue using their laptops for 99% of their business oriented tasks, and keep their iPad's around when they don't want to lug around a full laptop, and don't need to get any "real work" done. If I'm going on an overnight trip to attend a meeting where I'm not presenting, you bet your ass I'll probably just grab an iPad for the flight to watch movies and check email. If I have to get any work done, I'm taking a laptop.
I would be willing to bet the reason most business users have picked up an iPad is the same reason I have: 10 hours of movie playback. I can watch movies for almost my entire trip to Sydney on one charge. You aren't getting anywhere close to that with anything else on the market today.
Doesn't matter how pretty and comfortable you make the prison, it's still a prison. And if you need to run anything that isn't valid depending on Apple, you're out of luck.
I was given to understand that the reason the Ipad hasn't succeeded in a business environment is because the Windows based Tablet already dominates that market. I know the local hospital purchased a ton of tablets recently when they underwent a huge remodeling.
I think he's got it partly right: from the outset, the big markets identified for tablet computers were hospital, warehouse inventory, and maintenance person type jobs. Note these are cases where somebody probably runs just a single app and they didn't choose the app themselves it was a condition of their job. In other words, its a crummy data entry device.
The iPad seems like the first tablet that's positioned as something someone would actually enjoy using, rather than being a Windows XP notebook with a barcode scanner in place of a keyboard.
That said, to this hacker it seems absurd to think of an iPad representing freedom. It looks to me more like a cross between an etch-a-sketch, finger paints, and a television.
The features that have made the iPad a huge success are very consumer oriented features:
Will those benefits apply to business customers? Maybe, but none of those are things that business really cares about. In fact, some people (service providers and IT departments) have a lot to lose by recommending a device with those first two features. It's possible the only effect this will have is on how happy business users are with the equipment they're given.
...hipsters don't have jobs.
Kill all hipsters.
Tablets as they exist currently are more or less useless for business purposes. They target a different market. Must be a slow news day.
"There's a lot to be said for having faith in users to make best use of their computer, without pushing and pulling them in ways you think are best for them."
He said that about an Apple product??? Believe me, in the past the limits imposed on tablet users were mostly because of limitations in the technology; with Apple it's blatantly lack of faith in users to make best use of their computer, by pushing and pulling them in ways they think are best for them.
And no, I don't often partake in Apple bashing, but come on!
... would be that historically, the "business" community has rarely adopted anything computer-like until it comes out with the IBM logo on it. Back in the 1980s, lots of little companies were marketing desktop computers, but they were considered toys by the business community, until IBM came out with theirs.
Now, I can hear people saying "What about Microsoft, huh?" This is an example that supports the thesis, since Microsoft's first successes were with the machines labelled as "IBM Personal Computers". Furthermore, if you go to ibm.com and look for available small computers, you'll see that all of them are advertised as running "Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Edition"(or sometimes "Vista" or "XP"). This supports the general business-world belief that Microsoft is the software-development division of IBM.
Yes, I've asked business people about this, and I've gotten funny looks, because "everyone knows" that Microsoft is part of IBM. If you try going into an explanation of why this isn't technically true, you merely find yourself dismissed as a geek trying to confuse them with Too Much Information. They don't need to know the details of the arrangement; they just know that "computer" and "IBM machine" are and always have been synonyms, and the small ones run Microsoft software, so Microsoft is IBM's small-computer software developer. That's all they need to know; the rest is left to the hired help to discuss. And they don't order "tablet" computers because they haven't seen one sold by IBM yet.
(Hey, is there one? I don't see it at ibm.com, but that doesn't mean that they don't have one. Sorta like how yes, you can get an IBM PC running linux -- if you can find it to order it. But try digging around at ibm.com to find it. It'll probably take you hours, and you should bookmark the page when you find it, otherwise it'll take you more hours to find it again the next time. Or it'll have moved and your bookmark doesn't work any more. But you can find MS Windows Pro all over the site. I's hard to find tablets there, so IBM probably doesn't sell them -- or doesn't want to. ;-)
Anyway, it's likely that Apple has never much marketed to the business community, because like everyone else selling non-IBM-branded stuff, they know that they can't sell enough there for it to be profitable. But they can sell to individual purchasers, who might take their Apple toys along to work with them, and that's fine.
There's an old saying that nobody ever gets fired for buying IBM. Similarly, nobody ever stays in business by trying to sell non-IBM stuff in IBM's market. That's a recipe for disaster and bankruptcy. The folks at Apple are smart enough to understand this, and don't try to sell in an arena where IBM/Microsoft will squash them.
Of course, there may be a third and fourth theory for why Apple stays out of the business arena. Anyone want to explain the others? ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
isnt it rather because technology finally reached a point where a device that is the size of a tablet provides acceptable resolution, processing power, battery life, thinness/lightness, and an acceptable touchscreen interface ? and apple jumped in at the right time ?
Read radical news here
We all know, the main reason is that pre-iPad tablets kinda had to be placed on the table. It made it impossible to use Facebook while in a boring meeting, compared to an ordinary laptop where the screen provided some privacy.
Yes, you're right. Etch-a-sketches and finger paints are creative media.
I apologize. I shouldn't have compared them to the iPad.
No, it wasn't cost. It was weight and battery life. I had a couple of tablet-style computers over the years. They were nice machines and not all that expensive.
But at over 1" thick and weighing 6 pounds, you simply couldn't comfortably carry them around. They also took too long to turn on and off. You couldn't build a powerful lightweight tablet at the time at any price.
Now that we have the processors, batteries, and screens that make lightweight, long-lasting tables possible, they are appearing from many companies.
Timing, as others have said. People loved their iPods, then fell in love with their iPhones and iTouches - they got use to the interface. True, the iPad is more in the smartphone device category than in the netbook/laptop/tablet PC market (it doesn't even have a wacom digitizer to permit inking... what good is a notepad you can't write on naturally?) - and people have grown accustom to those with the recent emergence of powerful smartphones. If the iPad was launched 2 years ago it wouldn't have succeeded.
I thought about it. I could see it work for us for use with data collection for our DDs, which are internet/web based. But for me I would think if there was an integrated barcode to key entry feature that would do it.
Looking at the iPad/iPod/iPhone the barcode apps are more for amazon, not so you can use it as an entry alternative in another app. So without that they don't have much value here.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
and not enough thrust.
Once the encryption products mature for the iPads, and provide a secure environment for data at rest, they'll start penetrating the business market. Until then, they'll remain nice movie players.
"He's using a quantum encryption scheme! That'll take hours to break!"
I thought about it. I could see it work for us for use with data collection for our DDs, which are internet/web based. But for me I would think if there was an integrated barcode to key entry feature that would do it.
Looking at the iPad/iPod/iPhone the barcode apps are more for amazon, not so you can use it as an entry alternative in another app. So without that they don't have much value here.
If there is a need for that then you can do this:
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/06/01/hacksugar-cuecat-barcode-scanner-on-the-ipad/
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Are NEVER going to take off until they are really useful for something and less than $200. Otherwise, of course we all buy netbooks. They're extremely useful, and you can get a great one for about $200.
Tablets are WAY over priced right now. There is NO killer app worth $1000, and that's what they end up costing after 6 months on contract.
Any business owner anywhere will tell you that cutting costs is important to them, and this is a cost they can cut before it even comes up!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Maybe 5% of business could use a barcode input. A much larger percentage - probably over 90% - needs some form of text input, but handwriting on a tablet isn't fast enough. Those on-screen keyboards are impossible to use accurately for any significant data input. How about they add a real keyboard to the tablet instead??
Pffft! I didn't know it was comedy hour.
Apple has one real niche. Multimedia production.
Beyond that, attempting to shoehorn Apple into a "enterprise" solution is not using the product as Apple intended.
PERIOD. I don't care if they're selling you "enterprise support" or not. Apple doesn't do that. They don't even fake doing it well. Their enterprise solution is "buy this and try it, buy that and try it, buy this other thing and try it, if none of them work, sorry, we don't do enterprise support".
Call me when the discussion has left the reality distortion field.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Because the vast majority of IT leaders are morons who are more concerned with how their decisions match what they read in CTO magazine than deploying a tool that might actually reinvent the way people work in a positive manner.
Adding a wired scanner lessens the portability. I was thinking like the ipod/iphone with the camera doing scanning, use that as a barcode scanner. No extra devices, you can visually see what is scanned (with the right UI) etc. No extra fumbling.
The other post suggestion of an integrated keyboard would be another bonus too.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
...is that they wre horribly overpriced. I wanted a Windows tablet when they first came out, right up until I found em priced at $2000 and up. What the hell? You could get two nice laptops for that.
Even today they run about twice what they should. Apple waltzes in with a tablet half the cost of a Windows tablet, and it actually works well with its touch interface ... It is not at all hard to see why people liked it.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
Too fragile... not durable...
okay four.. four words
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Their enterprise solution is "buy this and try it, buy that and try it, buy this other thing and try it, if none of them work, sorry, we don't do enterprise support".
Erm... this is different from the Windows OS ecosystem in what way? How many different antivirus vendors are there for Windows? How many anti-malware, anti-spam, special-purpose firewall, intrusion detection appliance and on and on and on...
Compare and contrast that with OS-X, Linux and Android antivirus apps. For the most part these commercial offerrings aren't about securing your Mac, Linux, Android PC or server. They're about detecting and eliminating pass-thru attacks on the poor vulnerable Windows clients you might share information with.
If the Windows world is the homeland of security, why is securing it more than a $20B/yr industry? And why does it fail so hard at security even with all that, with malware infections detected outnumbering systems checked? This crud has gotten so bad they're embedding Windows Malware service application stacks in freaking network switch modules now. That is not what a network switch is for.
Every complex platform solution has vulnerabilities. But the Windows ecosystem is the only one where malware variants outnumber the population of Belize, where individual botnets take out whole countries with DDOS attacks, where malware is so disruptive it can prevent the peaceful development of nuclear energy. Ok, that last one was a bit of a troll.
In case you haven't noticed, enterprise client-server applications are moving to web apps. This transition should have happened a decade ago, but the Microsoft shops all had to fall into the IE/.NET/MS Java traps and then chew their leg off to escape before we all got with the "industry standard" plan. Now that we're all finally down with the W3C things will move right along.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
My fortune 500 company has suddenly discovered that its employee's will provide their own hardware if we can get access to our Notes mail and the shared drive. They provide a software solution for the log-on security and charge your department a nominal monthly cost. They get happier and (more) productive employee's with no hardware costs. They are allowing iPads, iphones and blackberries so far, probably expand the list later. They even have a slide show for managers explaining the point that they get many people working with these devices with very little cost (which is covered by the dept charge)
When I go to meetings with many in attendance (we have lots of meetings) everyone brings their laptop so they can do one of two things; check / respond to their email while someone else is presenting information or, presenting information (usually ppt slides). I know this is a sad commentary about the meetings. So now the iPad / iPhone can do these things and we would not run out of battery power. So instead of hauling around my laptop backpack (needed so I can carry the charger and laptop around all day) I could carry the iPad. It is good enough to read email and quickly reply - the business task I might need to do. I can show my presentation. Then I go back to my office and create new content on the desktop/laptop on my desk.
Given the historical stodginess of the IT philosophy of the past this is a dramatic change. I hear it has been driven from the top down, VPs requiring their underlings to have iPads (they were typically using nothing - not even laptops). Well if the VP needs something it is amazing what might be allowed for the rest of us.
for quite some time. There are 2 problems with the tablet industry:
1. Too expensive (Apple)
2. Apple.
First of all, tablets are ridiculously useful and don't need a lot of processing power, all they have to do is run basic browsers, and have the freedom to run millions of proprietary apps. If tablets scaled down power for price, you would see them everywhere. Imagine how useful they would be for viewing details of things everywhere, from car garages reading the cars info and stock room info, to hospitals replacing clipboards with tablets, to anything you can imagine. For 100, or even 200 bucks and equipped with an easy to use API and extensive customization abilities, USB drive, SD card slot and integrated wi-fi, they are all of a sudden useful in millions of business situations. But as long as Apple essentially has the ability to spy on tablets, and restrict your actions on them, they won't be worth jack shit. If we followed this formula instead, tablets could make the future happen today.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
Several million people have bought iPads. I haven't-- I don't have a use for one. Several million people beg to differ, however, and their needs are just as valid.
Obviously, a netbook will serve some needs better than a tablet. But a laptop will serve some needs better than a netbook. Calm down; you are not the market. Your needs are different. It's not worth $500 bucks to you. You will survive.
So you are saying allowing people to use computers as computers makes them more useful?
Who wudda thunk it?
Even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat
i see tablet-like devices every day:
-inventory in stores
-sign for receiving a packet
-ordering food (i live in japan)
-return a rented car
So i guess tablets are used where they are practical: a varying limited number of choices where a comparatatively slow input is acceptable
They are not used in places where you neet to type text. And as long as the phase of non-em digitizers dominates the market handwriting recognition will not take over-even then i am sceptical.
LAPTOP
And when they get to the next room, they plug the laptop into an ethernet connection.
I have seen this at lots of corporations.
They don't use tablets because they don't need them.
They figured work arounds years ago and they're using that.
A laptop may not be the ideal but its works, so fugggedaboudit bub!
A laptop has more business cachet.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
'However, there exists another key to Apple's success: its products are built around giving people freedom in the user experience. Apple lets you figure out how best to make use of their handhelds. The App Store is a beautiful demonstration of this--it's all about choosing what you want to do with your iPhone or iPad, and not being badgered into using them in a particular way.'
this guy is either drinking too much of the Apple flavored Kool-Aid, has some sort of favored tech journalist status with Apple, or completely clueless. A hermetically sealed walled garden community of Apple blessed apps running on hardware that is also hermetically sealed?
I'll take a Samsung Galaxy running Android 2.2 any day over an iPad running a watered down version of OS X
This Old Man by McFrontalot
Keep getting older and hairier
on my neck, back and derriere,
but not atop the pate.
Dear DNA, let's negotiate!
I'll trade the fading vision, you could have that back,
plus this 30-year-old-man belly's kinda wack.
My hearing is nearing deafness and I wheeze.
Yo, please save me from the wrist hurt disease!
It's infeasible that these, a full list of ailments,
should do anything but accrue. I'll fail ten
times out of ten to age in reverse like Mork.
Is there anything sadder than a dork
for whom the new hotness is not just inaccessible,
it's grumbled against? You kids, reduce your decibels!
Don't make me come over there and shake my cane.
(It's that rapper from the AARP and he's insane!)
This old man, he rhymed once.
He put up some valiant fronts.
With a wick-wack bitter lack of youthfulness & charm,
this old man kept rhyming on.
Joints creaking while I squeak around the stage,
hella grandmothers telling me I ought to act my age.
Deranged already, I don't got no brain medicine.
If we were running out of food on a boat, I'd get jettisoned
or eaten. I'm unsweetened.
Don't tell me that I got the shortest straw; I'm not a cretin,
just a little senile and gassy and slow.
But I bet I'm very salty! And I could still row.
Let's gobble on that infant. Infants are useless
(also very soft, which is good, 'cause I'm toothless).
Come on kids, you want to get rescued or what?
Don't mumble all amongst yourselves. Speak up!
(I lost my earhorn the other day on the bus.)
You would think by the way you whippersnappers make a fuss
that I said something crazy, profound or obscene.
Wait, where'd the ocean go? Where have you taken me?
This old man, he rhymed twice.
He found this would not suffice.
With a wick-wack bitter lack of youthfulness & vim,
this old man was dour and grim.
Now Frontalot's shopping for the top of the hill.
Should have bought a burial plot soon as I got ill,
but I foolishly thought that I could put it off;
now I'm ghoulishly fraught with a [cough cough cough].
Soft in the head, hard in the disposition:
how'd I earn this intractable attrition
of the vigor that I figured would be mine for life?
Is there no upside? Well, the rhymes are rife!
Every year I'm alive, add to my vocabulary.
Going to do it till I'm staring at the ceiling in the mortuary.
Plus I'm probably wise by now
and could do all the things old people talk about,
like: count pills; argue bills at diners;
get a little tiny funky car and be a Shriner;
go to the haberdasher so I could look dapper;
get stroke and forget I'm too old to be a rapper.
This old man, he rhymed thrice.
He spoke a thin gruel of lies.
With a wick-wack bitter lack of youthfulness & spunk,
this old man's rhymes was bunk.
This old man, he rhymed lots;
rhymed till he grew liver spots.
With a wick-wack bitter lack of youthfulness & cheer,
why he rhymed remains unclear.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
You aim for the bullseye. That's the goal. Before you let the arrow go you accept that once it's loose it will hit what it hits. Sometimes it misses the target entirely when you're new. Sometimes it hits the blue ring or the red. When you're skilled you can be sure it will hit the yellow dot. But the faint blue plus scribed in the middle of the yellow dot? You can't even see it at 50 yards distance. You may as well expect to split an arrow that hit that spot. That's the Robin Hood level of archery. Legendary to the level of perhaps being impossible.
The iPad didn't just hit the center of the faint plus at the heart of the yellow spot. It did that and caught fire. It may as well have split an arrow to get there. Steve Jobs described the iPad as "magical" and I have to agree with him. The thing inspires adoration that defies reason. To merely hold it in public is to invite envy and respect. It could be an inert mockup and it could get you laid. I don't lean toward that sort of thing, but I'm still in awe of it. That's a lot of power to put in the hands of mortal men.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
My guess for why ipads haven't done well in a business/academic environment is because of iTunes. If Apple designed software for businesses, I think it would do well. I'm thinking things like easy wireless pdf transfer (from ipad to computer and back), ability of PA's to message people's ipads, etc.
Why nobody mentioned price? If there was a windows tablet priced at $600, I would have bought one 10 years ago. But they were all priced higher than a laptop. Much higher initially. And I just had to ask myself. Why not buy a laptop instead?
The keyboard in particular but the mouse as well are well suited as content creation devices. For text/numeric input, which is a major part of business work, the keyboard is tops. iDevices are not well suited for content creation. Yes, yes, I'm aware of various apps out there for it, it is token and nothing compared to a normal computer. Scott Adams noted this that he consumes a lot on his iPhone but rarely creates, as opposed to his old Blackberry. They are just well designed for consumption, not so much for production. It isn't impossible, but it isn't what they are good at.
I've seen the same thing at work. We've got a few professors that bought iPads as toys, but they don't get used for any serious work because they aren't good at it. they piddle around on their iPads and surf the web or the like, but when they have to write a paper or an e-mail more than a few sentences a computer is what gets used. Their interface is just better for getting the job done.
So I think this is the way things will go. Tablets may well start to do real well in consumer space, but they aren't going to make a big impact in business. They'll remain toys largely, since they just aren't useful for creation which is what you are doing at work. People may use them for work purposes, but they'll be incidental, a case where a laptop would do as well or better.
The iPad has Bluetooth you know. Feel free to add a keyboard yourself, if you are one of the people who needs one.
Yes, you're right. Etch-a-sketches and finger paints are creative media.
I apologize. I shouldn't have compared them to the iPad.
Slashdot isn't known for covering how artists use technology. David Hockney is a blue chip artist that has been working with the iPad and the iPhone to make work that gets serious press. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11666162
I work in media arts too. The iPad is sprouting like kudzu in creative work.
A point in every direction is the same as no point at all. -- Harry Nilsson
Nobody has made a device with an 8.5x11 display.
What's the real reason apple sells? Stupid people have loads of money and like shiny shit.
I wouldn't be able to stand a computer that didn't have a keyboard. that's why I have never purchased a tablet. I find it odd that a user interface that requires you to control it with your fingers is somehow regarded as 'progress'. Do tablet users also dispense with the use of knives and forks for eating, I wonder?
They keep trying to find technical, engineering, functional reasons for why Apple is successful. Why can't they understand that people buy Apple hardware for its design, to impress their friends, because it looks different and it's "cool" and very user-friendly?
At least the iPad isn't ready for real business purposes or even college student uses at my university. Our CMS and helpdesk system uses Silverlight (not available on the iPad) so that's the entire IT department out. Our LMS uses Java and Flash (not available on the iPad) for content delivery, so that's the Instructors, Staff and Students out. Same for the HRIS and SIS which uses some hairy Javascript code. I suppose if we were to flush millions down the toilet, we could use the iPad's straight-jacketed functionality. Not. Gonna. Happen.
Here come da fudge!
The main reason they haven't taken off in the enterprise is they cannot be secured. Enterprise companies want to make sure that data loss is not going on with these devices. There are very few companies that have software for the apple platform in respect to security.
Joe, the majority of users do not need or want an integrated keyboard adding additional bulk. Those who want a keyboard can get a case which let's you use the Apple Bluetooth keyboard but then it is no longer a tablet form factor and you might as well use a laptop instead.
I sometimes put the Apple wireless keyboard in my messenger bag along with the iPad in an apple iPad case so that I can prop the ipad up and type more text with the keyboard for longer emails but the onscreen keyboard is fine most of the time.
There are blutooth scanners and these scanners are far more accurate and reliable than a camera. With a blutooth scanner, no changes in the software are required. The scanner will work with any software, even web UIs providing an alternative to keyboard input. You also can then continue to hold your tablet like a clipboard cradled in one arm while scanning items with the other hand. You can then hit a "submit button with your finger if needed between items.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Having worked in corporate America for 20 years it is not surprising that a superb innovation like the iPad hasn't caught on. Most companies are aggressively stupid. For every worker who wants a iPad there are 2 luddite IT Windoze monkeys throwing up their tired security arguments.
an ill wind that blows no good
I'm in the middle of converting a law firm from laptop's with docking stations to desktops and ipads. The whole process started when the senior partner with a gadget fetish picked up an ipad at launch. My job was to wrestle with what he wanted to do vs what it was capable of and find ways to make it work. The issue before had been that a lawyer would have to carry their laptop, charger, bag and usually some sort of 3g card or pray for wifi access, this is in addition to a briefcase with all the needed papers (legal is still one area where paperless is impossible) for the case. My job was to find out how to do all of the same stuff they normally do with just the ipad and a keyboard. I warned them that I didn't think it was possible, but managed to prove myself wrong.
It took 4 apps to get them up and running, iAnnotate for pdf editing, documents to go for normal word and excel stuff, iDictate for DSS compatible dictation and iTeleport for remote access if they really need to connect to their profile back in the office. The rest of the functionality is out of the box. Now they can send, receive, edit and review any documents or media related to the case directly without having to hassle with all the gear, security settings, etc. It may not be for everyone, but for some jobs its been a blessing.
Incidentally, he tried this about 5 years ago with an HP TX1100, thought the functionality was there (they were slates that ran XP) the lack of a touch or pen oriented interface made it clumsy at best, it had all the bells and whistles, it was upgradeable, had usb, memory card readers, etc...but due to its identity crisis it just wasn't comfortably useable as a tablet or as a notebook.
Those are very pretty flowers.
That pretty much proves my point, being, the iPad is a better finger paint simulator than it is something for people like me who create with Turing-complete media.
Quote from article:
"At no point are we shown [in an iPad commercial] an individual in a business suit tapping away at a tablet in the business class lounge of an airport. I HAVEN'T CHECKED BUT I GUARANTEE THAT, if you look at the marketing materials for every other tablet device, there will be at least one photo of a smart business-suited person using the device."
Everything in the Apple iPad ads are words, hands, and the iPad. In no way does Apple shun business:
1. cinematic, elementary, academic, full-size, PRESENTING, bought, SOLD, fantasy, electric
2. MEDICAL, live, musical, WORK, play, memories, social, MAGAZINES, historic
3. delicious, learning, playful, LITERARY, artful, friendly, PRODUCTIVE, scientific, magical
that's all we're asking as consumers of digital technology. it doesn't have to be the best, it just needs to work well enough.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
The same can be said for good game design; if there's only one way to play the game, it's a lot less interesting than if there's many ways to solve each puzzle.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Summary: Why tablets haven't taken off in business.
Article: Why tablets haven't been big business before the iPad: Because they were marketed for business, not for consumers.
The article says the opposite of what the summary says it says. I must be new here.
They are in enterprise multimedia production only. But generally speaking they are a consumer company.
Apple's stores use iPod touches (not sure which) in cases that incorporate a barcode scanner, for ringing up purchases, and a magnetic strip reader, for payments, and a rechargeable battery.
It is apparently something they designed themselves, a custom job, so it's not on the market.
A company writing an iPhone app in-house could probably license barcode reading code from a 3rd party, for use in their own apps.
I don't know if there's a market of enterprise app pieces being distributed as source code or libraries. Might be.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA