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Why PCs Trump iPads For User Innovation
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Bob Lewis argues that while the iPad may be opening IT's eyes to a new way to encourage end-users to innovate new solutions for their organizations, that work will better be undertaken on the PC. 'When the subject is PCs, the answer is to lock 'em down and run everything in the data center. When the subject is iPads, the answer is that there's an app for that,' Lewis writes. 'Before you decide the iPad is your platform, though, consider the factors that favor the PC. First, it's a sunk cost. Second, it's more capable. And third, your end-users are already familiar with it. Which brings us to what's particularly sad about the end-user innovation situation: Until the iPad resurrected the subject, most IT organizations have actively discouraged it. It goes beyond locking down the devices so that end-users can't install software they might find helpful in their day-to-day work or might increase efficiency in their departments.'"
I read the article but somehow missed the point. Is this some sort of preemptive strike against a supposed iPad takeover of corporate IT?
1.) iPads are not replacements for PCs.
2.) If PC operating systems weren't so fragile then IT departments would not have had to lock them down.
2
Like someone else said on here once, let me know when those famous iPhone apps can be developed on the iPhone without bending over backwards. Real work always gets done on a real computer.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
First: The iPad is generally a media consumption machine. I thought we'd already agreed on that.
Second: You're preaching to the choir. Or is this just an article meant to reassure us about our opinion?
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
That's why I stick to throat sex. No valid objections.
IMHO, Android tablets are a better choice than iPads for corporate use... Still doesn't replace a PC, but it's more flexible and capable.
(No, I didn't RTFA.)
Being a "mainframe guy", I can't help but laugh at how PCs were brought in to break the IT stranglehold, and now after uncountabillions have been spent on virus protection and remediation (with companies still not blocking most web sites), the pendulum is now swinging back in the direction of centralized control.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
You idiot, we don't pee from there. We pee from a tiny orifice just in front of there. Thanks for playing.
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Impressive. Slashdot needs more posters like you.
It's late and I'm feeling generous.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
and come on, why was it that businesses _had_ to lock down Windows PCs in the first place? Hint, it had to do with reliability and a frail OS. And don't even get me started on how new employees were "trained" to use the computer. If you only knew how the people I've heard called guru's learned to use a spreadsheet or other app you'd ask 'and why were they called guru's?'.
Sounds like someone likes his PC just a little too much and doesn't want to get left behind or have to learn a new trick.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Hmmm... my sarcasm detector is making confused noises. Also, you're feeling generous? So, what do I get, sarcasm, or something I am yet to receive? :P
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
Just tell them its squirting and they'll walk away with a big grin on their face .... covered with piss.
First: The iPad is generally a media consumption machine. I thought we'd already agreed on that.
Only Apple Haters agreed on promoting that talking point.
In reality it's quite wrong; Even ignoring the obvious creation tools such as Garage Band, a billion drawing programs and things like iMovie, there are so many word processors and note taking apps that people make heavy use of every day... when you can easily work on screen as it is, with a stylus, or with any USB or bluetooth keyboard why would the iPad not be a good solution for day to day note taking?
All the people that carry laptops around to meetings all day could easily do just as well with an iPad, and in fact better because they could go a day without charging and have a more compact system.
Second: You're preaching to the choir.
As in: Repeating the Group Think Mantra than the iPad MUST NOT SUCCEED even if (or especially if) it is easier for end users to use. After all, a device that is mostly contained and requires no maintenance also requires less IT staff...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
[...] end-users can't install software they might find helpful in their day-to-day work or might increase efficiency in their departments.
I, personally, don't know a single IT professional that would not allow someone to install a piece of software like that. It would have to be vetted first, of course, but that would mostly be to ensure it gets installed properly and doesn't expose any backdoors. The problem is that most end-users want to install games or silly system doodads that will compromise a machine, bog it down or otherwise be inappropriate for the work place.
I do take issue with the capability argument. Sure, the current generation of tablets (I am gonna lump Androids and others in with the iPad as the hardware is almost all the same) aren't as capable as a modern, mature desktop or laptop platform. But, the rate at which these devices are evolving is significant, and I do see a very near future where a tablet is to a laptop what a laptop was to a desktop as far as a step in capability goes. I may dare say the laptop days may be numbered. It might take 10 years, but it might happen. Depends on what hardware advances come to market between then and now.
This afternoon the lameness filter stopped me from rebutting a troll with the output from a tracert (too many padding characters), even though it didn't malform anything at all.
But the lameness filter actually allowed this spam through???
I've got some news for you, /. devs, your lameness filter is, er, lame. Sort it. I want to post output from the console. My "fans" lol want the output from that console (it could have proved a point which was left unproven!). Nobody wanted this (repetition of URL was blatant giveaway to any automated system) and yet here it is. Come on, anybody would think you don't mind spam but hate clever trolls...
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PC have bigger screens and multi screen
Now try to take a work flow that is good on a big / more then 1 screen and try to take it to the ipad.
webmistressrachel Liked this. x
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Pc's have better multi tasking then Ipad.
Like for 1 thing BEING ABLE HAVE MORE THEN 1 APP on screen at the same Time.
You don't need to lock them down. Jobs has taken care of that for you. Granted, its not as great a setup as BlackBerry has with corporate clients. They get set up with their own back office severs and can push their own suite of apps to their users. But eventually (maybe) Apple will offer something similar.
What you have done with iWhatever is outsourced your IT responsibilities to the App Store.
Have gnu, will travel.
Plenty of valid objections, actually, starting with plucking pubic hairs out of my mouth for hours afterward, and choking on them for days afterward. And don't say "I shave", I like my men hairy, thank you.
Looks like you're boned, to borrow an Americanism.
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
the Ipad does not have Ethernet and PC have bigger HDD's as well.
and in some places Wifi does not work that well or is a security issue. 3g is high cost and slow speed at times.
Also for big work loads with big files you want to do work locally or have a good fast link to the sever.
For laptop uses having a big HDD makes it easy to keep big files with out having to be tied to the cloud over the world of WIFI on the go / 3g / 4g data cards with cost at $50+ for 5GB + $10 per GB after that.
Actually I'm naturally pubeless but thanks for discriminating against me.
... and several other vendors deliver desktops and apps to end-user devices remotely and increasingly efficiently. TFA is on the wrong side of history - IT will own and control the apps "locked down" and delivered remotely, device-independently. Administration of the endpoint device is a nightmare, and through VDI and app delivery endpoint management is becoming nearly irrelevant as these technologies improve. In fact, the end point becomes irrelevant - the always-on, use anywhere application service is coming (just don't say "cloud" because I'm tired of hearing it).
All your apps are belong to us.
Apple tells consumers what they want, and consumers buy it.
I have to wonder, do you actually believe something like that? Is your opinion of yourself so high that you believe only people who think like you are "real" in some sense?
It will include IE so the CIOs can work with their intranet activeX sites and can be locked down by I.T. It will fill the disadvantages of the IPAD.
I have a feeling it will take a large hit out of the IPAD market and hard Android. It wont kill it but it will make it very popular for business executives
http://saveie6.com/
If by innovation, you mean playing Angry Birds, then I'm with you.
Where I come from, innovation means coming up with something new. Which, by definition, means that there isn't something available at the App Store to do what you want.
When I can install gcc (or Eclipse) on an iPad and build a native custom app to do exactly what I need, call me.
Have gnu, will travel.
First, it's a sunk cost.
Just because you've dumped money into it doesn't mean you should continue. Bad money after good and all that.
Second, it's more capable.
Define capable. Can it run more programs, and is generally better for content creation type activities as opposed to simply consuming (reading email, reading web pages, etc.), well sort of. On the other hand my iPad is so small and light, has instant on, has WiFi and 3G connectivity and the battery life is such that it lives in my bag and I just pull it out to use it quickly more than I ever did when I carried my laptop. Plus because it's light and has long battery life I'm not constantly having to leave it at home to charge or give my shoulder a break. So I'd generally agree that my laptop/PC is more capable, but I don't carry it anymore so it's a moot point.
Third, your end-users are already familiar with it
So? There is a reason the iPad doesn't ship with a users manual. It doesn't need one. I found it intuitive. I gave my mother my old iPad 1, she has used PC's running DOS/Windows since the late 80's and at first asked for the manual, told here there wasn't one and that she wouldn't need it, and 2 days later she agreed with me (via email, "sent from my iPad"). She has since grown to love it.
Anecdotal sure, but this seems to be the general consensus. I think the iPad has a lot more legs int he corproate world then anyone suspects because once you get used to it, being at all mobile (even room to room) makes a PC (laptop/netbook/etc.) feel like sh*t compared to an iPad.
Ok what hand on first of all that is the stupidest battle i have ever heard.
They are purely for 2 different uses really. iPad is really for consumer use and for what it does it is more convienent than a PC, purely for the fact that loading an app to do a simple task it alot easier than loading an actual computer and needing a track pad and keyboard to navigate.
If using for business i can honestly tell you if your using an iPad for working on (as in creating documents) your a nutter for it is designed for light modifying and presentation.
I know first hand if i go to a client and let them touch a keynote presentation as appose to displaying on a projector, the client will respond alot more. The iPad is lite version of a netbook that is more convenient
This battle would make more sense if you said SLATE vs PC. then yes i agree the SLATE is slow under performing and difficult to use. for what the iPad is designed to do it hits its market on the dot, only a fool would think otherwise.
Once again the "apples and oranges" comparison of PCs and Ipads rears it's head. True wisdom comes from understanding that they're tools that serve different needs; any comparison of a tablet (of any stripe) to a PC (of any kind) is nothing more than some idiot making noises to drive up clicks to the website.
I own one of each - and a laptop, too. Which one am I using right now? You can't tell. For short posts to a website or making notes, any one of them will serve the need. Each offers advantages and drawbacks and it's always best to choose what works for you and your tasks, not what some random commenter on this site insists is the "one true way.
Would I try to write Klines of code on the Ipad? No. Can I go mobile with the PC? No. Am I going to be away for a whole day with no chance to recharge? Notebook won't do, but an Ipad would.
What's right for you might not be right for someone else; no matter what PC you're talking about or what tablet you're talking about - they're not intended for or capable of the same tasks.
Stop allowing Apple to cloud up the argument by making you think that the form factor and interface is bound by definition to the UI design and feature list of the OS it runs.
Argument 1: What if the iPad could run, say, Win7 or Linux or some other OS? It adds wide-open capability, and gives way to content creation. But the form factor and UI frustrate.
Argument 2: What if there were a PC out there with a huge 32" touchscreen display and gesture UI, and it ran iOS. Could a stockbroker be happy with it?
Argument 3: What if the same PC with touchscreen display and gesture UI, and it ran Win7 or Win8 or WebOS or Cyanogenmod? How would that stockbroker feel then?
Argument 4: What would be gained by mouse-enabling an iPad? Who uses an iPad with mouse to access a PC via Remote Desktop? How is that working out for you?
Point is, if the platform were open, we would readily consider these questions, and make inroads on the answers. But Apple packages the UI, OS and form factor so well, we don't budge. Pity.
Makin' money, makin' friends, makin' whoopee and wearin' Depends
Are you fucking retarded? Why buy an ipad when my nokia 3210 does 'EVERYTHING'?
I didn't say anything about the iPad doing everything. Only that the aspects he listed (light, battery, easier to carry) are quite a lot more significant than he makes out.
Now the 3210 would suffice in some regards (not battery life) except that application support is also important, and in that sense the 3210 is not up to snuff. Never mind the hard-on IT people have for currently supported and manufactured devices which knocks the 3210 right out of the running from the start.
You could have rebutted with rational arguments
You could have read my post instead of responding to what you thought I said, but you seem not to have done that...
How is it irrational to say that battery life and size are important to users? Try asking some random non technical person someday if they are useful.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You get a "Clever!" and a metaphorical pat on the back.
What do you want, a medal?
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
Troll rating: 2/10.
Bob Lewis has obviously not heard of Citrix, or if he has he conveniently ignores it. I am by no means an Apple fanboy and I do not own an iPad, but a few people in my organization do. I can present all of their apps to them via Citrix, from RDP to our Line of Business applications. Now obviously anything that is input intensive would be better done with a keyboard. Having said that, a Citrix session is just a Terminal Services session so for all intents and purposes, their applications is running on Windows Server 2008 R2. Being Windows it is fully locked down with Group Policy and is as controlled as anything Apple provides.
From what I have seen, an iPad is just another device to present applications to. With Citrix, there is no need to re-invent the wheel or develop the application all over again. Just run the app on the server and present it to the client.
Except that you still cant use Apple's hidden API's.
Why not? Writing software that never goes to the App Store means you can use whatever recessed API you like. Now mind you it's probably a bad idea since an OS update is more likely to break something (and IT software must really strive for a high level of robustness) but you can do anything you like since you do not go through the App Store or any approval process whatsoever (beyond your own company QA).
Ipads are nowhere in the same league as PC's running Windows or Linux beacuse Apple has built restrictions into the operating.
PC's are nowhere in the same league in terms of robustness as the iPad because they lack the constraints that keep the average user safe on an iPad in a way they simply cannot be on a PC (or at least at the moment).
Jailbreaking them was out of the question and creating persistent services was not supported.
What was wrong with the backend handling persistent computation and using push notifications to inform the app when computations were complete? It's true that writing services on-device is something you cannot do with an enterprise license but there are ways around that limitation.
Just because you suck at hiring iPad development firms does not mean the hardware is not capable of handling what you want to do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The only reason the PC is insecure is because it doesn't restrict the user. But to say it's less secure is a stretch.
Do you honestly not detect the incredibly powerful waves of irony drifting from your words?
Oh yes PC's would be way more secure if PC users were all drones doing only what you told them. Almost as if their own mind were "locked down". But then what is the real advantage over an iPad for them in the end if they are constrained in what they can do anyway, even if it's only self-constraint?
News flash: Poeple (and here I speak generally) CANNOT HANDLE COMPUTER SECURITY. Have not multiple decades of average users being screwed over confirmed this simple fact to everyones satisfaction? The only way the computer industry can move forward is to build a class of computing devices locked down enough that THEY can operate them without worrying about security. It doesn't mean computers will be replaced, no technology is every really replaced.
But it does mean that for the first time, real people can user computers without the world easily able to screen them over. And that is a GOOD THING.
A system that relies on proper behavior from any general human is quite simple more insecure by design, because humans are not mentally focused on security by design. Indeed if anything our brains are wired in such a way that we were almost built to be hacked wantonly by anyone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Android tablets are a better choice than iPads for corporate use... Still doesn't replace a PC, but it's more flexible and capable.
With a much wider range of software built for it, scads of development resources, and app stores tailored specially for enterprise development the iPad really is much more flexible at the moment.
At the heart of Flexibility lies Ability after all... and what most corporate users really need on a tablet is software to do work.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
His analogy with iPad's being Vespas and PC's being cars is actually quite apt (what is it about tech gadgets that we always compare them to automobiles?). Except that he forgets that he used it. Some people really can get by with just a scooter (or sometimes even just a bike). It all depends on which city you live in and what your job/shopping/activities situation is. I don't think too many people are saying that iPad's will make PC's completely obsolete. But it IS true that for some people, they no longer need a PC if they have an iPad. True for my parents. True for my technophobe friends. So it seems to me that he's really ranting about nothing. If a corporation with IT department needs PC's, it needs PC's. That's for the corporations to decide. It's still early in tablet development. If they ever get to the stage and Apple and it's hoard of imaginative developers create ways around the problems that PC's currently solve, well then Mr. Lewis's current argument will be obsolete. Until then, why worry enough about it write a 3 page article trying to defend the PC. The PC doesn't need defending.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
Paper is decent for information consumption, but not for content creation. And even in information consumption, paper is only applicable where the information can be consumed on a small, low-resolution display
I don't think, for instance, that day traders with their arrays of cheap monitors will want to limit themselves to paper.
Flipping is a reasonably nice interface for many info browsing traversal mechanisms, though.
The transmeta tablet I had back in 2001 had all those things too, except you didn't have to jailbreak it. Getting excited over a tablet computer is like getting excited over a 2 button mouse.
Dungeon Tactics : Free Open Source SRPG
http://www.infoworld.com/print/169844
You're welcome. ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Enough said.
/* No Comment */
"and the Enterprise developer license doesn't involve an Apple review of the app"
Compiler on PC neitehr require a licence, nor a review, nor anybody involvement beside 1) buying the compiler for a very low price 2) using your own fragging time to develop as much as you want.
It does not matter if in some limited situation iPAD is like a PC. In most : it is not like a PC.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Unless they make a tablet device with a mouse and keyboard *cough laptop cough*, I will continue to find it easier to select/drag/edit/delete/whatever a single cell in whatever spreadsheet program I am using with a PC. Familiarity and locking devices down aside, some things are ALWAYS going to be easier with a mouse and keyboard.
How is it a sunk cost when they are considering $600 per unit investment in changing the way they do business that could cost considerably more? Please.
The game.
Your argument boils down to one thing: iPads are for consuming content and not producing it.
The game.
On the contrary, change (can) be good. So computers you can change and experiment with are better than walled gardens.
But... the future refused to change.
How is an ipad actually better for general business tasks? I'd say it's quite the opposite. I much prefer a macbook air to an ipad, i can't think of a way the ipad is better, it's only slightly more portable.
Being able to draw on an ipad is pretty sucky compared to a pen and paper or a whiteboard and in either of those cases if it's worth keeping i'll just take a photo on my phone and i can email it.
Actually I'm naturally pubeless but thanks for discriminating against me.
I don't think anti-discrimination laws apply to sex.
Plaintiff: She discrimininated against me. She said she wouldn't want to have sex with me because I'm not hairy enough.
:-)
Judge: You're right. I hereby order that she has to have sex with you. I personally will watch for checking compliance with this judgement.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
If an user just needs to read e-mail, do some word processing, set up the odd slide and browse the web they're a far better choice than a PC in that they require less effort to maintain, have better battery life and a tighter UI.
If you need to do heavy duty or highly specialised stuff then a PC would make more sense. I think having alternatives is better for innovation than mindlessly sticking with the one choice you're given, look at Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7, that's a direct reaction to the emergence of iOS.
I didn't read TFA, that would be blasphemy, but as a long-time PC advocate and a more recent iPad user, I do agree with a lot of the comments here. The iPad is a relatively good tool for consumption and as an organizing aid. It's great to take to meetings and have access to my calendar and contacts and it's reasonably ok to take notes on. For light email use it's ok, but the mail client is missing a LOT of features compared to a full-featured mail client like Outlook, Thunderbird or Evolution.
For any real creation work it becomes tedious very quickly. Also, if text entry requires anything more than the normal A-Z, it is EXTREMELY tedious, especially if you need to enter special characters. Just entering the paragraph end tag requires an ungodly number of taps and finger dancing (it's 10, I just checked). The available special characters are also quite limited, for example there is no degree symbol.
Given a choice between a normal laptop and the iPad, if I was forced to take one over the other, it would be a laptop. But used in combination with a laptop the iPad is a useful tool for some tasks.
Trust me, windows console output is just about the pinnacle of lame.
Unless they make a tablet device with a mouse and keyboard *cough laptop cough*
My favourite new gadget:
http://www.asus.com.au/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/
Also has USB host mode, so you can plug in mice, keyboards, nice big external drives, etc.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
As for user innovation, localStorage and webSQL make it possible to develop small Android applications in AJAX which can then be centrally deployed by IT and which will also work on PCs running Chrome.
Conclusion: Shakespeare said it best about the article:
It is a tale
spoken by an idiot, signifying nothing.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Nokia's problem was, I think, simply that it could not succeed in the US market with an open platform. Google is a US company and the dynamics for Android were different once Motorola adopted it. Because users around the world still look to the US for validation, Nokia felt that they had to have a serious presence in the US market and that meant being beholden to a US company.
As it is, their share price has truly tanked, their institutional investors must be distraught, and before long Microsoft will buy them out of spare change. My own view, for what little it is worth, is that they would have done better to walk completely away from the US market. But then the directors wouldn't have been so rewarded...
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Not sure if many people got you, but here is what I was going to write before reading your post:
> a troll with the output from a tracert
Were you trying to trace his certificate ?
I am just kidding of course but yet, for some of us around here the command is written as; "traceroute".
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
There are at least half a dozen ssh apps.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
And then again, some things are going to be easier with a tablet and some things with a phone.
But I don't think that this trend of little apps rather than web apps is really about the form factor. It's about the ease of purchase and installation, ease of use, and security (real and perceived, software and transaction) of the App Store. And the low prices. Collectively known as lower barriers to purchase.
Now that Apple has an App Store for the Mac, I find myself buying desktop apps far more often.
Likewise, books are my most frequent on-line purchase, because I have a trusted, easy, one stop shop for any book purchase. Amazon. If there wasn't a single bookshop that I felt had a comprehensive stock, at good prices, and I felt I had to shop around on-line among stores that I don't have a trust relationship with, then I'd no doubt buy a lot less books on-line.
Change is bad.
Yes, because.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Unless they make a tablet device with a mouse and keyboard *cough laptop cough*, I will continue to find it easier to select/drag/edit/delete/whatever a single cell in whatever spreadsheet program I am using with a PC. Familiarity and locking devices down aside, some things are ALWAYS going to be easier with a mouse and keyboard.
Conversely, some things are ALWAYS going to be easier with finger and a touchscreen.
So, what's your point again? Or did you have one?
BTW, I submit that, with the proper UI, that clicking and dragging with a mouse is EXACTLY an example where a touchscreen and finger stomps all over a mouse. One degree of separation between thought and action (mouse is in a different axis and a different location than the UI element), vs. zero degrees of separation between thought and action with a touchscreen and a finger.
Face it, since infancy, we have all be reaching out with our fingers to TOUCH things. A mouse is definitely NOT "intuitive" to that degree, and simply cannot be. There is just too much physical and mental translation to be done. Want a real-world example? Try signing your name with a mouse. No matter what you change the mouse "speed" to, the best you can manage, even with a mouse that has over a thousand points per inch of resolution, is a barely-legible childish scrawl. And that will be on the tenth attempt. Why is that? Simple. The human brain did not evolve around such a profound separation between thought and action. A tablet instantly and intuitively removes that barrier.
As for a keyboard, I don't think anyone will disagree that, for now, for the limited set of people who can touch-type, a physical keyboard is better for entering LOTS of text; but for the types of things that the vast majority of people need/want to do, especially those who are NOT touch-typists (enter a URL or a search term, compose a short email, etc) the convenience of a combined keyboard and display, in a form-factor that is closer to a tablet of paper than it is to a typewriter more than makes up for the lack of key-travel feedback. And now that several tablet "cases" exist with BT keyboards built right in...
you cant install any hardware, no DVD burners, no TV Tuner card, no extra harddrive (no raid) nothing, the best you can do to an ipad or any other brand of tablet thingy is write a little software for it, and with Apple's iron fist grip on distribution of software for their products even writing software for it will be limited in authorship, type and distribution
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
On the contrary, change (can) be good. So computers you can change and experiment with are better than walled gardens.
Do you have ANY idea how impossible it is for 99.5% of the planet's population to actually REALIZE that potential?
That's exactly the point I think the article was trying to make. Most people have no actual interest in creativity or innovation: the closer a tool comes to actually doing their job for them, the happier they will be. The less their brain has to be engaged in their work, the better. However, there's a small subset of the population who actually do innovate; who do create the tools that allow the rest of us to act like trained monkeys, and those people need flexible tools that don't reduce well to the point-and-grunt input system available on tablets (or highly locked-down desktops).
As management, the kind of environment you provide for your employees says a lot about how you view them. If you treat them all like trained monkeys, then even the creative people will act like trained monkeys. If you treat them like creative humans, then most of them will act like trained monkeys, but a few of them may do really cool stuff.
What advantage does an iPad with ssh have over a netbook with both ssh and locally installed copies of developer tools?
Odd. Yesterday when I unplugged my desktop computer from the mouse, keyboard, and monitor and put it in my bag it didn't work at all during the long train journey home.
Suppose the batteries must have been flat.
404 Not Found: No such file or resource as '.sig'
The choice is often a laptop to carry between one's desk and meetings vs. the combination of a desktop to use at one's desk and a tablet to carry to meetings. And if your "creat[ion of] anything of significance" can't be done on an ultra-light laptop, then some people are going to prefer a lightweight dedicated device for taking machine-readable notes.
On some platforms, tracert and traceroute are two different things. Both do the same thing, but one uses the standard ICMP echo ("ping") and the other uses UDP.
an etchasketch has even more security, so we should use those.
Let me guess: You watched the movie Elf one too many times.
Real work is not necessarily development. I design buildings - and I use the ipad for various utilities in the field. Is that not real work?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Chicks don't like anal cuz' they poop from there.
But regular sex, they pee from there.
//[TODO] Find a better female. //REQS: Get a clue about female anatomy first
And they're damned good at it. And in a lot of cases, consuming content is a primary job function for people - or is one of the most efficient ways to recapture time while traveling.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Not to mention password expiry or rules that prompt people to move from mediocre but securely stored passwords to strong passwords that are written on post it notes so that the average person can remember what it is currently set to.
If you see passwords on sticky notes, your organization should take two steps:
The bans could have been lifted on request (if somebody urgently needed to watch pr0n or site was blocked due to fault in screening process etc.
)
How often did such a "fault in screening process" occur? And how quickly did IT personnel resolve trouble tickets about a "fault in screening process"?
Guess which class of computing devices more closely resembles that familiar paradigm?
Ooh! Ooh! I got this one! AN ABACUS!
Cool post bro, highfive \o
Security of the App Store? Security on iOS devices is a fucking nightmare. Apple doesn't do code reviews of any of the apps it approves - that's how a tethering app was able to slip by disguised as a flashlight app, for one example of many (including actual malware).
The security of the App Store consists of Apple saying "don't worry, it's totally safe, we promise!" and you believing that on blind faith.
To use the analogy of airport security, an iOS device is a guy in a trenchcoat who you can't search. He can have whatever the hell he wants under there and there is jack and shit that you can do about it. You can either ban him or let him through and cross your fingers.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
There are these little things apple sends with it's iPads called "chargers." You plug them onto the wall (they even work on extension cords, just like PCs!), and then plug an apple cable into them. It allows you to work forever, and never have to worry about the battery. If your charger dies - I kid you not - you can get a replacement for about $10.
Since you aren't aware that chargers exist for portable electronics, I'm impressed that you got 2 years out of a single battery charge on your Zen. Apple should hire the guys who designed that battery!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I have to run a few utilities...drive encryption, firewall, scanners, etc... but I can install anything I want with no technical limitations. Policy yes, but my employer actually trusts me to heed policy.
We do plenty of innovation on our PCs :D
Blar.
I'm pretty sure he meant "die" in the context of "cease functioning" and not "exhausts its charge." IOW, when the battery stops working completely, the device stops working completely.
I'm typing this comment on my iPad via a bluetooth keyboard.
I agree that the on screen keyboard is cumbersome. But as someone whose written 15,000 word term papers on an iPad, I have to say that its just as good as anything on the PC for text entry. In fact, I haven't been regularly using a PC at home since my laptop was stolen in spring of 2010.
My only complaint is that Apple's policy prevents TeX from being ported. If this isn't fixed, my next tablet will probably be a Android based one.
Not to mention that any user can root the iOS device, trivially. "Jailbreak" is fine if you're a home user chafing at Apple's restrictions, but rooted devices are a fucking nightmare if you're corporate security trying to make sure that things don't join the network loaded full of intrusion tools.
And I can hear the cries from dickwads, just like the last time we had this discussion, "well just make your network secure then and you won't care what's on it and I can run what I want." By that logic if we have a "secure" airport, as you said, a guy with a trenchcoat and 20 guns is no big deal because the airport is "secure", right? Wrong, because part of the security is keeping the fucker with a trenchcoat and guns outside the airport and away from the planes.
Corporate espionage is real. It happens. If you've got a contract with some Chinese company, it's already happened to you even if you don't know it yet. If you're the leader in your industry, or even second tier with some interesting patents or designs, someone is looking to get their hands on them.
Imagine if you will a company that implements this. No USB storage allowed. Users cry bloody murder. A ton of whining and groaning. Nobody thinking to ask WHY it happened - because someone in the middle level of the company, someone who had been one of those espionage artists getting paid money to steal trade secrets, carted off sensitive material in a USB stick.
The problem is that your fingers obstruct your vision, so touching is not that useful to me. The day one table can handle pen input the same way as my wacom tablet does, we'll talk. The moment I can drag and drop small numbers in an editor or spreadsheet without losing visibility because of my fingers, or needing a massive cell space for each number, we'll talk.
The moment I can play a "touch" game without the freaking finger getting in the way, we'll definitely talk.
Alternatively, when our fingers are totally transparent we'll talk.
for the limited set of people who can touch-type
Surely, they still teach touch typing in school?
The problem is that your fingers obstruct your vision, so touching is not that useful to me.
This was a well-known problem in the days of the Palm Pilot, and the reason why pull-down menus were frowned upon, and that pop-ups were recommended popping up to the left for right-handed users and to the right for southpaws.
Another issue is that don't have the precision a mouse gives you. To do a task that requires precision, you have to zoom in to do the job, then zoom out again, and this takes time and breaks having an overview of what you do.
Text copy/paste, for example, really suffers, both because you are expected to work full screen, and because many of the elements people copy and paste, like punctuation and spaces, are too small to be consistently selected/deselected. So you end up copying punctuation and spaces you shouldn't have, and miss some you should, and have to go in and edit afterwards. Or you inadvertently type "il.l" instead of "ill." Good luck selecting that period on its own using your fingertip. Yes, there's an app for that, and it's called a mouse.
If you want a job that requires computer interaction, you need to learn to type. It's a job requirement so do it. If not, don't whine the job is unavailable.
For that matter, every high school I can think of offers 'keyboard' (used to by typing). If you don't know how to type you have *actively* refused to learn. Again, don't whine.
The answer is, get yourself prepared for employment, not get a machine they *can* use.
"However, there's a small subset of the population who actually do innovate;..."
Then they need to get themselves jobs that fulfill those urges. The company will then supply them with the proper tools.
If, however, you're saying that the run of the mill jobs should also provide those kinds of freedoms to 'experiment', I have to say as someone who has run a business - build you own damn company to experiment with.
Are you talking about tablets in general, or specifically the ipad?
Android supports both bluetooth-based external keyboard/mouse and has multiple terminal/ssh clients available.
The 6 factors listed in the article all miss the main advantage of the iPad (any good tablet), you can use it on the move. Not everyone sits at a desk for work. The iPad is definitely for content creation if you don't limit the definition of 'content' to documents. Real estate assessors, any type of inspection, interviewers, nurses, doctors, teachers, and many other professionals need a computer that moves with them. The differences are quite significant to these professionals, data entry is real-time vs delayed, information on the tablet can be viewed on-location with others, and the hardware is much less obtrusive to the personal interactions.
This is not a technical issue at all. It's a political one. IT departments are notoriously territorial and control freaks. In addition, in the corporate world, the higher up in the food chain you are, the more concerned you are with head count. The more people you have working for you, the more power and resources (money) you have to work with (and can demand). iPads and smartphones are a decentralizing force. IT people don't like that. They want you to be beholden to them. That's the only reason they are opposed to this sort of technology.
From my own experience working at a Fortune 500 company and being in charge of 100 Macs. The computer to IT person ratio was roughly 4 to 1 (one IT person was needed to manage four PCs). I, on the other hand, was able to manage 100 Macs. That never sat well with the head of the IT department so he and his cronies tried everything to throw roadblocks in my way.
I'm the security director for a mid sized global company. I'm the guy behind locking down the desktops. I won't reiterate the eloquent arguments my colleagues made about the tradeoffs between security / useability and costs.
I will say that we are in process of virtualizing our business applications such that all the users will need is web browser to do the work (a la mainframes). Our tests are showing that they are a) very receptive to using whatever they want for their systems and b) our costs will be lower. The idea is the keys to our kingdom (our IP, data, code etc) are locked up pretty tightly, and the user side of the network is more open. It's an approach that seems to be doing well.
Our users are using win, mac, linux (me) and various flavours of tablets. For the apps we have virtualized, it's going well.
It is a good way to balance control and freedom.
"Omnis tuus capsa sunt inesse nos"
The Apple ecosystem creeps me out. How can you think outside the box when the environment you are in is designed to put you in the box? No thanks. At least with the PC i still get a hardware platform designed for alternative systems.
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I knew it was gonna be big.
Because apple's multi-touch is very useable and most people don't do stuff with a PC that the iPad can't do.
For most people it is the ideal computing/electronic device (PC?).
It was nicely priced, even more so for a apple product.
But I really thought it would be used more in settings were the form factor is ideal:
* A museum could use it for additional geolocation triggered digital data for its visitors.
* Package delivery.
* Warehouse accounting.
* A presentation/prototyping/brainstorming tool in meetings and gatherings.
Netbooks stop working the moment their power supply is removed.
Netbooks can run on a battery and recharge. Internet access could be "recharged" in the same way if more applications supported offline use with batch synchronization, such as an e-mail client supporting POP3 or cached IMAP. But too many applications have been designed under an assumption of operating live.
Cell phones stop working the moment they lose signal.
But the combination of wired data service for the office and cellular data service for each device is much more expensive per month than wired data service alone, especially in the home country of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Slashdot.
X stops working the moment Resource Y that makes X work is removed.
I agree. My point is that resource Y for iPad is substantially more expensive than the comparable resource Y for a netbook. SSH requires a continuous connection; SVN, Git, or Mercurial can operate in a batch mode and sync whenever the user happens to be at Wi-Fi.
"Netbooks can run on a battery and recharge." If the netbook is running off the battery, then, dun dun dun, the battery is supplying its power.
I use ssh on my iPad and Android tablets all the time and never have this problem as the tablets are always tethered to my Android phone.
Tethering plans are expensive in the United States, and offline development tools don't need them. A revision control system lets the user work locally and sync when the user happens to be at Wi-Fi.
My sessions don't really run long enough to matter anyway. I'm usually checking something small [...] Different use case than a laptop almost entirely.
I agree on this. But AC was recommending trying to shove laptop use cases, such as writing a computer program in a text editor and testing it, onto an iPad connected to a shell account.
If the netbook is running off the battery, then, dun dun dun, the battery is supplying its power.
For one thing, a replacement lithium-ion battery that works for two years or thereabouts is an order of magnitude cheaper than a cellular data plan that works for two years. For another, Subversion, Git, or Mercurial makes a much better "battery" for program source code than SSH does.
Haven't resorted to super glue in the USB ports, but aside from that, spot on. Like the old saying goes: "Give users an inch, and they'll hose their machine."
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I know your trying to make a point, however just get a bluetooth keyboard. (yes, they work nicely)
As far as mouse, a tablet's very essence is touchscreen.
That being said, it's just silly to have these binary conversations about 'which is the dominant technology'. Tablets are an extension of the desktop platform, and they complement each other.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
... and neither would a tablet with a mouse, keyboard, and a nice big external drive.
I rest my case.
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I would like a Star Trek PADD. A tablet that will somehow read your mind and interpret incredibly complex, unique, and specific parameters from the user, all entered in just 3-4 taps from whatever screen they were viewing at the time.
But until then I need more practical input devices like a mouse and keyboard.
and for those who were too lazy to learn typing in school, we invented IRC. You may suck in the first day, but by the 3rd month you'd be typing 30+ wpm just trying to get a word in before someone else ;)
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
I just think there was a bit of confusion over the ambiguous use of the term "power supply", since most people refer to the power brick plugged into the wall and the netbook/laptop as a "power supply".
You just meant literally any form of power supply.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Or you could jailbreak your iphone and install PDANet, and do free wifi tethering through your phone's 3G.
That might work for people who already pay for smartphones (unlike myself). But please read AC's comment before recommending jailbreaking in the enterprise.
Do you often roam outside of your wifi range while ssh'ing?
No, but I roam out of Wi-Fi range while writing a program. On my netbook, I can write and test a short program without ssh'ing. On an iPad, I wouldn't be able to.
Unless they make a tablet device with a mouse and keyboard *cough laptop cough*
My favourite new gadget:
http://www.asus.com.au/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/
Also has USB host mode, so you can plug in mice, keyboards, nice big external drives, etc.
I have used it and it's pretty slick and useful, both with and without the keyboard.
I just wish they went ahead and released the 3g version already.
No sig
Someone mod parent up. Indeed, if users can install stuff, their machine becomes unusable very quickly. Not only in large corporate environments. In small ones too.
And even if only "power users" know the admin password to install stuff, what I see is:
- Screen capture programs installed, because nobody noticed the key labelled "PrtScr" on their keyboard (let alone finding out about Alt-PrtScr).
- Winzip or whatever installed, because people didn't realize that Total Commander, which they use for FTP, could seamlessly handle .zip, .7z and whatnot. (Yes, I pre-install Total Commander with a .7z plugin)
- Old cracked versions of Photoshop to resize jpegs and convert tiffs, because people don't realize they can do the same thing faster with IrfanView or XnView (which were both pre-installed for them).
etc.
That is the "best case" scenario, where they don't install malware, and silly "media converters" straight from the ffmpeg "hall of shame".
Security of the App Store? Security on iOS devices is a fucking nightmare. Apple doesn't do code reviews of any of the apps it approves - that's how a tethering app was able to slip by disguised as a flashlight app, for one example of many (including actual malware).
In what way is that "a nightmare"? What other app ecosystem has code reviews of third party apps? What is the Apple App Store security "a nightmare" compared to?
You're criticising Apple for not doing something that no one else is doing either. And no one is doing it because it's completely impractical. It could only be suggested by someone who's never done a code review in his life.
And don't bother trying Android as an example of something more secure. There are far fewer Android apps, but far more Android malware. Open does not make it more secure. The evidence is precisely the opposite.
I've got a stylus for my iPad. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it makes handwriting possible and drawing practical.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
The fact that they don't do code reviews itself isn't the nightmare - the fact that device security is 100% trusted to Apple, AND that they don't do code reviews is what makes it a nightmare. Android devices suffer all the same problems. Like iOS devices, you could root them but that comes with its own set of issues.
App store security is a nightmare compared to PC security (or the security of PC-like OSes such as Maemo/MeeGo). And yes, App Store security is even worse than Windows security. PCs allow locally controllable, centralized management, the installation of HIDS and antivirus products that are also locally controllable and centrally managed, and remote root access. This way you can check the systems yourself.
App store security is basically assuming that you can trust any app in the store because Apple approved it and then installing stuff willy-nilly. There is no management...at all, really. It's just handing out iShinies to employees and trusting Apple. Or as I summed it up quite nicely in another post, "sticking your head into the sand of Apple's calming reassurance."
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
and neither would a tablet with a mouse, keyboard, and a nice big external drive.
I'm confused, why can't you unplug the mouse, keyboard, and nice big external drive from the tablet like you did with the PC?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
App store security is a nightmare compared to PC security (or the security of PC-like OSes such as Maemo/MeeGo). And yes, App Store security is even worse than Windows security.
Tens of thousands of PC viruses and trojans says you're wrong.
PCs allow locally controllable
And locally fuckup-able - which is a problem when most people don't know anything about security.
centralized management
If you have an IT dept behind you.
the installation of HIDS and antivirus products that are also locally controllable and centrally managed
In order for malware to be detected by antivirus, a central authority such as Sophos or Norton need to become aware of is and add it's signature or a heuristic to the AV Product. If there's malware for iOS, then a central authority - Apple - will pull it off the App Store. And if it's malicious, kill it. Rather than detecting the malware after you've downloaded it, you just won't be able to download it.
Android lets you run antivirus software. The freedom that means that third parties can write and distribute anti-virus software is the same freedom that means that there is far more malware on Android than iOS.
Open gives you the ability to guard against problems that are only there because the platform is open. It's a net loss.
You seem to be assuming I was talking about home use. Sure, for home use, an app store is slightly better than an Average Joe installing stuff willy-nilly from random places and not giving a shit, if those are the only two options. I was talking about corporate use.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
More likely against Android tablets.
iPads are for content consumers, not creators.
they are turing machines. the creation/consumption divide is as artificial (and as nebulous) as the data/program divide.
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