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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?
(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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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
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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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.
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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.
For 399 dollars, or in other words a pittance in financial terms, iPads can do ANYTHING the enterprise devs can dream up.
If by "ANYTHING" you mean checking email and editing documents all at a much slower pace than one could on a real computer, then sure. Unfortunately, I have to do real work at my job instead of wasting time playing with an iThingy and cashing in a paycheck on the backs of a bunch of poor hapless engineers, so that doesn't really work out for me.
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/
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
By "anything" I mean anything a developer can convince a computer to do.
My hamster can do anything a dog can, but playing 'fetch' with him is pretty dull when he takes five minutes to run to the stick and half an hour to drag it back to me.
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
Paper is actually pretty good for content creation. It has very few limitations, but has only simple editing capabilities with erasing and sticky notes.
Paper is larger that many tablets, and MUCH higher resolution than most displays, desktop or portable. Plus, it goes "multi-display" indefinitely.
Flipping is not the only browsing traversal, you also side-by-side simultaneous display, and use things like earmarks or tabs in stacks.
Paper is also lighter than tablets, and can be folded up when not in use for easy transferring.
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
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.
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")...
Didn't need a manual. but didn't know how to turn off the 'sent from my Ipad' auto signature. nice.
You are correct about the corporate world though. For anyone whose primary use of computers is consumption of information the use of tablets is a no brainer*. For anyone that actually has to create anything its keyboard and mouse all the way baby.
I reckon tablets are an awesome extension of pooting, (the Ipad is just to locked down for my likings, but I'm liking the direction android is going).
(*must.. resist.. urge.. to apply sentiment to management types... damn, failed)
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.
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."
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.
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'
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 399 dollars, or in other words a pittance in financial terms, iPads can do ANYTHING the enterprise devs can dream up.
Like display two different third party apps on the screen at the same time? Sorry, these tablets are great and all, but there is still a lot that they cannot do well. For something as simple as visiting a clients webpage and writing copying their information to an address book or adding a meeting to a calendar, both Android and iPads have trouble. Sure, they have the apps required but they both lack the ability to maintain context. For that same 399, you can get a PC that won't be entirely off the market after a year.
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.