MGR IT

I have had a 64GB 3G Apple iPad in my possession for a few days now, as part of a trial run to see how we might make use of them here at MGR.  I have been using an iPhone 3GS for some time now, so the iPad interface is quite familiar.

From a business perspective, so far I have found more uses for the device when I am away from the office than when I am sitting at my desk, which is probably to be expected. 

It is a great device for catching up with e-mail while sitting on the couch at home.  I receive a lot of e-mail with news from the IT industry and other messages that don’t require me to act or respond immediately, so I tend to deal with those of an evening.  Previously that meant pulling out and firing up my laptop, but the iPad is a much more convenient device for that type of activity, being much lighter and effectively always on.

I have also installed a Remote Desktop app, so I can log in to client servers from anywhere with the iPad and perform system maintenance tasks, again without having to boot up my laptop. 

One of my colleagues has trialled the device for reviewing PDF documents during a training session, instead of printing out the documents for the same purpose.  The feedback so far has been positive, but we are searching for the best app to allow annotation of documents, which is not possible with the native PDF reader on the iPad.  iAnnotate looks like it may be a contender.

I have only begun to scratch the surface in terms of apps that may be useful, having installed a few apps with which I was already familiar on the iPhone, such as Evernote, which allows me to take notes on the iPad and access notes I have created on other devices.

So far, I haven’t found anything I can do on the iPad that I can’t do with my laptop, but I don’t think that is really the aim of the device.  I have found things that are much more convenient to do on the iPad, which is really its big selling point.  I don’t know that I have yet justified the cost of the iPad, with the model that I am using coming in at around $1000. 

I will also be interested to see how the HP Slate compares when it is released (rumoured to be in October).  A device of similar dimensions, but with additional features such a camera and USB ports, it will run Windows 7, which will be a bonus in terms of compatibility, but may have its drawbacks in terms of overhead and complexity.

The Apple iPhone 4 has now been released in the US and will be available in Australia soon.  The new version of this popular smartphone has a raft of new features. including multitasking, a 960 x 640 resolution display, high definition video recording and a gyroscope.  FaceTime is Apple’s implementation of video calling, though it is only available via WiFi connections.

iPhone 3G or 3GS users can get some of the benefits of the new iPhone by installing iOS 4, which is now available for download through iTunes.  You will need to install iTunes 9.2 in order to be able to download and install iOS 4.  New features in this release include multitasking, iBooks (Apple’s book reader and book store first introduced with the iPad), improved e-mail features and the ability to oragnise apps into folders.

There has been a fair bit of verbal jousting going on between Apple and Adobe recently, regarding Adobe’s Flash technology that is used to provide rich content on many web sites around the world.  If you have a web site, especially one that uses Flash, then you need to know how this affects you and plan your web presence accordingly.

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Microsoft have announced that the next generation of their mobile phone operating system (currently known as Windows Mobile) will be Windows Phone 7 Series.  Microsoft have apparently pretty much started again with this one, so it promises to be a radical departure from previous versions in both usability and performance.

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Google is going to begin phasing out support for the Internet Explorer 6 browser as of the 1st of March.  Google Docs and Google Sites will not support “older browsers” after that date, which means anything before Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3.0, Chrome 4.0 and Safari 3.0.  Presumably other Google services will follow suit.

For anyone who keeps their systems up to date, this will have no impact, as Internet Explorer 6 is old (and seriously flawed) technology.  However, there are plenty of unpatched systems out there still using IE6 – over 10% according to the w3schools browser statistics site.

If yours is one of those systems, then you should make the switch now, either by upgrading to Internet Explorer 8, or by changing to another browser, such as Firefox, Chrome or Safari.

The worst kept secret in the IT world was confirmed overnight Australian time with Apple unveiling their new tablet computer, the iPad.  You can see some video of Steve Jobs announcing the iPad here.

In short, the iPad looks more like a larger version of the iPhone or iPod Touch, rather then a tablet form iMac or MacBook.  It’s very thin and light with a 9.7 inch touch screen.

I can certainly see a market for this in the consumer area, though I wonder if the pricing will put some off (as is so often the case with Apple products).  There are three models – a 16GB model for US$499, a 32GB model for US$599 and a 64GB model for US$699.  3G mobile network access is an extra US$130 on any of the models.  I have not seen any mention of Australian prices or release dates as yet.

As an avid iPhone user, I can appreciate the convenience of being able to quickly look up a web site or check e-mail on a portable device that is effectively always on.  The larger screen on the iPad can only enhance this experience if you are happy to pay for it.