New iPad

[Pastor Bill]

I was hoping for full OSX on the iPad when it first came out, as it is, it's a really nice iPod touch with a big screen, with OSX or at least some deeper OSX features, it could replace laptops in some situations similar to the gap the netbooks are filling as a low cost, highly portable solution.

Right now I love my iPad, but won't give up my laptop either. With a more robust OS, I could see myself leaving the laptop more often and just taking the iPad.

[MacUser]

Yes, we are watching.

For our area of work, plug-ins are still the only way to do nice mapping applications (e.g. flash, silverlight, etc.) . It is something of concern to us as we have to decide how to move, but when we are asked, we have to share the limitations of IPADs for flash/silverlight based mapping applications.

We shall see what happens... Something is gonna happen. And, I don't see html5 as the answer that many see it as.

Daryl

Well regardless of this decision your company needs to seek viable alternatives.. in possibly Javascript or AJAX ( not sure how your company does it )... because major players from developers to big box shops are sadly dropping flash related content fast.

[MacUser]

Businesses Add iPads to Their Briefcases
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... ESixthNews

"We made sure that we knew as much about these devices as possible," said Michael Barnas, the firm's director of application services. The technology department now offers access to its internal systems for more than 50 iPad-toting attorneys, and anticipates issuing iPads as an alternative to laptops as soon as next year.

Apple, which said it sold more than three million iPads through the end of June, attributes some of the device's success to businesses. The Cupertino, Calif., company's Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said in July that "very surprisingly" half of the Fortune 100 are testing or deploying iPads.

*****

Follow up story I seen today to go with recent comments.

[RamboPreacher]

yes they/we are adding/testing ipads for deployment. it's revers tech-logic. a CIO or CEO or some other exec wants the kewl gizmo, but it isn't supported on the enterprise infrastructure. Itunes still sux at the enterprise game. so they tell their minions the need it. the minions bow to their needs without asking why or what business case there is, as they would with any other business line within the corporate enterprise. so the minions require the middle management to get the engineers to "make it work". the pilots begin, the use starts growing since it is becoming available on the enterprise. during that time and into the beginnings of production deployment, the QA and UAT folks begin to make uses for it so they can have the gizmo, then the requests begin as more people find out that there is something that they can do, business related, on it. The exec has his toy, the engineers have job security (and the toy too), the shareholders get nada, except a big bill for the project, and so no dividends. capitalism at it's, uhm - best.

the gizmo needs an update. there were policies to "govern" (on paper) what's allowed to be installed. itunes has no ability to have-granular, enterprise, control of the content and apps. The update requires a new version of itunes cause the os update can't just come separately, so everyone now has to update to the latest dot, dot, dot version update not because of any security issue or even functionality issue with the software, but simply because the gizmo has an update to it's os. and oh, BTW -t eh update wasn't mandated my security operations or because the one or two, real, business apps were buggy on it, but because it's the latest version and the exec (remember them?) wants the latest one. OR, the update is mandated from Apple, cause there was some hack that was made available and the new version remediates that hole in it's security. any mention of security issue raises the hairs on the backs of the necks of the minions and dictate that the middle management take care of it.

The enterprise user community complain that the upgrade takes all day, and they "need" their gizmo. problem tickets are drawn up and escalated beyond reality to the moronosphere and the execs and minions get taken care of by their own private support staff (that should be supporting whole regions or groups pf people, but are at the beck and call of the exec). so the update happens individually, rather than from an enterprise deployment. those systems that initially were part of the enterprise, supported group are now forevermore individually supported and the execs and minions no longer listen to the user-base that are complaining and needing the deployment of the update, that was delayed again, because just before the update to itunes was engineered, Qa'd, UAT'd and integration tested, a new dot, dot, dot version update was released...

[MacUser]

Lol... Geek humor at it's finest!

[RamboPreacher]

Lol... Geek humor at it's finest!

based in fact/experience.

[MacUser]

Lol... Geek humor at it's finest!

based in fact/experience.

Sorry! It just sounded funny.

Sadly.. everything has growing pains when it leads and blazes new unknowns.

[RamboPreacher]

having the use of new hardware come before there is need is new. that is the opposite paradigm of the norm. and the itunes issues have been around for years, that is not new that it is not made for a large enterprise.

If Apple really wanted to get access into the fortune 500/large enterprise environments, they need to change the way they do things so that there is support for those environments and not just assume that users have access and should be able to do anything they want.

[MacUser]

that is the opposite paradigm of the norm.

That is Apple. They lead, they create, and protect.. they are the opposite of normal. Awesome that you spotted that.

[Pastor Bill]

I wouldn't say that the hardware use coming before the need is new, I work in IT at a small college, and people have always wanted the new toys whether they need them or not, I think Apple's popularity and advertising has increased that, but then that's the point of advertising, they want their products to sell.

I've got an ipad on my desk, and yes the situation described above about fits, we had administration and faculty that bought these when they came out, and now want to connect them, so we now have them to test their usefulness and make sure we can support them, they are a great toy, and I have found some good use for them, but nothing I couldn't live without. Down the road, these may get more and more integrated.

This is the nature of technology, and generally it isn't need that generates the new innovations, because we've lived for a long time without them, it's convenience, popularity, and the wow factor. Eventually they add to our productivity, but generally not at first, and at times we can question what we've lost and the price we pay for this progress, but that's the way it is.

[MacUser]

This is the nature of technology, and generally it isn't need that generates the new innovations, because we've lived for a long time without them, it's convenience, popularity, and the wow factor. Eventually they add to our productivity, but generally not at first, and at times we can question what we've lost and the price we pay for this progress, but that's the way it is.

Bravo. Excellent insight.

[MacUser]

Apple has officially and unabashedly announced and communicated that they will not and do not support flash.

Btw.. Breaking HTML5 News..

Royalty-free H.264 may clear way for HTML5 video standard

This is good news for almost everyone except Adobe. Adobe's main argument against moving away from the current Flash-dominated web video landscape to one with a truly open standard like HTML5 is now invalid. While Flash may continue to hold onto its grip on interactive web content, MPEG LA's announcement likely points to an end to Flash's dominance in video. This is also the last nail in the coffin for any possibility of Flash running in iOS -- with possibly the biggest obstacle to widespread implementation of HTML5 video now gone, there's zero incentive for Apple to hitch its wagon to Flash.

http://www.macworld.com/article/153692/ ... lties.html