Is the iPad the right tool for business?

Ok, i'm really struggling with this.  I had the iPad 1 and now have an iPad 2.  I also carry around a MacBook Air and an iPhone.  Clearly i'm an Apple Fanboy, but I have to vent on this topic.

There are a ton of iPads out there right now, and a lot of them are used in business.  On average, 50% of the folks in my meetings carry an iPad now (or some other post 2009 tablet) and clearly it is here to stay.  But is this just a temporary fad or a permanent fixture in our daily lives?

I speak to tons of customers every month, and it's clear that they are already embracing this platform, and are even going out of their way to enable this technology by virtualizing their apps and desktops; in some cases investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to make an app run on an iPad.  But is it really worth this exercise, and will it pay off in increased productivity?  I tend to think not, and here's why:

1. If it's not a native app, it is somewhat worthless (to me).  I dig apps; anything that natively runs on iOS, written well and responds quickly with my data.  However, trying to use web apps, and through Client Virtualization technologies is just plain awful and frustrating, even to someone who is a power user.
2. Security is a nightmare to manage.  Say you download a note-taking app, probably the most common thing a business user would use an iPad for; all your business data is now stored on the iPad with a lame 4 digit password.  Is the data encrypted and secure?  Well that depends on the app (probably not).  Can you email the notes out and cause data leakage?  Sure.  Worse yet, does the note-taking app have cloud-based storage so your 'stuff' is now stored in a public data center with questionable security practices?  Oh yeah, that's happening everywhere already.  All it takes is an employee to lose an iPad with critical data, or a cloud provider geting hacked, for businesses to take this risk seriously.
3. Along the lines of the whole note-taking thing, the iPad is not fast enough to type on, and most of the note-taking apps don't let you draw (well).  I'll take Microsoft OneNote any day, but i've settled with EverNote even though you can't sketch in it yet (right now I use Pen Ultimate and paste sketches in EverNote).  And it's not like I don't like the online keyboard, it is just that it's not comfortable like the iPhone.  And i've spent months trying to get used to it. No Dice.
4. This thing isn't designed for 'rugged' everyday use.  One drop and the glass is either broken or pretty marred up.  Oh yeah, you can spend another 50-100 bucks on a rugged case which makes the device thick, heavy and downright ugly.  No thanks (I opted for a Miniot custom wood cover).
5. No Flash.  This IS a big deal in firms like mine that use ERP and Performance Management Apps that are all based on Flash.
6. People want to access their business desktops with their iPad. I really, really struggle with this one.  Until you actually do this a few times, you don't realize how much of a time waster this is.  I recently went on a trip to the west coast sans notebook, and what a mistake that was!  While the convenience of having a super light, long battery life device was fantastic, I found myself doing 90% of my email responses on my iPhone.  Secondly, accessing my desktop just wasn't the same; I kept accidentally closing windows, resizing/pinching windows frequently and with public WiFi being so horribly unpredictable, I gave up and waited until I got home to my mac.  At one point I got caught in an endless loop trying to reset an internal enterprise app password for over an hour. My point being, I started wasting way too much time trying to 'make it work' on the iPad and in fact started losing productivity.  Part of the problem though is that Windows, and its apps, aren't designed for touch screen devices or low resolution screens like the iPad, so you have to keep this in perspective.

By now you may think I hate the iPad, but that's quite the opposite.  I think it is fantastic for watching movies, reading books, playing games, surfing while on the couch etc - all consumer type stuff.  At work, i'm way happier with my MacBook Air.  However, as I say that, I do see a blend of the MacBook Air and the iPad that could be a killer combination.

All we (probably just me) can do is wait and hope.  Comment back and give me your perspective on this.

Upsetting the Apple Cart...

Apple's App Store has revolutionized the way we search, find and download apps for our iOS devices.  In fact, this has created a whole new set of developers that would otherwise have no way to mass market their homegrown application.  Following the success of the App Store came similar online stores such as the Android Market, Windows Phone Marketplace, BlackBerry App World, just to name a few.


Advantages exist in this case for both developers and consumers.  For developers, they write the app, submit it to Apple and assuming it gets approved, they are now in the App Store with over 100 million possible consumers.  They get a decent share of the profits (70%) and they don't have to worry about distribution.  Upload a new version of the App into the Apple App Store, and boom, every person who downloaded it now knows that a newer version is available.


For consumers, having to purchase an App once, share it on all your iOS devices and having a central place to manage all your updates is a huge convenience.  In some cases, the ability to just download an upgrade or game level within the App itself is great.


Ok, I'm stating something that has been around for at least two years now, so what's my point right?


In October 2010, as part of the 'Back to the Mac' public event, Apple unveiled some new features coming in the next version of Mac OSX Lion, due out in the summer of 2011.  One of the features, that will actually be out prior to Lion's release, mostly as a beta, will be the Mac App Store.


Now, I know what you're thinking.  Aren't they just copying what they did for iOS devices and moving it to the Mac?  Well, sort of.  Yes, the 70% developer profits, the approval, uploading process is pretty similar, and even the hands free installation is the same as an iOS device, but this is a completely new experience for Mac users and its been a long time coming.  One of the claims is that when you buy an App from the Mac App Store, such as Keynote, you can use it on all your Macs which share the same iTunes authorization, which today is up to 5 machines.  I'm not sure if this in fact will be the way it works, but if it does, this will be huge for consumers.


Not only will it be easy to purchase, install and update Apps on the Mac, but you can use it on multiple Macs in your household?  Now that is a huge benefit for consumers.


I can't say all is peachy for everyone else though.  If the Mac App Store does in fact do well, which I'm sure it will, what happens with all the software retailers, university book stores, electronics retailers, discount warehouses etc?  I'll tell you what, if i can get my software 'now', completely digitally, at a better price that works on multiple Macs and I don't have to save those silly retail boxes and discs, I'm definitely going to buy it from the Mac App Store.  At some point, for those Apps that are compiled for OSX as well as iOS, I can see a version of the App where you buy it once and it works across iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Mac OSX.  This already exists for some 'universal' apps that work on the iPad and the iPhone.


At this point, I'm doing a lot of speculating, but I'm not done yet.


Before the Mac App Store even becomes a huge success, I'll speculate that BlackBerry, Android and Microsoft will follow suit with something a lot similar.  Why wouldn't they?  Well for one, they have to keep up with competition, but most importantly, this model of App distribution is way cheaper than retail distribution and can actually prevent piracy!  Yes I said it, Piracy.


The current App Store already has this in place.  Take for example, an App I bought called Angry Birds (maybe you've heard of it?).  I bought it on my iPhone, then transferred it to my iTunes Hub which is my central repository for Music, Movies and Apps.  Since my wife and I sync with the same iTunes hub, she now has the Angry Birds App on her iPhone as well, and its all compliant.  I however, could not 'give' that app to another iPhone user, unless they are setup to 'sync' with my iTunes hub which would require them to come to my house every time.  I'm sure there may be ways to hack this, but for the average user, we just don't have the time to cheat the system.  This in essence limits piracy, something that ISVs have been struggling with for a long time now.


Since the Mac population is so small, yes, the Mac App Store will have minimal consequences with software resellers and retailers, but if and when this hits Windows, this will be a huge impact to software resellers.  Imagine the software aisles at Best Buy, OfficeMax, Staples etc. vacant, because consumers could buy it at home, right on their notebook.


Let's also not forget the cloud movement, with some pretty strong contenders such as Microsoft Office 356 and Google Apps leading the way in this space, with hundreds of ISVs following close behind.  We've mostly talked about the impact to retailers, but what about corporate consumers?  How does this change the software procurement process, will it be all cloud or all an online centralized App Store?


This is undoubtedly, the most exciting time in the tech industry.  Perhaps the apple cart is more than upset; perhaps its more like rolling it down a steep hill.  :)


vTurbo