“Brace yourself. Before the month is out, they will be knocking at your door, insisting that Apple’s iPad tablet―for sale on or about April 3 (pre-orders started March 12 at 5:30 pm PST)―is just the gadget that will solve a multitude of IT problems while, simultaneously, giving your IT strategy a leg up,” Robert McGarvey writes for CIO Update. “It will not.”
MacDailyNews Note: In what we expect will be just the first of many corrections, iPad pre-orders started on March 12 at 5:30 am Pacific, not pm.
McGarvey continues, “What it will do, say many experts, is create problems. And those problems will become your problems… Even if your company has relented and now supports the iPhone, as growing numbers of businesses do (70% of the Fortune 100 are at least testing it, says Apple) you’ll want to say ‘No’ to the iPad and other tablets.”
McGarvey’s 10 reasons to nix Apple’s iPad in your IT strategy:
1. Slow is as slow is: James Wolf, an assistant professor of Information Systems at Illinois State University [says that] moving your hands around a screen is clunky. “The keyboard/mouse is much faster and easier than the tablet’s input.”
MacDailyNews Take: Ooh, an assistant professor; of Information Systems, no less. We’re sure some assistant professor somewhere also claimed that typewriters were faster than word processors way back when, too. Nobody makes typewriters anymore.
2. The iPad does not run common office productivity tools
MacDailyNews Take: No, it runs good office productivity tools that just so happen to be compatible with the common ones.
3. No camera
MacDailyNews Take: So, use your iPhone’s camera. Camera’s are not a requirement for your “IT strategy.” They can even be banned from workplaces for security reasons.
4. No [third-party] multitasking allowed on the iPad
MacDailyNews Take: Yet. And, even if it never, ever happens, it’s not valid reason to “nix iPad in your IT strategy” which, if your IT department is anything like most, is a strategy based almost exclusively on job preservation and the stifling of worker productivity for the sake of IT’s convenience.
5. No Flash on iPad: That means no watching Web videos (unless it’s on YouTube, for which a special player is promised).
MacDailyNews Take: What is this poor idiot talking about? iPad supports H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format. Yes, MR. IT Doofus, iPad even supports your ancient, piece of crap .avi format.
6. No USB out of the box
MacDailyNews Take: Dock connector, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and iWork.com, dummy. Welcome to this century.
7. Money talks: A decent netbook can be had for half the $500 Apple is expected to price the bare bones iPad… A data plan for 3G capable models is expected to add another $30 monthly to the tab.
MacDailyNews Take: There’s no such thing as a decent netbook. And a 3G data plan for a netbook would cost more than an iPad’s.
8. Speaking of money, there is no money in the company budget to pay for iPads.
MacDailyNews Take: Depends on the company and how forward-thinking its leadership is.
9. Not supporting iPad will be the enterprise norm: ”Consumers will buy the iPad to use as an e-reader,” predicts Chris Hazelton, research director for Mobile and Wireless at The 451 Group. “But the iPad will not be bought by enterprise.”
MacDailyNews Take: iCal’ed.
10. Tablets have never caught on: Apple won’t change that. As far back as Comdex in 2001, Bill Gates predicted tablet computing would change the world. You know what happened to Comdex and tablets, too.
MacDailyNews Take: Typical IT drone. We pity these type of dinosaurs. Of course, many of IT’s beloved Bill “Whoops, I Missed The Internet” Gates’ predictions over the years have been absolutely atrocious.
Full article – Think Before You Click™ – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Shouldn’t IT people be out front, trying new things, pushing the envelope in order to drag their companies kicking and screaming into the future in order to boost productivity? Unfortunately, they’re all too often the complete opposite: erecting artificial barriers built on shaky or nonexistent foundations, resisting change at every turn, just like the fearful, little Mr. McGarvey.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tony H.” for the heads up.]