“The theme of the Box conference was mobile technology, and Cook asserted that businesses still have only a halting grasp of mobile’s potential,” Marcus Wohlsen reports for Wired. “At the moment, he claimed, most businesses think of mobile tech as little more than a portable way to check email. ‘To take advantage of it in a huge way you have to rethink everything that you’re doing,’ he said. ‘There’s no doubt in my mind the best companies will be the most mobile.'”
“When Cook says ‘the most mobile,’ what he’s really saying is ‘the most Apple,'” Wohlsen reports. “Apple hasn’t long been in a position to make such a claim credibly. The company’s long resurgence under Steve Jobs originated in Jobs’ genius for consumer products. The iMac, then the iPod, then the iPhone: Apple designed these devices for mass appeal—tech for generalists, not the specialized worlds of work.”
“But then a funny thing happened. Apple customers didn’t start demanding new devices for work. They adapted their work to the Apple devices they already had. ‘Who uses iOS?’ Levie asked the crowd. A forest of hands shot up,” Wohlsen reports. “Businesses aren’t seeking out enterprise phones, either. Among enterprise users, iOS accounts for nearly two-thirds of the market. More than any other factor, that embrace accounts for the realignment on plain display during Cook’s turn on the stage. The top corporate sponsor of Box’s event was IBM, a long-ago Apple rival and now a friend that’s building business apps for business users on iOS. But note which company’s CEO was the headliner.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote of the Apple Watch back in May:
Anything that saves this much time is a product that smart companies would want for their employees.
It takes a bit of effort to make someone who has grown up with conventional computers believe that they aren’t losing something by shifting toward mobile technology.
I have clients with big snazzy powerful 5k iMacs on their desks. When I tell them they aren’t using these computers for anything they couldn’t do on an iPad they don’t believe me. These folks often have a terabyte of space or more locally on their desks, but only 80 to 100GB of actual space used. Most of it email and garbage files. They keep all important work on the company servers!
I have individual users who also have powerful Mac laptops which are only used for checking email, writing resumes, collecting photographs, reading news, etc. It’s difficult to convince these people all they need is an iPad as well.
Even people who get how the iPad could replace their normal computers have a tendency to say, “You know what? I know how to use the Macintosh. I don’t feel like learning how to use the iPad to replace it. Now run along you tiresome annoying techno weenie.”
One of my own BIG problems with supporting iOS is supporting it remotely. The closest I’ve seen is BOMGAR and it’s ridiculously expensive AND it requires you have a Mac or Windows computer connected to the iOS device.
Otherwise support is all verbal. It feels like going back a century in time. “Oh look for the icon that says settings. It looks like a silver gear. Found it yet? Hmmm. You must have hidden it from yourself. Ok search for settings? How to search? Ok…”
Interestingly TeamViewer allows me to use an iOS device to support a Mac or Windows computer.
Does anyone know of any software that allows real-time support of an iOS device from iOS, Mac, or Windows even (bleh).
I also wonder why Apple doesn’t provide Remote Desktop management from iOS. There are plenty of 3rd party VNC apps that allow this, but it would be nice to standardize on Remote Desktop.
I may be “forced” to carry a Mac laptop for a while. Ha! “Forced.”
For most people getting used to the fact that their files are no longer with them is also going to take some getting used to. Those of us in urban areas pretty much have Internet access everywhere, but not everyone.
I’ve found using a leaf iBridge to be pretty useful. I have one that is a copy of my critical dropbox stuff. If I’m going somewhere that I know I’ll have Internet access problems, I bring it along.
http://www.leefco.com/ibridge
It’s all going to get much more seamless in the future. Can’t wait to get my hands on an iPad Pro. If it is as fast as I’ve been told, I’m going to find some small company to convince to go all iPad.
I got your point.
The userland-fear that was insulted by Windows over years cannot be erased by just starting your new Macintosh.
But, what if you discover that ≠ anymore?
Security? Discuss it instead of being secure. OMG.
Reliability? You cry about it instead of being busy producing.
Confidence? You are treated like an alien when you call the support. You probably are told to clean install your device again ( …and again.)
Welcome to the future of tech. It is right here and it has become Steves nightmare. An udder to milk the masses to feed the greed of the rich.
Just stop buying Apple products. That might help.
hard not to agree. although i am not going to stop buying apple products
apple still makes excellent hardware, but their software is definitely slipping and increasingly buggy.
even more ominous, and irony of ironies, tim’s vision of mobility will increasingly depend upon the delivery of services, something that apple has struggled with from the get-go.
they really need to concentrate on quality of software and services – somebody seems to have forgotten, you don’t have to be first, but you do have to be best, and then the world will beat a path to your door.
I agree Apple has a long way to go to be the leader of services.
They are also holding back the highest quality mobile apps by having no explicit support in the App Store for selling app upgrades to customers as is done in the PC market.
There are ways to get around this, but none are painless. Microsoft’s solution is to use a subscription, but smaller developers are never going to get customers to sign up for subscriptions.
This is holding back the iPad in particular, as the iPad needs deep quality apps, and that takes time, iteration, and upgrade revenue to do well.
Phishing Alert Link above, beware 😛
Who cares about what you want?
Do you want a Mac that crashes all the time?
Do you want an iOS that is now insecure and quite buggy, although you paid a grant for a phone?
Do you really want that?
No? Than you need to tell us what you think, right now right here.
Because changing the tech world is a whole lotta responsibility !
Microsoft failed and Apple is about to become the same greedy shitty alliance of money bags that ruins everything because they do NOT care about what we want: Quality.
They are still with Mavericks, believe me, iPhone 5s with iOS 7 or 8. Nothing else but Blackberry is trustworthy anymore when you are working in the security business.
The terms of use forcing Apple users to accept unacceptable risks especially for freelancers, entrepreneurs and those who are in touch with the world that does not use Apple at all.
Shabby, but there is still hope for a better future at Apple.
We just do not think that the numbers guy will put an effort in changing the greed into responsibility on a tech level in terms of reliability and security again.
NoFear.
Is it really that bad already?
Thank you for the heads up, I will ask the Apple Genius about that.
In general my EC experience went well. It did take very long to download, but I consider it the effect of popularity.
I am continually disappointed in Mail. I prefer the app, look, feel, speed, Spotlight etc. But all these versions on and still the formatting options are bad (please see what you have sent out and what others receive to that end and do not say that that is because those people are Windows sufferers because they are my clients) The exchange with Exchange is workable but not good, read / unread often requires change of selected mailbox to refresh, not possible to have multiple accounts if those accounts contain multiple subfolders. And more, much more….