Next session was called iPads and beyond. About 80% of the 300 people in room have tablets, 90% of them iPads. But then most are IT Execs, and it is a session about iPads, so probably not representative of general population!
In general, 75% of current tablets are iPad, 20% android. Problem with android is that it's been fragmented, and originally wasn't designed for tablets. Also high price. But will increase and Gartner expect it to reach parity with iPad by 2015. Microsoft is completely missing from scene but may appear with Windows 8. Many new devices and hybrids will emerge over the next few years and hit the consumer market.
The session looked at tablet use in the business world. Very corporate, and all about security, control etc. Quite different to the world we operate in in HE.
Some interesting observations, not all I agreed with.
Good for documents, especially annotating, easy with touch screen, gestures.
Good for content consumption, but not for creation. This I definitely don't agree with. I find it easy, and I like the softkeyboard. I can type on it as fast as on a hard one. You've only got to look at all the blog posts this week, all typed during the sessions, on an iPad. It's different sure, but you soon get used to it.
File sharing can be an issue. Dropbox is one of the most common apps on iPads. But according to the presenter, it is the most insecure service you can think of. Again, I don't entirely agree, I can think of others! Picked up by a questioner at the end, it was pointed out that it is no more insecure than a USB stick.
Their good graphics capability makes them ideal for dashboards, business analysis etc. Many of companies are putting in lots of work to optimise dashboards for tablet use.
Enterprise application vendors already developing mobile and cloud apps including SAP, IBM
We should be talking to all of our vendors and asking them for their plans on mobile, tablets ands cloud
Lots of stuff on risks and challenges which are intrinsic to consumer mobility. Mobile device management is important, but lots of cloud based services out there to use. We need to evaluate the risks in security, compliance, costs, HR, and identify mobile policies to regulate deployments, usage and support.
Policies are not just about technology but people as well.
Surprised that there wasn't much about the conflict between work and private use, and BYOD. Most of us have tablets with a combination of work and personal apps and data on, including photos, games, music, work files, emails.
Of course, there's also the debate that always happens about why an iPad? Why not a laptop, smartphone etc. Personally I think you should use what you want. I don't use an iPad because it's cool, I use it because it's great! I don't take a laptop away with me anymore, and most days don't take one to work. The killer for me at conferences like this is the ease of use, and the battery life. I can easily get 10 hours out of it. Gone are the days when I'd be wandering round after a couple of hours looking for a power socket.
Showing posts with label ipad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ipad. Show all posts
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Friday, 14 October 2011
Is a magazine a broken iPad?
Someone sent me this today - a one year old who thinks a magazine's a broken iPad!
It's lovely, and reminded me of our granddaughter, who has been playing with my iPad since she was just 3, and has needed virtually no instruction on how to do it. It's been picked up a number of bloggers and commenters today including CNET, who suggested that it would make us weep or giggle, and even if we giggled it would be out of fear for the future. Certainly not in my case - it's just the way things are going and the way kids learn to interact with things.
Off to EDUCAUSE next week, so expect a few conference posts - will try and keep on top of the interesting sessions, but you may have to read them in note form.
It's lovely, and reminded me of our granddaughter, who has been playing with my iPad since she was just 3, and has needed virtually no instruction on how to do it. It's been picked up a number of bloggers and commenters today including CNET, who suggested that it would make us weep or giggle, and even if we giggled it would be out of fear for the future. Certainly not in my case - it's just the way things are going and the way kids learn to interact with things.
Off to EDUCAUSE next week, so expect a few conference posts - will try and keep on top of the interesting sessions, but you may have to read them in note form.
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
User Group and a rogue unix command
It was our User Group this morning - always well attended and a chance to bring our customers up to date with developments and get some feedback. Began with a projects update:
Other things we talked about were recent incidents and performance problems, and the complexity of systems, processes, configuration and data which underlies everything we do. Trying to get a handle of not just the systems, but the business processes, to simplify them is our next big thing.
I then gave a version of my "Challenges Facing an IT Director" presentation, which I've blogged about before, leading into an explanation of our new governance process, based on service management. Illustrated beautifully by this simple diagram:
Finally we had a very good presentation on our upgraded Content Management System which is about to go live. This is something we've been justifiably criticised for over the past couple of years as the version of the system we've been running is not brilliant, but the upgraded one is much better!
Then a discussion with our internal auditors about our next audit - on Freedom of Information - more on that as it happens!
At the end of this afternoon, a couple of things that make me love working in CiCS. Someone (who shall remain nameless unless outed in the comments), made a little mistake with a unix command and deleted something he shouldn't have. The command was " rm -R * " which might mean something to unix people :-). Anyway, he was promptly visited by our Unix group leader who beat him over the head repeatedly with a plastic hammer and then pinned a P45 to his desk. Perhaps not a mistake he'll make again!
And the second thing was someone introducing me to Flipboard for the iPad. It's brilliant! So elegant, and such a different way to look at social media.
- MOLE2 (our new VLE ) is going well and live in 2 pilot departments, being rolled out to rest of University over next year or so.
- Google - we've made the decision now in principle to implement Google apps for staff, moving mail at Christmas and calendar and other apps soon after
- Upgrade to our student system - technical upgrade completed and gone well, look and feel upgrade now in progress.
- New portal (to be based on Liferay) progressing well
Other things we talked about were recent incidents and performance problems, and the complexity of systems, processes, configuration and data which underlies everything we do. Trying to get a handle of not just the systems, but the business processes, to simplify them is our next big thing.
I then gave a version of my "Challenges Facing an IT Director" presentation, which I've blogged about before, leading into an explanation of our new governance process, based on service management. Illustrated beautifully by this simple diagram:
Finally we had a very good presentation on our upgraded Content Management System which is about to go live. This is something we've been justifiably criticised for over the past couple of years as the version of the system we've been running is not brilliant, but the upgraded one is much better!
Then a discussion with our internal auditors about our next audit - on Freedom of Information - more on that as it happens!
At the end of this afternoon, a couple of things that make me love working in CiCS. Someone (who shall remain nameless unless outed in the comments), made a little mistake with a unix command and deleted something he shouldn't have. The command was " rm -R * " which might mean something to unix people :-). Anyway, he was promptly visited by our Unix group leader who beat him over the head repeatedly with a plastic hammer and then pinned a P45 to his desk. Perhaps not a mistake he'll make again!
And the second thing was someone introducing me to Flipboard for the iPad. It's brilliant! So elegant, and such a different way to look at social media.
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Benefits and wireless
Yesterday I spent some of the day at the University of Wolverhampton Telford campus. I've been invited to be a member of a Steering Group to produce a Guide on Programme Management, funded as part of the HEFCE Leadership and Management Fund. The intention is not to produce a guide telling people how to run projects, but to focus on how to chose projects as part of a programme to achieve University objectives, and to focus particularly on benefits delivery and realisation. The project originated from a study on how HECFE capital money had been used and managed, and whether benefits had been actually realised, or even measured. Consequently the steering group is made up mainly of Estates Directors, but I am on to represent JISC and the IT sector, and we are hoping to involve people from Finance, Planning, and Faculties.
The intention is to produce a toolkit which will be capable of being used in any institution, across all disciplines. Yesterday we looked at the structure of the guide, and the sorts of things we expect to see in it. The link between strategy, programmes and projects, all of which should be benefits led is important. We should also give guidance on defining benefits, and how they might be measured, recognising that they are not always financial and may seem to be intangible. There'll also be case studies, as well as vignettes and examples.
Looks like being an interesting project.
One of the thing I've forgotten to say, is that for the last few weeks I've not been carrying my laptop to meetings or conferences, instead slipping my iPad in my handbag. So far it's worked well - the battery life is great, and with the discovery of iAnnotate I can treat digital papers just like paper, scribbling on them, highlighting stuff etc. The only downside was last week in London where my hotel room had internet access, but it was only wired, not wireless. Not much good for an iPad, but luckily there was a good 3G signal. The rise of wireless only devices has made us think about whether we should revise our policy of wired only access in the rooms of our halls of residences. There's wireless in the communal areas, but not much good for an iPodTouch, or iPad, or some netbooks. And, even with a laptop, you don't want to be tied to using it at a desk, but I like to sit in bed and watch iPlayer!
The intention is to produce a toolkit which will be capable of being used in any institution, across all disciplines. Yesterday we looked at the structure of the guide, and the sorts of things we expect to see in it. The link between strategy, programmes and projects, all of which should be benefits led is important. We should also give guidance on defining benefits, and how they might be measured, recognising that they are not always financial and may seem to be intangible. There'll also be case studies, as well as vignettes and examples.
Looks like being an interesting project.
One of the thing I've forgotten to say, is that for the last few weeks I've not been carrying my laptop to meetings or conferences, instead slipping my iPad in my handbag. So far it's worked well - the battery life is great, and with the discovery of iAnnotate I can treat digital papers just like paper, scribbling on them, highlighting stuff etc. The only downside was last week in London where my hotel room had internet access, but it was only wired, not wireless. Not much good for an iPad, but luckily there was a good 3G signal. The rise of wireless only devices has made us think about whether we should revise our policy of wired only access in the rooms of our halls of residences. There's wireless in the communal areas, but not much good for an iPodTouch, or iPad, or some netbooks. And, even with a laptop, you don't want to be tied to using it at a desk, but I like to sit in bed and watch iPlayer!
Sunday, 19 September 2010
The future?
One of my most keenly anticipated talks at any Gartner conference is that from Nick Jones, their mobile and technology futures expert. A great speaker and very knowledgeable. That said, there's something I thought he got quite wrong in this talk, but we'll come to that later...
Some key points from his talk:
* Mobile is critical, don't ignore it.
* The next generation of workers will have different expectations and will work in different ways. They will demand more autonomy and more input in the choice of technology, expecting to be allowed to connect anything.
* Location independent work and more use of teams and collaborative tools will also increase.
* There will be less device centricity and the expectations of technology will be driven by the consumer space. We will have to accommodate it because they will use it anyway.
Interestingly this is what we are seeing in Universities now and have been for some time. We are dealing with a very mobile population, who already turn up with any device running any operating system, and will use any software that they can. But present at this conference were CIOs from all sectors, where they are not so liberal at the moment.
Nick also talked about connectivity which he termed the fallacy of the Cloud. Cloud computing will only really be useful when networks are free, fast, have unlimited bandwidth, have no latency and are everywhere. This is not the case at the moment, and although they are improving but they are nothing like the wired world yet. This will take time as nothing in the network space happens quickly. Again, this mirrored the Digital Britain discussion I had at the roundtable on Tuesday.
In terms of mobility, smart phones are apparently taking over the world. There are a number of operating systems, and some predictions you can make about them. Android is growing in market share, the iPhone is staying strong, Microsoft is low and may never get back into top 3, and Symbian has no presence in North America so may find it difficult to compete. With smart phones come App Stores, which can be used for business purposes and distribute apps, but there are some risks and education and care are needed.
As usual Nick gave a good overview of what technologies we might expect to see in the next 5 to 10 years, and these included Epaper signage, 3D displays, cleaning and delivery robots, indoor navigation, and more technologies using voice. Voice controlled search, emotion detection, voice controlled applications and voice over wifi.
So as users demand more choice of devices, we have to look at different support models. In brief they are:
Control orientated. We tell users what device they can have, we guarantee service levels, put in place metrics and security. This model is going to decrease over time.
Choice orientated. Users can have a bigger choice of devices, but smaller number of applications. Eg mobile email and web
Innovation oriented. Users have the autonomy to create new processes and deliverables on any device they choose
Hands off, or bring your own IT. Let users use what they want or their own personal devices.
All good stuff, and the different models of support are things that we're all looking at.
So, what did I disagree with? Well, Nick was rather scathing about tablets, and iPads in particular, offering the opinion that they would only ever serve a niche market, would never be used in an enterprise way, and wouldn't replace laptops because they didn't have the functionality of a laptop to handle spreadsheets for example, and had a "crippled" operating system. Well, I beg to differ, and this is no Mac vs PC argument. They may never become ubiquitous, but they will replace laptops for many people, mine already has. I can type and read documents, handle spreadsheets, annotate PDFs, get my email and calendar, access all of our web based enterprise systems, with one notable exception which hopefully is about to be fixed :-)
It fits in my handbag, so I don't have to lug a briefcase around, and the screen is big enough to do everything i want to, but the absolute killer for me for the mobile life I increasingly lead? The battery life. It can easily last 10 to 12 hours of heavy use. The last two conferences I've been to I haven't had to look for power sockets, or sit by the edge of the room, or stop taking notes by lunchtime because my battery's flat. Yes, there's some stuff that needs improving, but I wouldn't write them off and there's nothing crippled about the operating system.
Some key points from his talk:
* Mobile is critical, don't ignore it.
* The next generation of workers will have different expectations and will work in different ways. They will demand more autonomy and more input in the choice of technology, expecting to be allowed to connect anything.
* Location independent work and more use of teams and collaborative tools will also increase.
* There will be less device centricity and the expectations of technology will be driven by the consumer space. We will have to accommodate it because they will use it anyway.
Interestingly this is what we are seeing in Universities now and have been for some time. We are dealing with a very mobile population, who already turn up with any device running any operating system, and will use any software that they can. But present at this conference were CIOs from all sectors, where they are not so liberal at the moment.
Nick also talked about connectivity which he termed the fallacy of the Cloud. Cloud computing will only really be useful when networks are free, fast, have unlimited bandwidth, have no latency and are everywhere. This is not the case at the moment, and although they are improving but they are nothing like the wired world yet. This will take time as nothing in the network space happens quickly. Again, this mirrored the Digital Britain discussion I had at the roundtable on Tuesday.
In terms of mobility, smart phones are apparently taking over the world. There are a number of operating systems, and some predictions you can make about them. Android is growing in market share, the iPhone is staying strong, Microsoft is low and may never get back into top 3, and Symbian has no presence in North America so may find it difficult to compete. With smart phones come App Stores, which can be used for business purposes and distribute apps, but there are some risks and education and care are needed.
As usual Nick gave a good overview of what technologies we might expect to see in the next 5 to 10 years, and these included Epaper signage, 3D displays, cleaning and delivery robots, indoor navigation, and more technologies using voice. Voice controlled search, emotion detection, voice controlled applications and voice over wifi.
So as users demand more choice of devices, we have to look at different support models. In brief they are:
Control orientated. We tell users what device they can have, we guarantee service levels, put in place metrics and security. This model is going to decrease over time.
Choice orientated. Users can have a bigger choice of devices, but smaller number of applications. Eg mobile email and web
Innovation oriented. Users have the autonomy to create new processes and deliverables on any device they choose
Hands off, or bring your own IT. Let users use what they want or their own personal devices.
All good stuff, and the different models of support are things that we're all looking at.
So, what did I disagree with? Well, Nick was rather scathing about tablets, and iPads in particular, offering the opinion that they would only ever serve a niche market, would never be used in an enterprise way, and wouldn't replace laptops because they didn't have the functionality of a laptop to handle spreadsheets for example, and had a "crippled" operating system. Well, I beg to differ, and this is no Mac vs PC argument. They may never become ubiquitous, but they will replace laptops for many people, mine already has. I can type and read documents, handle spreadsheets, annotate PDFs, get my email and calendar, access all of our web based enterprise systems, with one notable exception which hopefully is about to be fixed :-)
It fits in my handbag, so I don't have to lug a briefcase around, and the screen is big enough to do everything i want to, but the absolute killer for me for the mobile life I increasingly lead? The battery life. It can easily last 10 to 12 hours of heavy use. The last two conferences I've been to I haven't had to look for power sockets, or sit by the edge of the room, or stop taking notes by lunchtime because my battery's flat. Yes, there's some stuff that needs improving, but I wouldn't write them off and there's nothing crippled about the operating system.
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
To iPad or not to iPad
For the last few weeks I've been testing an iPad. I'm particularly interested to know how useful it is in meetings, and whether it could mean I don't have to carry a laptop around.
On the plus side, I find the keyboard very easy to use to input text and surprisingly fast once you get used to it. Pages creates documents very well which seem to export to Word without any problem. I can open word docs and pdfs, and although some complicated formatting might get lost occasionally from Word to Pages, nothing has caused me any problems so far. Connectivity seems good, connecting to Eduroam or any other wireless network, and switching to 3G if no wireless available. There's some neat apps around for accessing your files from the cloud (we just need to get our filestore linked in to it). Email is great, and access through our portal to our web based systems fine, with VPN working well if you need it.
One of the things I'm really impressed with is the battery life. Often I only need to charge it up every two or three days, and recently I used it non stop for 6 hours in a meeting, and it still had 40% battery left. That's certainly better than any laptop.
In meetings it's less obtrusive than a laptop, both in terms of noise (I sometimes wonder if people realise how noisy their keyboards are), and it sits almost flat on the table and doesn't give the impression of a barrier between you and the rest of the attendees.
It's also always on - just like a phone, there's no booting up involved.
So - what are the downsides. Well, there's some that I hope will be fixed fairly quickly, such as the inability to open the keyboard and input text into some web forms - our own collaboration service uSpace for example, and I couldn't input my blog though the blogger web interface, had to download the app.
I'd also like to be able to annotate documents and pdfs - just like scribbling in the margin of a printed page. There's probably an app to do that, but I haven't found it yet.
But the main issue is that it has been primarily marketed as a consumer device, owned by an individual with an individual iTunes account. Apple really haven't got their heads round it as an enterprise device, owned by an institution. There is no real way of deploying or paying for apps on an institutional basis - when we raised this with Apple it was seriously suggested that we purchase a load of iTunes gift cards. Sharing devices also seems to be difficult, as they are synched to individual iTunes accounts.
As a consumer device it's excellent - especially the way it handles and displays images, movies, books and music - but we could do with some of the corporate issues sorting out if they're going to take off institutionally.
On the plus side, I find the keyboard very easy to use to input text and surprisingly fast once you get used to it. Pages creates documents very well which seem to export to Word without any problem. I can open word docs and pdfs, and although some complicated formatting might get lost occasionally from Word to Pages, nothing has caused me any problems so far. Connectivity seems good, connecting to Eduroam or any other wireless network, and switching to 3G if no wireless available. There's some neat apps around for accessing your files from the cloud (we just need to get our filestore linked in to it). Email is great, and access through our portal to our web based systems fine, with VPN working well if you need it.
One of the things I'm really impressed with is the battery life. Often I only need to charge it up every two or three days, and recently I used it non stop for 6 hours in a meeting, and it still had 40% battery left. That's certainly better than any laptop.
In meetings it's less obtrusive than a laptop, both in terms of noise (I sometimes wonder if people realise how noisy their keyboards are), and it sits almost flat on the table and doesn't give the impression of a barrier between you and the rest of the attendees.
It's also always on - just like a phone, there's no booting up involved.
So - what are the downsides. Well, there's some that I hope will be fixed fairly quickly, such as the inability to open the keyboard and input text into some web forms - our own collaboration service uSpace for example, and I couldn't input my blog though the blogger web interface, had to download the app.
I'd also like to be able to annotate documents and pdfs - just like scribbling in the margin of a printed page. There's probably an app to do that, but I haven't found it yet.
But the main issue is that it has been primarily marketed as a consumer device, owned by an individual with an individual iTunes account. Apple really haven't got their heads round it as an enterprise device, owned by an institution. There is no real way of deploying or paying for apps on an institutional basis - when we raised this with Apple it was seriously suggested that we purchase a load of iTunes gift cards. Sharing devices also seems to be difficult, as they are synched to individual iTunes accounts.
As a consumer device it's excellent - especially the way it handles and displays images, movies, books and music - but we could do with some of the corporate issues sorting out if they're going to take off institutionally.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Mobile apps and iPads
Meeting this morning to look at our mobile strategy - especially in relation to our mobile app, CampusM. We want to capitalise on it as much as we can, and that involves getting a lot more data into it, and being strategic about what additional functionality we want. We also need to closely tie it in with the development and implementation of our new portal, and look at how it might integrate with the mobile functionality of our new VLE. Next week we're meeting with a number of representatives from departments including the Student Union, the Library and our student information centre to discuss with them how we might increase the amount of information available to our students.
The iPhone/iPodTouch version has been really popular, and we're about to release the Blackberry version. Then the web version will be available for all other phones, so we should reach all students with a smart phone. At the moment we're not sure how many have them, or what kind, so we will be carrying out a survey soon.
Then a bit of excitement in the department as our iPads arrived. We've ordered a few to test things out - how they synch with our services for example, and what we can deliver to them. I'm particularly interested in how we might use them in meetings. If we can get our documents onto them, and annotate them, they might be more popular than laptops. Not as heavy or bulky, and without the perceived barrier that a laptop creates. Think we'll have to wait a couple of weeks for iOS4 for the annotation/notes facility, but I'm hopeful that we shoud be able to use them to reduce the amount of printing we do.
The iPhone/iPodTouch version has been really popular, and we're about to release the Blackberry version. Then the web version will be available for all other phones, so we should reach all students with a smart phone. At the moment we're not sure how many have them, or what kind, so we will be carrying out a survey soon.
Then a bit of excitement in the department as our iPads arrived. We've ordered a few to test things out - how they synch with our services for example, and what we can deliver to them. I'm particularly interested in how we might use them in meetings. If we can get our documents onto them, and annotate them, they might be more popular than laptops. Not as heavy or bulky, and without the perceived barrier that a laptop creates. Think we'll have to wait a couple of weeks for iOS4 for the annotation/notes facility, but I'm hopeful that we shoud be able to use them to reduce the amount of printing we do.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
iCertainlyWill
I've got round to this really late in the day, and so many people have blogged today about the iPad I nearly didn't bother. But then I decided it would be interesting to put down what I think about it today, so that I could compare with how I feel when I've got my hands on one, and when versions 2, 3, 4 have come out, or when it's followed the same fate as the Newton.So - initial thoughts watching the launch and subsequent videos were wow - looks like I thought it would, very sleek, beautifully designed, looks like a great interface and screen, very fast, great quality video and photos. Typical Apple attention to quality, design and detail. Not too keen on the name and the subsequent jokes ("does it come with wings?" being my favourite) but that will pass. And yes, I am lusting to get my hands on one.
So - what about the criticisms and disappointments. What's it for? Why hasn't it got this? Or that? Is it supposed to be a big iPhone, or a netbook? The last question to my mind is the easiest, and the key to the previous one. The answer is neither - it isn't a phone (that's why you can't make calls on it - and why would you want to on something that size), and it's not a netbook. A couple of blog posts have summed the issues up for me, the most eloquent being Stephen Fry's - he puts things so much better than I could! The other is a short post from Mashable - I particularly like the thought of an engineer breaking it to Steve Jobs that he forgot to put the camera in....
I personally think it's going to be a great device for consuming content (you can use it to create it, but I don't think it's going to be significant), web browsing and for gaming. The latter is where I can see it really taking off very quickly.
And yes, iCertainlyWill.
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