On this day a year ago?

Posted on 10 June 2011

On this day last year I asked, “Can iPhone 4 work for business?” following the new iPhone’s introduction at Apple’s 2010 WWDC in San Francisco. At the same event this year, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs shared some amazing numbers before announcing iOS 5, OS Lion for Macs and iCloud – as he said “It’s all about software!”

Before looking a little more into the answer to my question last year, it’s worth restating some of the numbers he shared. Briefly, he told us Apple has:

• Sold over 200 million iOS devices
• Over 500,000 applications approved on its App Store
• Users who’ve collectively downloaded ‘more than 14 billion apps’

Obviously iOS devices include the iPhone range but also the iPad tablet computer and the iPod Touch, the WiFi only version of the iPhone. What’s significant is the iPhone has only been around since 2007 yet has been widely accepted by consumers and business users alike.

Many IT professionals have found themselves having to accept the integration of the iPhone into their corporate IT structure, often because the loudest proponents for its use are Board level Directors. In response to many critics of the iPhone’s security features, Apple has raised the bar by announcing the encryption of all data transferred between the device and its new on-line internet storage service – iCloud.

So back to the question, “Can iPhone 4 work for business?”, the answer is a straight forward Yes, with a surprising number of buts.

• Only if it’s tough enough for your environment
• Assuming you can find an application that works for you, or can have one written
• If losing data through a lack of back-up battery isn’t a worry
• Assuming the staff who’ll actually use it approves of the hardware, because they’ll have an easy excuse not to should it become broken
• Not if you need an integrated, high speed, bar code scanner
• Not if you’ll want to lock down the device to operate a single specific application or discreet set of applications
• If you can roll-out all devices before the next, newer, faster, slimmer model emerges

In a nutshell, the iPhone, in common with all the smartphones, is designed as a consumer product. It lacks the ruggedness required of many corporate mobile data capture devices and, had it been designed with ruggedness in mind, would not have achieved the extremely high level of consumer sales. We’ve dealt with the comparison of smartphone versus rugged device before.

Congratulations to Apple, they have achieved a remarkable feat in the volume of sales, the creation of a whole new platform and a clear leadership in a ‘post pc’ era. They’re now reportedly the biggest purchaser of NAND flash memory technology, exceeding even HP. You have to admire a company that’s come from being the target of many jokes in the PC industry, to building a capitalisation that now exceeds Intel and Microsoft combined.

What do you think, are smartphones good enough for the job? Have you experienced implementing them? Feel free to leave a comment below.

If you’d like to discuss a possible deployment of a mobile solution for your business, drop me an email or call the office on +44 (0)845 345 0808. Remember, you can always keep up with what we’re discussing by following CodegateLtd on twitter.