Running around with an iPad in hand?
(Source)
There are a few new competitors to the iPad coming out soon, from HP, Asus, Lenvo and Blackberry, all within the next 6 months. But how have you guys been using them?
Here’s, we’ve not had much cause to switch to using an iPad for anything, they’re just cool bits of tech to play around with. Businesses on Wall Street are apparently testing them out, and Apple’s CFO Tim Cook is quoted as saying that half the Fortune 100 are testing it, but these types of story only seem novel, testing new equipment to see how it could be used, rather than an industry wide standard being set.
However, that’s just the iPad, are companies more likely to adopt the use of tablet pcs when there is a lot more choice in the market?
Is it going to take Google’s Web Store of mobile apps to really open up the market and make it competitive to Apple’s App Store?
If they are going to use it, I think it’s going to take the form of more of a universal remote device, such as Dell’s idea of a device that you can dock to your laptop. Using it as a true extension of your main computer/netbook, to control things on it, to enhance your user experience and make it easier to do what you want, not just another toy to play with.
Chrome Web Store
As developers get their first look inside the Chrome Web Store, I’ve got to wonder what they’re going to put out on it.
With rumours of Google’s new, supposedly, tablet only based OS in the form of Android Honeycomb, are they going to be using the web store to provide apps for both the Chrome OS based netbooks and Chrome internet browsers?
I can imagine that they want to have even more cloud based apps that will allow people to easily switch between devices and less reliance on hardware. Being able to access all the files, programs, and media that you use on your main pc on any other is possible now, but there are tons of different apps in the app store that I would love to use on my pc. Or any pc for that matter.
There will be two kinds of web apps that they are going to provide, downloaded ones and web based ones. With the whole store in direct competition with Apple’s own, a reduced cut taken (5% compared to 30% by Apple) which one are developers going to focus on?
Personally, like the workaround Google produced for Google Voice after the app was refused (they made it web based), I think more people will focus on HTML5 based apps than just ones to be run on iPhones and iPads. Especially since Apple rejects Flash and decided to focus on HTML5 support, something Yahoo has recently used to bring Yahoo Mail to the iPad..
Seems rather cleaver that the Chrome Web Store can be used by both Apple device users and Chrome users.
The Fax App
Does anybody use fax anymore – even if not there is of course an app for that!
MyFax by Protus IP Solutions is offering a free iPhone app that is a direct extension of MyFax.com, and brings the very useful facility of faxing to your iPhone.
The app allows the user to receive faxes through a MyFax account directly on to their iPhone, which does eliminate the over-use of paper, blank sheets and trial runs – I’m not sure I have ever used a fax where the process has worked correctly first time round.
This could well be a greatly useful tool for the small business. Simple and easy to use, it eliminates the need for more office equipment and MyFax.com does offer a 30 free trial….but you do need to provide your credit card details, so check out the old terms and conditions thoroughly.
I’m not sure faxes are a particularly useful or efficient way or corresponding, but if they are essential to your company, this may be the 21st century way to go about it.