With 1 million of Apple’s iPads selling per month, the tablet market seems to be here to stay. Many users are starting to use their iPads for some unexpected tasks, including teaching college courses, photo editing, bedtime stories and as an audio recording studio. One of my clients said that he saw his 18 month old grandchild being able to navigate and use the iPad with no issues. My opinion on the new device and tablets in general may be changing.

My first skepticism was related to the processing power, no camera, and no USB connections. So far, with the users I have spoken to, this is not a problem. The device is a true convenience item and some even prefer using the iPad to a normal desktop computer. Most of the original issues with wireless connectivity have been resolved and now you can access the AT&T mobile network for Internet. The new iOS4.2 update is scheduled for release in November and this will include 100 plus new features; including multitasking, folders and printing.

With this success there are now several other big name computer manufacturers trying to get their tablet devices to market; Dell, HP, Verizon, and RIM. I am not sure that I will go out and buy one of these but it does seem to be getting more interesting.

Jay Groves
IT Manager

Some people like PCs, others like MACs. Which one is better is not a question that will ever be answered. It’s a personal choice more than anything. Both can do the same things, it all depends on what you use it for, how well you know it, your hardware and so on.

However, when it comes to the corporate world things change a bit.

The simple fact that you can’t manage MACs as easily as Windows creates a problem for IT departments.

Sure, you can add them to Active Directory, but no matter what, having more than one operating system to support complicates things, as you can’t script out simple tasks anymore and that can mean having to do things locally one by one, or creating different scripts for the same things; a big problem in some instances.

Some Mac people also like to update their Operating Systems without informing the IT department or making a backup first, so when Apple releases buggy updates it causes grief for a lot of people.

Also, despite the fact that people tend to think that Macs have less problems than PCs, I find that is not true in the business world.

There is no email client that handles big mailboxes very well. Mail and Entourage tends to crash or run extremely slow when the mailboxes get too much past 1GB, not to mention when the contacts or calendar applications decide to just delete all your entries with no warning. In a world of emails containing attachments upwards of 7MB this can be a problem very quickly.

 In the recent years Apple has been gaining a bigger and bigger market share, but I think these and other factors like costs and applications compatibility still make PCs the best choice for companies big and small. That’s not to say you shouldn’t get a Mac for your home though. Not being susceptible to as many cyber attacks is a pretty big thing nowadays.

 - Aline Menezes, Premier IT, Inc.

This device may one day be touted as the device that changed the way we compute, but for now I am going to wait for a more powerful model that acts more like a normal laptop computer and maybe down the road they will incorporate video conferencing with their iChat program and that would be very cool.

 - Jay Groves, Premier IT, Inc.