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iOS 5 Rants & Raves for End-Users: Part 2

December 6, 2011 By

Multi-Touch Squared

By Joe Puckett, director of recruiting and training at PC Helps

The Rave:
The convenience and intuitiveness of the multi-touch gestures that helped fuel the skyrocket of iOS device sales just got a lot better with iOS 5. Four-finger up/down swipes to show/hide the multitasking bar and four finger left/right swipes to move among open apps make multitasking much faster and easier. A five-finger pinch sends the current application to the multitasking bar so you can get to the current home screen.

The Rant:
Still no widgets or a way to have the same app in multiple places? How will I know where I am without the weather widget on the home screen of my phone listing my location without me having to open anything? Most people’s digital life is not so neat that having mail in only one place is convenient. I’ve seen many Android phones with the mail application in four or more places. Being able to put the same app in multiple places enables people to group things by business function rather than computer function.

The Conclusion:
The convenience of having everything in one place is one of the primary forces driving the use of personal devices in business. The new multitasking gestures in iOS 5 make it much easier to move among all the things on an iOS device. Widgets and duplicate app icons would still be nice, but being able to leave a lot of things open and move between them so quickly is a good way to accomplish the same purpose.

 

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Read Part 1: iOS 5 Rants & Raves for End-Users: Part 1

About the author: Joe Puckett is PC Helps’ director of recruiting and training. He grooms the talent here, and creates our internal and client-facing corporate training courses. A 15-year PC Helps veteran, Puckett is the one to ask if you ever have a software question.

This week, PC Helps Blog is featuring Puckett’s series of “iOS 5 Rants & Raves” geared to end-users. Last week’s posts were geared to  IT leaders and professionals. He has been researching and testing the new operating system as part of his ongoing efforts to build new iPad training modules for PC Helps productivity consultants.

Filed Under: iOS 5 Rants & Raves, iPad, iPhone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

What We’re Reading: To Siri, With Love

October 21, 2011 By

Why take the long road when a shorter one is available? I know, I know – it’s the journey, not the destination. But not when it comes to getting work done. The more efficient the better.

Enter Siri, the coolest thing I have ever set my eyes upon.

The iPhone 4s has been out just a week, and, as expected, the buzz is still strong. The press about Siri, a virtual assistant that lets you use your voice to send messages, make call and set reminders, is particularly robust.

I’ve tried Siri, and I can confirm that it is neat as heck. I’ve used it to order Chinese food, send text messages, create calendar appointments, and set a reminder to organize my files.

Here’s what the tech press is saying:

It’s a Catfight [Read more...]

Filed Under: iPhone, Worker Productivity Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The iPhone 4s Has Arrived

October 14, 2011 By

Today’s the day when Apple ‘s new iPhone, the 4S, hits the streets. A quick Google search yields more than 4,000 news articles about people lining up to get one.

Mine just came via UPS, and it’s more exciting than 10 Christmases and birthdays put together.

I’m not alone either. Pre-orders broke records. And no doubt a good chunk of those new iPhone users will be bringing their devices to the workplace.

To give you a leg up, here are seven quick tricks – plus one detailed tip – to get you up to speed with your colleagues who are pros at using the iPhone for business:

Mine just came via UPS, and it’s more exciting than 10 Christmases and birthdays put together.

1. Easy punctuation.
Inserting a period from the symbols box can become tedious. You want to send messages with proper punctuation, but deadlines get in the way. Here’s a quicker way: Double-tap the spacebar. Problem solved. Reputation saved. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Consumerization of IT, iPhone Tagged With: ,

Holiday How-To: Tips for Mobile Working

July 1, 2011 By

BlackBerrys, iPhones, iPads, Androids – they have altered the way we work. More than half of American workers do some work from home, and almost a quarter perform job-related tasks at home every day.

Are you the type who steps away from the grill for a sec to check your e-mail?

So why would work stop on a holiday like the Fourth of July? (It doesn’t.) If you are the type who steps away from the grill for a sec to check your e-mail, here are a few of our most popular tips that promise to make your holiday a little less work-infused:

iPhone

Easy punctuation

Inserting a period from the symbols box can become tedious. You want to send messages with proper punctuation, but deadlines get in the way. Here’s a quicker way: Double-tap the spacebar. Problem solved. Reputation saved. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Android, BlackBerry, How To, iPad, iPhone, Time-Saving Tips Tagged With: ,
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