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

The Rave:
The people I work with can be charmingly absentminded, myself included. One of the more entertaining evidences of this was when I opened a refrigerator in the lunch room and saw someone’s keys on a shelf. At first I thought that they had been left there by accident, but then I realized that it was a brilliant compensation strategy for absentmindedness.

iOS 5's notification settings: Flexible and effective, but missing a universal on/off switch.

There was something in the fridge that they needed to remember to take home, and you can’t go home without your car keys. I bring this up to give you some context on why Notifications in iOS 5 is such a huge hit in our office.

It is in your face exactly the right amount. You get notifications even when the screen is locked. You can view a list of notifications by dragging down from the top of the screen. When you are busy working, you can set notifications to appear as discreet pop-ups, the way they are on keyboard and mouse machines, or you can set them to show up as the stop-the-presses box iOS has always had. Flexible and effective — who could ask for anything more?

Me, of course.

The Rant:
Could we please schedule a conference call between the people who made Notifications and the people who made Keynote? Keynote is a capable presentation app, especially for just 10 bucks. Notifications is a great improvement in iOS 5. Making an uninterrupted presentation with Keynote requires going into Notifications and turning off each notification individually. Then you have to go back in and turn them all back on. Maybe we should include the people who made Airplane Mode in the conference call. Notifications really needs a single on/off switch that puts a quiet little icon somewhere to remind you of what you aren’t getting.

The Conclusion:
I haven’t seen any keys in the fridge since iOS 5 came out. There is no way to prove that Notifications caused that, but it is good enough to have done so. Now if it could only keep us from forgetting our iPads.

***

Read Part 1: Using Gestures
Read Part 2: Wireless Sync
Read Part 3: One Day at a Time

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.

Click here for a video of Puckett describing what makes a good productivity consultant.

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.

***

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.

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

The Rave:
Can the day be far off when there are people who find the notion of connecting one device to another with a wire as strange as buying music on a vinyl album is to today’s high-schoolers? It is a wireless world, and iOS 5 makes it more so with iTunes Wi-Fi Sync. Connect the computer running iTunes to the same network your iOS device is connected to wirelessly and synchronization happens without wires. This has turned out to add more convenience than I expected it to.

With iOS 5 iTunes Wi-Fi Sync, wires are no longer needed.

The Rant: 
One of the things you could count on when conversing with an Apple aficionado was hearing, “Apple products just work.” iTunes Wi-Fi Sync has taken some of the shine off that apple. Getting it to work, especially the first time, can be very quirky. Things tend to get more seamless once it has worked over some network, but can still require more human intervention than we are used to with Apple products. It also exceeded its advertised performance in a rather disconcerting way. I had seen in numerous places that the device had to be plugged in to recharge for iTunes Wi-Fi Sync to work. It was a little surprising to see it working with my iPad 2 not plugged in. To prove that I’m human, I was then disappointed that my original iPad worked as I had been told to expect, which was for iTunes Wi-Fi Sync to not work unless the iPad was plugged in to recharge.

The Conclusion:
Reducing the need to connect your iOS device to anything by wire is a positive step. It would be nice if there were fewer rough spots to stumble over on that path, but maybe we needed a reminder about how spoiled we are that things just work. iOS 5 and Wi-Fi Sync have managed to do both.

***

Read Part 1: iOS 5 is Like Going to the Gym — No Pain, No Gain.

Read Part 2: iOS 5 Lets You Cut the Cord, Maybe.

Read Part 3: Separate Checks, Please.

Read Part 4: Are We There Yet?

Read Part 5: Are You a Member of the Club?

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.

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

The Rave:
Ever since digital technology escaped its white-coated keepers in the computer lab it has become relentlessly more and more personal. The BYOD trend is a logical phase in the development of the personalization of digital technology. Users no longer want to be restricted to “your” hardware; they want to use the hardware they choose. It is natural that the companies creating those devices would deliver what people want.

Part 4 in the series:
Are We There Yet?

One result of this is that iOS devices have been very good at allowing individuals to standardize multiple devices to their own preferences. What they have not been good at is supporting standardization to an organization’s preferences. One new feature in iOS 5 makes significant strides towards organizational standardization — it supports downloading and installing multiple applications at one time. This is convenient for individuals, but also a great time saver for those provisioning multiple standardized devices.

The Rant:
Simultaneous download and installation is a start, but nowhere close to where enterprises need to be. Tools for managing groups of devices are still lacking. This is a big enough issue that third-party vendors have developed such tools. Research In Motion recently announced that the newest version of BlackBerry Enterprise Server would include tools for managing a variety of mobile devices, including iOS devices.

The Conclusion:
Apple could open many doors to its devices in the corporate world if it offered much-needed centralized management tools. With iOS 5, Apple moves a little bit in that direction, but it isn’t there yet.

***

Read Part 1: iOS 5 is Like Going to the Gym — No Pain, No Gain.

Read Part 2: iOS 5 Lets You Cut the Cord, Maybe.

Read Part 3: Separate Checks, Please.

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 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.

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

The Rave:
The very existence of Amazon’s Kindle Cloud Reader is a testimony to how lucrative it is to have a direct connection between the consumer’s device and your store. Apple decided to enforce its rule that all apps on its devices that sell things directly have to give Apple a cut. Apple’s justification for this restriction is that selling directly from the app bills through the iTunes Store, a convenience for which Apple should be paid. The consumers could always go to the vendor’s web page in Safari as an alternative.

Amazon, wanting as direct a connection as possible without giving Apple a cut, created the Kindle Cloud Reader as a web page that replicates the functionality of the Kindle app through the Safari browser. It also, coincidentally, puts a shortcut on the device’s home page just like an app does.

Part 3 in the series: Separate Checks, Please.

What is lucrative for Apple and Amazon can be expensive for your organization. That is why it is good that iOS 5 includes the ability to shut off all purchases from within apps.

The Rant:
Wait just a minute! The Kindle Cloud Reader isn’t an app, but you can buy stuff through it!? While this is true, and at least some of Amazon’s motivation for creating the Cloud Reader, it isn’t quite the same.

In-app purchases are billed through the same iTunes account as the apps themselves. The Kindle Cloud Reader requires that the operator provide some other means of paying for purchases, which protects the iTunes Store account you use to put apps on end-user devices.

This lack of clarity brings up the related problem that iOS 5 doesn’t solve. One of the prime drivers of the BYOD movement is that people want to integrate their personal and business usage onto a single device. Even so, there are certain instances, such as deciding who pays for things bought through the device, where it would be beneficial to be able to keep things separate. iOS 5 does not provide any significant improvement in keeping the device user’s personal and business identities separate when necessary.

The Conclusion:
Togetherness is a great thing, to a point. While you may be enthusiastically in favor of giving people the convenience of getting their personal and business email on one device, it would be very convenient to be able to clearly identify who is accountable for what before money is spent through the device.

***

Read Part 1 in the series: iOS 5 is Like Going to the Gym — No Pain, No Gain.

Read Part 2 in the series: iOS 5 Lets You Cut the Cord, Maybe.

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 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.

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

The Rave:
One of the ongoing frustrations with the iPad has been that, for a mobile device, it has been extremely dependent on being attached to a traditional computer through a wire. The most frustrating evidence of this was that there was no way to do the initial set up on an iPad except through a wired connection to a computer running iTunes. Quite time consuming if you are provisioning dozens of iPads. Day-to-day synchronizations, updates and imports were also wire-centric.

That all changes with iOS 5. Wireless activation and iTunes Wi-Fi sync go a long way towards making an otherwise delightful device capable of going it alone.

Part 2 in the series: Cutting the Cord with iOS 5.

The Rant:
Today’s forecast — cloudy. Tomorrow’s forecast — even cloudier. Google wants your data in their cloud. Amazon wants your data in their cloud. Microsoft wants your data in their cloud. With iOS 5, Apple makes an offer of putting your data in their cloud that you have to actively refuse if you don’t want it there. You want to back up the data on all these iPads, don’t you? Well, then, just accept the default of backing up through iCloud and all your problems melt away. What? You have security concerns about having a big company like Apple (or Google, Amazon or Microsoft) handle the security of your data? You think the HIPAA people or whatever compliance body governs your industry expects you to take personal responsibility for the security of that data? You will never get to be an IT cool kid thinking that way.

The Conclusion:
That iOS 5 enables the iPad to be more of a standalone device definitely moves it in the direction of being enterprise-worthy. That the default for using that newfound independence includes keeping data that may be proprietary, sensitive or regulated in the cloud may rub up against a corporate sore spot.

***

Read Part 1 in the series: iOS 5 is like going to the gym — no pain, no gain.

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, Joe is the one to ask if you ever have a software question.

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

The Rave:
Once iOS 5 is in place, future updates are faster and much less disruptive. Key changes that contribute to this improvement are that the updates are incremental, run in the background and can be done without a wired connection to a computer running iTunes. It all starts with a shift from erase-everything-then-reload-it updates to changing only the things that need to be changed. This allows the device to remain functional during the update and reduces the size of the update package to the point where it can be handled wirelessly. Incremental updates are an improvement that makes everyone happy.

First in a series about upgrading to iOS 5 – No Pain, No Gain.

The Rant:
The update to iOS 5 is not very incremental at all and is more disruptive for many than some of the previous updates, mainly because the introduction of some welcome new applications requires icons to be added. However, the resulting effect on the organization of some people’s existing applications was not so welcome. A significant number of people reported losing some application data despite the backup that is run as part of the update process, with the most common reported loss being contacts.

The Conclusion:
There is far too much to be gained by upgrading to iOS 5 for most people to consider holding back. Like a pre-workout warm-up and stretch at the gym, there are a few things that should be done to reduce the chance of injury. Helping people run a back up and copy the file to a safe location before the upgrade is a good precaution. Taking screenshots of the current icon organization on the device (hold down the Home button and press the Sleep/Wake button) provides a roadmap if the added app icons displace anything. No pain, no gain, but no sense letting it hurt more than it has to.

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, Joe is the one to ask if you ever have a software question.

Two articles stood out among the rest this week.

Bernard Golden looks beyond the buzzword to what BYOD will mean for the workplace.

The first, on CIO.com, reports on a recent study that found that employees who were permitted to surf the web were more productive than those who weren’t.

The study, conducted by the National University of Singapore, included 98 participants with an average age of 21, who were divided into three control groups. Each group either surfed the web for 10 minutes, did whatever they wanted during the time period except look at web pages, or performed the task of bundling sticks into groups of five.

After the 10-minute time period, each group was given another 10 minutes to highlight with a marker the letter “A” where it appeared in a 2,000-word text. After the tests, the participants answered a questionnaire to help determine their levels of boredom, mental exhaustion, and psychological engagement.

From the results, researchers concluded that web surfing offers workers “immediate gratification” and helps them “restore resources that are drained as a result of work.”

Who doesn’t love this kind of study? It’s the kind of thing you want to clip, save, and even send along to a C-suite distribution list.

Read the full article here.

The second piece, also on CIO.com, delves into what consumerization really means to CIOs. Author Bernard Golden looks beyond the buzzword to what BYOD will mean for the workplace. It’s a must-read, especially if you are lobbying to use your iPad in the office.

Here’s an excerpt: “Consumerization of IT is usually contrasted with ‘enterprise IT, ‘ which carries connotations of interminable rollouts, bewildering interfaces, obscure functionality and high prices. The poster child ordinarily cited for ‘enterprise IT’ is SAP, which seems to raise particular ire in commentators.

“Consumerization of IT, on the other hand, is associated with ease-of-use, attractive interfaces, intuitive functionality and low prices. Apple is ordinarily referenced as the exemplar of this type of computing.”

Read the full piece here.

But some tech journalists aren’t sold just yet. Microsoft Office still reigns, they say. Tablets don’t match the PC’s versatility or durability, they add. Here’s a rundown from some of the naysayers. Read and make your own judgment.

He maintains that Microsoft’s biggest competitor isn’t Google Apps, but earlier versions of Office.

What Revolution?

InfoWorld’s Eric Knorr is on fire. In his recent article, “The IT Revolution that Isn’t,” he picks apart the three biggest trends bit by bit.

On the cloud: “[L]ast time I looked, Microsoft Office still had over 80 percent market share. Will there be a rush to the cloud when Office 365 launches later this year? No way: Office 365 puts Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync servers in the cloud, but Office itself is meant to stay on the desktop.”

He maintains that Microsoft’s biggest competitor isn’t Google Apps, but earlier versions of Office.

On tablets: “Some pundits argue the desktop doesn’t matter anymore — and that recent PC sales numbers show a decline year over year, while sales of tablets and smartphones have skyrocketed. But have you ever tried doing heads-down work without a real keyboard? When you come down to it, mobile devices add new capability — they don’t replace much in the way of existing desktop functionality.”

Read Knorr’s piece for yourself here.

Tablet, Schmablet

CIO’s Al Sacco has had enough of all this talk about tablets. For the average worker, who doesn’t use the device for business, he writes, “the sheen… is wearing thin.” Which leaves users with “just another boring old piece of hardware.”

In his June 13 article, “Four Reasons Why You Don’t Really Need a Tablet PC,” he makes his case: tablets aren’t particularly portable; they’re just one more piece of hardware to carry; the device has browser limitations; and most aren’t built to last.

Sacco concedes in his piece that tablets are fun to use and have valuable application in some fields (healthcare, sales), but reiterates his bottom line:

“Though unquestionably fun to use and valuable in some specific situations and environments, tablets are still just a luxury item for most people; nobody really needs them, because they don’t truly offer anything that some form of smartphone/laptop combination doesn’t offer.”

You can read Sacco’s piece here.

Now I’m off to play Angry Birds on my iPad…