iPads for the public service?

Yes, I think you’re onto something there. The iPad is more or less a network-only device, and can be configured to not store anything locally. Maybe they will make the iPad secure that way.

But the bigger issue is that people are very vain, and will want the latest toys…. UNLESS the new technology is for the workers or the public, eg Sametime and SMS passwords, in which case, the technology ABSOLUTELY MUST be prevented from proliferating.

Only the demigods may have ideas or new tech.

Jordo said :

I got my macbook in 2003 with a core2 duo 2.something ghz and she’s still sweet as + runs all the latest whizbangery no worries.

Bollocks. Apple didn’t even starting making stuff with Intel chips until 2006.

Middle aged execs with little real knowledge of IT are not going to use any device to the best of it’s capability, so part of the trick is giving them a device that intuitively works the way they expect it to for the task they are doing. If they want to read email, browse websites, and manage an address book and diary, an iPad or Android tablet sounds like a good fit. And a trial of 40 people sounds like a good number to really get a feel for how well it suits the user group. I would guess they already tried out a few devices of different types before they decided on this iPad trial.

As for usefulness, it might be a great idea. I use an iPad and travel sometimes for work. It has been great so far. I take meeting notes and email them to myself and others on way back to the office, I can look up maps to find my way to places, use Skype, read meeting agendas or bigger documents on the plane… I could do all the same things with an Android tablet or smartphone, I just like the iPad form factor and the customer service from Mac if there is a hardware failure.

Gerry-Built said :

Any Bluetooth keyboard will hook up nicely…

so basically they should buy a netbook with 3g inbuilt.

tommy said :

I’d not want to be typing on it for any great length – nice RSI claims waiting in the wings on that. You can get a keyboard – but it’s pretty cramped the key layout.

Any Bluetooth keyboard will hook up nicely…

Davo111 said :

Jordo said :

MacBook Pro + iPhone combo does the trick for me, might be a little more expensive to start with but you don’t have to upgrade for another 5-8 years.

Call me in 8 years if you’re still using your mac book pro + iphone, but i doubt you’ll pull it off. Most laptops and computers have a life of around 3 years (perhaps 5 max) and most companies will have a policy similar to this.

I got my macbook in 2003 with a core2 duo 2.something ghz and she’s still sweet as + runs all the latest whizbangery no worries.

Jordo said :

MacBook Pro + iPhone combo does the trick for me, might be a little more expensive to start with but you don’t have to upgrade for another 5-8 years.

Call me in 8 years if you’re still using your mac book pro + iphone, but i doubt you’ll pull it off. Most laptops and computers have a life of around 3 years (perhaps 5 max) and most companies will have a policy similar to this.

Bennop said :

Its one Department, about 40 iPads being trialed amongst the senior execs, to evaluated whether they are any better/more efficient than current tools. Calm down. If a tool came out that made work more productive for them, shouldn’t they bloody use it or at least see if its any better?

Still, its not necessary to buy 40 ipads. Buy 5, after the first 2 weeks interview them and find out what if they enjoyed using it fulltime. If they all want to keep their ipads (and surrender their blackberries on the spot) THEN order 35 more. I’m guessing the people who think this is a great idea have been playtesting ipads at jb hifi and have never used one for real work.

banjo said :

If it was our choice (the IT department) they probably would be,

see this is the problem. These discussions should involve asking IT for suggested models and then the group choosing from that list. At least IT would be able to consider things like encryption, strength of product, battery life etc

Jordo said :

MacBook Pro + iPhone combo does the trick for me, might be a little more expensive to start with but you don’t have to upgrade for another 5-8 years. Does the public service look at long term investment like the rest of us?

don’t answer that.

Did you just pull those figures from out of your arse?

Davo111 said :

banjo said :

if anything it’s closer to replacing the function of a blackberry… yep we are rolling them out!

Why not some type of android device?

Many of them have built in encryption, have 3G, usb, and would be cheaper than an ipad?

If it was our choice (the IT department) they probably would be, infact we were hoping blackberry would hurry up with their “playbook”, atleasts we already have the infrastructure to support that. Unfortunately the horse has already bolted on this one…

Bennop said :

Its one Department, about 40 iPads being trialed amongst the senior execs, to evaluated whether they are any better/more efficient than current tools. Calm down.

Its not Senior Execs (as in SES), though.
APS6s and EL1s are also part of the rollout, and the major complaint is “The Department won’t let us install games or many apps beyond email”.

So I guess next on the IT Apps project will be “Someone develop a productivity app to justify our toys’

It has to be said that FaHCSIA is trialling iPads with senior executives (read Gods and Demi-gods). I work for the Department and this is the first we had heard about the trial either.

The comments in the SMH et al. that the government would roll them out for ‘thousands’ of public servants is somewhat exagerated. The rest of us are lucky to get late model PCs for our desks (late model is anything less than 4 years old).

Having used an iPad at home and knowing how much time senior people spend out of the office on their Blackberrys reading emails I can imagine the ipad would be a great improvement – ever tried to read a complex email on a Blackberry screen? Not fun.

Its one Department, about 40 iPads being trialed amongst the senior execs, to evaluated whether they are any better/more efficient than current tools. Calm down. If a tool came out that made work more productive for them, shouldn’t they bloody use it or at least see if its any better?

AndyC said :

Can’t wait for the first one of these to get lost / stolen…full of un-encrypted DFHCS documents.

I wonder why agencies are allowed to jump in and buy these things before they have undergone DSD certification? From my experience, fondleslabs (as they should now be known) would at best be a solution for unclas data, and a nice shiny toy for the executives to play the latest copy of Angry Birds on..

I worked closely with the guys on this project before i left the department – it was pretty much execs just wanting the latest and greatest toys. As for the security aspects of it, they were locked down a lot. So if the ipad or iphone was lost or stolen I believe there was 2 or 3 layers of security that someone would have to go through first.

Aside from that, the management tools that we were using enabled us to remotely wipe, disable the device etc. All in all they weren’t that great, better than a blackberry though!

Citrix.

The corporate management tools aren’t too bad. They’re not brilliant, but they work after a fashion, enabling the lockdown of features to limit misuse.

Tommy’s comment is spot on – using a VPN (and Virtual Desktop) is an excellent way to ensure that the ipad doesn’t hold classified data, but it can be used with a wifi DMZ and VPN just as easily as 3G.

If they are connected to the ‘net they can be remote wiped, and with proper lockdown they can be forced to use complex passwords and force-wiped after X password failures.

All that said, without DSD EPL or Common Criteria evaluation, they should not be used for classified data.

And…

my boss calls them “Executive Fascination Devices” or EFDs

MacBook Pro + iPhone combo does the trick for me, might be a little more expensive to start with but you don’t have to upgrade for another 5-8 years. Does the public service look at long term investment like the rest of us? don’t answer that.

Chaz said :

since when did government departments start using macs?

Since 1989

p1 said :

tommy said :

The mobile carriers will be happy – as the iPad is like a kitten – you have to pay for the mobile wireless connection for the rest of it’s life (plus any App Store purchases).

Ummm, no you don’t. I am using a iPad to type this. It has 3g capability (which you can get them without), but I have never actually bought a sim card or connected to a phone company in any way.

Well yes you can use the wifi. But then you’ve just replaced a very mobile device with something you have to mess with at every location trying to find wifi you can use.

Amusingly, the recent announcement from Parliament House trialling iPads is that “wifi is insecure” so they are all using the 3G connection and a VPN. They had some difficulty disabling wifi as it does a system check using wifi when the iPad starts up…

The first leak will be an iPad left in a qantas lounge with VPN connected [on 3G – as Q Lounge wifi sucks] and email running (passwords pre-saved to “save time”).

banjo said :

if anything it’s closer to replacing the function of a blackberry… yep we are rolling them out!

Why not some type of android device?

Many of them have built in encryption, have 3G, usb, and would be cheaper than an ipad?

tommy said :

The mobile carriers will be happy – as the iPad is like a kitten – you have to pay for the mobile wireless connection for the rest of it’s life (plus any App Store purchases).

Ummm, no you don’t. I am using a iPad to type this. It has 3g capability (which you can get them without), but I have never actually bought a sim card or connected to a phone company in any way.

banjo said :

arescarti42 you clearly don’t work with executives in the public service…

And they are not intended to replace the function of a laptop, if anything it’s closer to replacing the function of a blackberry… yep we are rolling them out!

You’re right in that i don’t work with public service executives, although I’m not sure what to make of that comment.

I guess the idea that public servants are getting Ipads in addition to their smartphones and laptops whilst departments are cutting their end services to save money kind of irks me a lot.

Can’t wait for the first one of these to get lost / stolen…full of un-encrypted DFHCS documents.

I wonder why agencies are allowed to jump in and buy these things before they have undergone DSD certification? From my experience, fondleslabs (as they should now be known) would at best be a solution for unclas data, and a nice shiny toy for the executives to play the latest copy of Angry Birds on..

It’s a guess, but I’d suggest that the iPads probably more a blackberry replacement than a note-book replacement. At the moment there’s plenty of senior Commonwealth PS execs running a Blackberry dedicated solely to e-mail and another mobile for calls.

Blackberry’s email function is pretty damn good, but it can’t do any of the other ‘smart phone’ stuff well. Whether or not PS execs really need all that stuff is probably a separate issue.

As far as practicality goes, I’ve been using an iPad as my preferred mobile device for a couple of months now. The email function seamlessly integrates with MS Outlook through my businesses servers, I can access my office desktop through a web based interface (it’s clunky, but no more clunky than doing it using a note-book), and with the wireless keyboard and mouse it works the same as a notebook for the sort of documents I need to look at regularly when I’m away from the office.

I think that the costs would be comparable if you factored in productivity software licenses – and given that they’re probably only using them to send emails and edit word or excel docs why would you need all that extra capacity.

This is absurd.

Letting people carry a taxpayer funded iPad onto their taxpayer funded Qantas flight to get to a business meeting instead of pushing for better more efficient use of video\teleconferencing (or increasing your bandwidth allocations and allowing remote access or distributed workspaces) and more creative uses of existing technology, all so your Execs and policy support people can feel ‘edgy’ is a pretty shitty plan.

Sure, its providing default hardware, but its also entrenching a vendor lock-in to a premium brand and proprietary development paths.
My guess would be that the person who proposed the idea already owned an iPhone and became fanatic, rather than investigating competitors and doing proper CBA…

Happy to see exactly how their CBA was done and withdraw the comment, but seeing a Govt department trying to take its IT Group down the cost-cutting path but simultaneously picking the flashy premium brand with inflated licensing costs instead of buying efficiency and capability just smells funny.

since when did government departments start using macs?

arescarti42 you clearly don’t work with executives in the public service…

And they are not intended to replace the function of a laptop, if anything it’s closer to replacing the function of a blackberry… yep we are rolling them out!

What a waste of time and money. Sounds like the public service hipsters are getting too much say.

Give them a $3-400 netbook (1.6ghz, full keyboard and wifi)

If people think they’re that good, they should buy one themselves, actually test it for a month and realise how useless they are – instead of wasting tax payers money

Are iPads the best tool for the job? If not, then someone is being silly.

Good to see such an objective, unbiased post, JB! *rolls eyes*

As for this plan, not sure how it will work seeing as most of the PS is running windows boxes, but they are easy to learn to use, portable, have wifi (and if they get 3G models, wireless interwebs) and are easy to use on the go. I can see them actually helping with productivity.

I’ve had a fair bit to do with this professionally. The reality is that many senior execs see iPads as the latest and greatest, and like to show off their toys. Security is typically overlooked – it’s possible to secure them but their functionality is dramatically reduced.

In reality, these things are more toy than business tool. Unfortunately our senior public servants either don’t realise this, or simply don’t care.

Maybe they are looking at the ipad because it can’t run flash, has no usb ports, can’t be used for video conferencing, has no keyboard & will only run iphone / ipad apps.

Although, it is able to connect to wifi, so wouldn’t that pose a security risk for sensitive data?

the reasoning may be that you can create an environment similar to the old lockdowns we had when defence were still running Win NT, and had no access to USB.

Maybe it’s supposed to read as “instead of having a laptop for mobile computing they will get an iPad” (ie they will still have a desktop). After all – you need something to plug the iPad into via USB to get iTunes…

I’d not want to be typing on it for any great length – nice RSI claims waiting in the wings on that. You can get a keyboard – but it’s pretty cramped the key layout.

The idea is that the iPad has nothing stored on it whatsoever – so when it is inevitably lost you don’t get a “left the CD in the Qantas Lounge” incident in the media. You can run remote desktop (eg Citrix) on it – but many Windows or Mac OSX software is not ideally suited when you don’t have a mouse and physical keyboard.

The mobile carriers will be happy – as the iPad is like a kitten – you have to pay for the mobile wireless connection for the rest of it’s life (plus any App Store purchases).

Yeah, but in a secure environment all that capability becomes a liability.

This seems pretty ridiculous to me. An Ipad can’t run flash, has no USB ports, can’t be used for video conferencing, has no keyboard and will only run Ipad/Iphone applications.

The recommended retail price for an Ipad starts at $629, you can buy a Dell Vostro business laptop with dual core processor, 2gb of ram and running Windows 7 for $637 straight from the Dell website. Budget laptops and netbooks can be had for $400 up and would be far more useful as a business tool.