Comments on: Make The iPhone Work At Work

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:56:31 +0000

Zoom ftw indeed, no zoom = death.

But yeah, visual voicemail should be the norm ages ago imo.

By: Thought

Thought — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 21:15:35 +0000

Amit: I hope you are correct about the rapid adoption of visual voicemail, but given the fact that this technology could have been out years ago, I’m not so sure. If it does come to pass, we can all thank Apple for having forced this hand.

By: Amit

Amit — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:18:26 +0000

I am sure that visual voicemail is a feature that will starting coming standard on most smartphones in the not too distant future.

By: Thought

Thought — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:50:29 +0000

Just to add one more idea: if there is one killer productivity app in the iPhone, it is visual voicemail. That is an amazing feature, and one that businesses would find quite handy. It is almost inexcusable that this feature was not developed and introduced earlier for all phones.

By: Thought

Thought — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:12:18 +0000

I agree with Rev: the advantages of the iPhone are purely recreational, and why would business want to pay for that distraction for their employees? It would be like giving each employee a better PC workstation that can play games and DVD’s better.

Businesses want a no frills utilitarian tool, and the BB suits that.

The story you tell is an interesting one, and is in fact, a feather in the cap for Apple. It’s quite amazing to release a consumer phone that so captivates the CEO that he makes his company adjust. However, this is the exception. I notice that the guy works for a marketing and PR firm, and those types of businesses are more into status symbols and luxury items anyway.

It’s the old axiom: blackberry for work, iPhone for maximum fun with multimedia. That’s not to say that some killer business apps couldn’t be developed using the iPhone’s huge screen, but it remains to be seen of that will ever come about.

By: Derek

Derek — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:35:55 +0000

The iPhone accomplishes a lot of tasks with the panache Apple is famous for, but it doesn’t really have any killer features for the workplace. A bigger screen is nice, but playing music and movies is hardly something employers are looking to subsidize. And let’s not forget it’s on AT&T’s lame EDGE network. I don’t know that many *business* users who would rather wait a minute for the full NYT homepage to load at dial-up speed when they can view a web-optimized or WAP news page in 0.5 seconds on a 3G EVDO network. (And forget Wi-Fi; I certainly don’t want to be on the hunt for hotspots all the time when I’m on the road.) Personally I might consider an iPhone (2.0, perhaps) for personal use, but for work I think my 8830 is still a winner, despite its far less capable web browser and slight shortage of eye candy.

By: Erik

Erik — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:35:52 +0000

Screw the iPhone! I just called the T-Mobile store asking if they sold the 8800 and he said that no stores have them bc they are being replaced with “some new blackberry that’s like the 8800, but with a camera”. I asked if it was the curve and he said “yeah, that’s it”…then I made him say it again just to make sure I wasnt hearing what I wanted to hear! He said its coming out in Spetember! YAY!

By: Marc Fogel

Marc Fogel — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:06:49 +0000

I currently use an iPhone. I have used a BB for many years. The one feature the iPhone has that I would love to see on the BB is the ability to zoom in on a web page so it can be read.

I know I will be going back to a BB.

By: REV

REV — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:54:46 +0000

I’m sure loads of IT managers would love to dig in to making the iPhone work on their company’s e-mail server. Whether their bosses will allow them the time and money to do so, as opposed to relying upon the “if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it” Blackberry platform is another story.

I mean, from a business productivity standpoint, what would be the reason for adopting the iPhone? What can it do – again, from a business standpoint – that a BB can’t already do amply well? Sure, a bigger screen would be nice for anyone, but it seems that the only aspects where the iPhone truly trumps a BB are recreational – MP3’s, movie-watching, picture-taking, personal stock-watching.

Why would a company expend resources to integrate a device that would only increase the odds that folks would goof off using with it?