The iPhone wasn’t originally meant for enterprises. The cool looking phone that made its debut in 2007 had another audience in mind. Blackberry was the one serving enterprises needs back then – the king of the enterprise world.
The iPhone became a great enterprise phone pretty much by accident. The phone was sturdy and useful and so employees soon BYOD’ed their iPhone. Apple, on its part, didn’t add in a lot of enterprise friendly features though – until now that is.
The iOS 8 boasts of a number of enterprise friendly features, in amazing ways. There is a new device enrollment program that can help enterprises manage their employees’ iPhone. Enterprises can buy the iPhone in bulk and can wirelessly supervise it with the “Streamlined Setup Assistant.”
Here are a number of other benefits iOS 8 brings to enterprises:
- iOS 8’s biggest advantage is perhaps for mail users as it supports secure mail as well as Microsoft Exchange support that can be configured automatically.
- Enterprises and employees can see other employees free and busy calendar schedule.
- There is improved support for Adobe PDF – and employees do need to open PDF files every now and then.
- IT departments can also set up rules for browser apps and company messages can be put right on the lock screen of the mobile, with the VIP Threads feature.
Apple scores are not just by the introduction of these features but by a deeper understanding of the needs of an enterprise. Normally, it is assumed that the needs of a consumer and an enterprise are different. So, a consumer needs a user friendly and cool phone while enterprises need useful enterprises features. Apple though realized that an ideal enterprise smart phone should have both these qualities.
Only enterprise features will not make an employee happy – feature rich phones like iPhone and high end Android phones can just lead to increase of employee productivity.
Some of the useful features of iOS 8 include Continuity that well, works amazingly well for both consumers and enterprises. Continuity helps users to move seamlessly between Apple products like Mac and iPad and start their work right from the point they left it in the other Apple device. There is also the new predictive iOS keyboard, that bears a striking resemblance to the one Blackberry has.
There is another important feature for enterprises to rejoice in – they can build their own purpose built keyboards suited to their needs. There are a number of other side improvements that will help in enterprise communication as well. These include:
- The ability to send video and audio messages through the message option.
- Bringing up recent contacts is easier. All you need to do is to double press the home button.
- The notification center has undergone an improvement too and users can reply to messages and other notifications right from the lock screen.
- Siri has also become touch less – an improvement most of us wanted to see.
So, what are enterprises and developers waiting for when it comes to using iPhone and developing enterprise friendly apps? Well, perhaps the Google Developer Conference later this month!
