While Apple's iPhone and iPad devices saw near-instant success with consumers, these devices are being increasingly used for business purposes. In fact, according to data from IDC analysts, approximately 31 million iPhones were sold directly to businesses in 2012, with an additional 37 million sold to business professionals and 79 million to consumers.
“IPhones and iPads became business favorites because of their popularity as consumer devices and CIOs had little alternative but to accept the situation,” wrote ZDNet contributor Steve Ranger. “That means, perhaps unexpectedly, Apply has managed to sell its hardware to enterprise without talking very much to the people who used to make the buying decisions: the CIO and the IT department. From a certain point of view, Apple's dominance of enterprise mobility is accidental, or at least, a mere side effect of its consumer success.”
One of the biggest announcements to hit the news reels this past week is the launch of a new iOS app available for subscribers of Microsoft's Office365 cloud service. This will likely impact business users of Apple's iPhone, as these are the most common subscribers of the Microsoft service.
Best ways to use an iPad with an office computer
Even though the Microsoft Office365 app is not available for use on iPad devices, there are many ways that businesses are utilizing this device to improve the work process. LifeHacker's Thorin Klosowski recently outlined a few interesting ways that people can augment their computers with an iPad.
One simple way to use both in tandem would be to use the iPad as a second display for your desktop, which can effectively boost productivity levels. The iPad can also be turned into a keyboard shortcut machine, Klosowski reported. He suggested using the HotKeys app to easily use shortcuts on your iPad to control your Mac. But the remote control capabilities of the iPad don't stop there. Klosowski recommended the We like Screens app for gaining access to your office or home desktop with your iPad regardless of where you are located.
Klosowski also mentioned the Mobile Mouse app, which lets you use your iPad as a trackpad mouse in addition to many other features such as launching applications, working as a file browser, remotely controlling presentations or using a numeric keyboard.
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