One of our clients in Chester, Cheshire who we provide IT support for has recently purchased an Ipad.

One of the reasons the IPhone has been so successful besides the fact it’s pretty much the perfect mobile smart phone is because of the business applications available to users.

When the IPhone was first released without exchange integration I did wonder how it was going to compete with HTC and Blackberry in the business arena – great for watching films and listening to music but not much good if you want to sync your calendar. The subsequent release of the IPhone 3G put it miles in front of the other devices which included exchange integration. The HTC devices required you install a certificate which was a pain for none technical users and the blackberry device required Blackberry Enterprise Server or desktop sync tools. All very messy.

It doesn’t look like apple will be making the same mistake with the IPad. Already business apps are available for it with The Roambi App, one of apples best biz apps available. Many company execs will see this as an extremely attractive complimentary device to the IPhone and wont be able to miss the opportunity of strutting round the office with an IPad under their arm shouting “sell, sell sell”!

Since it is such a unique device it is hard to say if it will take off as a real business device used by real business people with a real business persons need. Unless you really, really want an Ipad id stick with a laptop but keep an eye on things – it most likely will get even better over the coming months.

A good alternative is a decent tablet laptop like the Latitude XT2 – already has more biz apps because it runs Windows 7.

Rather a fundamental flaw in a device whose whole connectivity is based around wi-fi.  Read more in this article from the BBC below.

Some owners of the newly-available iPad have reported problems with connecting their devices to wi-fi.

Hundreds have complained about weak signals on the tablet computerApple acknowledged on its support page that “under certain conditions, iPad may not automatically rejoin a known wi-fi network”.

It offered a fix, but suggested that it was a router issue, despite some users saying that other devices worked fine on the same wi-fi connection.

Typical comments on the Apple support page included Dr JB who wrote: “Wi-fi reception seems weak with slow downloads.”

prb44t replied: “I’m having the same issues. Weak signal on the iPad, same spot iPhone works great. Very frustrating.”

But others reported that they had no problems.

Some speculated that the problem might be related to the position of the wi-fi antenna on the device, while others said it could be a software bug.

Apple said that the problem could be caused by dual-band routers and suggested users created a separate network name for each band.

But this will not solve the problem for everyone, pointed out Adam Leach, principle analyst at research firm Ovum.

“If you are using public wi-fi, then you are not going to be able to make changes to router settings,” he said.

If the bug proves to be software-related, it will be easily solved, but if it turns out to be a problem for the device, it could be more of a headache for Apple.

“If the wi-fi problem is hardware-related, it will force a number of returns, which will be costly for Apple and ruin the experience for the first adopters,” he said.

Other reported glitches with the new device include some complaints about charging it and uploading applications.

The iPad went on sale in the US on 3 April and sold more than 300,000 units on its first day.

Apple said that one million applications and more than 250,000 e-books were downloaded on the same day.

A model offering both wi-fi and 3G connectivity will go on sale in the US and the UK later this month.

Its always good to have a back up plan for major service outages. Below is an article from the BBC after major flooding caused an exchange in London to stop working.
One good way of making sure you don’t loose email during a service outage is to have back up MX records in your DNS settings or better still use a mail security provider service from Message Labs or Postini. They will scan all your email for virus and spam content and also store your email in the event of a service outage of your broadband or telephone line.
If your really up the creek you can always dial up to a mobile ISP and divert the email to a catch all pop account. Once you’ve done this use something like a POP3 connector in exchange. Its going to run pretty bad it’ll get your email downloaded at the very least.
The problem is getting the BT side of things. Notoriously difficult to deal with at the best of times.

Read on-

BT has said it has managed to restore “the vast majority” of telephone and broadband services to thousands of customers affected by a network outage.

The fault was caused by “major flooding” on 31 March at an exchange in the west of London.

It had a knock-on effect around the UK with people on various broadband and phone networks affected.

The firm said that work would continue through the evening of the 02 April “until all services are restored”.

“Any customers needing to make calls to the emergency services who have a problem using their phones are advised to do so by using their mobile phone, or alternatively by using a friend or neighbour’s working phone,” BT said in a statement.

“A number of mobile services are also affected so customers may not be able to make or receive calls on their mobile or may experience an intermittent service.”

Telecoms company Gradwell told the BBC that 437 exchanges around Britain were affected by the incident.

Readers of the BBC News website reported that bars and shops in the surrounding area were only accepting cash on March 31 as card payment systems had crashed.