The Positives and Negatives of SharePoint iPad Possibilities
Use of the iPad is growing and predicted to skyrocket by 2012. However, SharePoint options for this Apple tablet are less than outstanding. As we wrote about in “SharePoint and Mobiles,” Safari falls short of the mark. Although SharePoint tablet technology is behind, Smartlogic search technology is ahead with enhanced end user experience through taxonomy management and improved navigation.
“SharePoint & the iPad, a Tale of Two Platforms” outlines the Safari drawbacks in detail and presents the best and worst of the alternative approach possibilities. In some ways, it is the best of times for productivity with exciting new devices.
“Well, it´s also the worst of times, SharePoint´s out of the box support for mobile access leaves much to be desired, plus the support for enterprise ready features in tablets it’s still in its infancy. In practice, users have nothing before them but a crippled experience, and can get easily frustrated when trying to get things done on SharePoint using an iPad.“
Support for the enterprise-ready features of the iPad have not evolved very far. Safari for SharePoint 2010, which is infinitely better than for SharePoint 2007, still lacks the following: file upload support, support to edit documents in MS Office, datasheet view, Silverlight, Explorer view, Info Path support, and Rich Text editor. Your alternatives to this are either server side web-based add-ons or native applications.
The advantages of server side, web-based approaches are cross platform support, centralized installation, and affordability. Native applications have the advantages of an enhanced user experience, access to hardware peripherals, offline access, and apps interoperability and content editing. The downside to native applications is that they are platform dependent. Of course, these two approaches are not mutually exclusive, and a mix of both may best suit your needs.
Ken Toth
May 3, 2011
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