On more than one occasion I have actually had to telnet into a clients router or switch using nothing more than a mobile phone! Now, that is either an example of superior customer service or an indication of creeping insanity. When you have to, you have to! Sometime ago I moved to an Iphone and that actually makes RDP, VNC or Telnet actually usable on a mobile phone in a pinch.
To say I think the Ipad is a game changer is an understatement. If you analyze your computing habits you will find that you have two basic modalities: work and play. At work, you are bent over and leaning in to your computer using a keyboard. At play, if you could, you would be sitting in your favorite armchair surfing the web, watching yourtube and reading electronic books while updating your Facebook status. This last mode, does not really require a lot of keyboard. In fact the user interface that makes the Ipad so exciting is beginning to make you want to touch your Windows screen before you reach for you mouse.
It is the 21st Century and we are still keyboarding and mousing around? The Ipad is redefining how the man machine interface will work. Human gestures are much more effective than highlighting, dragging and dropping. Ever consider how people use a phone? They really want to poke buttons and lift handsets. Mousing around is OK and many of us gravitate to all the features available to us when we integrate our phone system to our desktop computer. The issue is, that word “desktop”. The level of mobility that exists in business today, especially among knowledge workers and dispersed work groups is phenomenal! Thus a growing dependency on Mobile devices.
Enter the Ipad. I admit it, I am a fanatical fan of the Apple family of computing devices, but I love this Ipad! I finally took delivery on my Ipad 3G and am trying to figure out what I can and can not do with it. I am able to do PowerPoint presentations on my Ipad using the Keynote App. I am telling you, if you have to do a one on one presentation and you do it on an Ipad, you are going to get the order!
I found a great application named iTapRDP which I had on my iphone and it is now available on my Ipad. This is a full blown RDP client that takes advantage of the “big screen” and additional real estate of the Ipad. Now if i have to log into someones ShoreTel on the fly, I can do it with only the pain of a 3G connection, but with a full screen. The next step was to just RDP into my own desktop and make use of my own ShoreTel Call Manager! Now using the “external assignment” feature, I have full ShoreTell Call Manager control from wherever I am, using my Ipad through and RDP session.
Come on, it is impressive to say the least! No application required other than iTapRDP and I was running both ShoreTel 10.1 and an the Integrated ShoreTel Call Manager with ECC Version 6! Sorry for the really bad video, but I am VoIP engineer not Oliver Stone (if anyone has a good Ipad Screen capture app, let me know)!