That, in essence, is key to Apple’s approach to enterprise technology – one that reflects the continued consumerization of IT: powerful tools can be developed with the user in mind.
This is the only approach that truly makes sense for any future-focused enterprise. Just think about what those millennial employees arriving now on the job market expect. They do not expect the tools they use at work to be more complex, less capable, and generally poorer quality than the also powerful devices they use in their daily lives.
I get the necessity, the importance of the patent system. But there should be some sort of accommodation for situations like this, a low cost review process that includes a grace period so a product can still be sold for, say, 30 days, without harm, while the patent is reviewed by someone at the patent office and a ruling is made to either grant an exception to the patent or to approve the takedown notice.
Fitness trackers didn't always monitor sleep, but the feature is now a sought-after staple in most devices, as sleep is just as important as exercise to a healthy lifestyle. Most wristbands monitor sleep now, and there are even specialized devices that go on your head or bedside table that can also keep track of how long and how well you sleep each night.
But sleep tracking isn't as simple as step tracking, and you need more than a simple accelerometer to measure it accurately. While motion is an indicator, it's not the only metric you should track to get a full picture of how well you slept.
TextExpander is a really handy tool for anyone who needs to repetitively type and paste in standard text across multiple apps and devices. Even in its most basic form, the fact that I can access the same text in Mail on my iPad as I can in Airmail on my Mac makes it a far better solution than app-specific templates.
FocusList is a great example of that sort of minimalism in action, an unadorned display of your tasks, their estimated completion time, and, on occasion, a timer. Its content is driven by your list of tasks, but no more – its one goal is to focus you on your work.
People seem bewildered every time. No USB on iPads, no more firewire, no more headphone jack, no more MagSafe. These things aren’t being left behind because they don’t accomplish their job. It’s because they all have wires, and Apple sees that the future doesn’t have a place for wires on the devices we bring with us, which increasingly includes more of our computers and related accessories.
Law enforcement agencies may want a way into highly secure gadgets and apps to further their investigations — such as when the FBI pressed Apple last year to hack into the iPhone of one of the gunman in the San Bernardino terror attack. But the companies have repeatedly pointed out that there’s no safe way to build an entry point just for trusted government organizations.
Though the NSA hasn’t confirmed it was hacked, the purported leak of its tools shows that even supposedly secret vulnerabilities can get into the wrong hands.