iPhone for Business

With the demise of my current basic business phone, I need a replacement. BUT... i have an iPhone for personal use which is more than capable of all my current business requirements. I don't really want another device to carry.

I wonder if Apple are considering business phone account models which suit ordinary people; you know, the ones with full-time life-partners and children, and family and friends as well as part-time business-partners and colleagues and customers. What I could really do with is an iPhone account with two faces and two numbers. One device, two personalities, (just like me).

Now I know the billing arrangements might be complicated for corporate businesses, but if this were split by the network operator, it need not be too onerous. At least there could be a clear demarkation of personal and business uses, but it would need to be set up between Apple and the networks for it to work properly. Can you imagine the demand from users who want an iPhone for both home and work (what other kind of user is there?).

And what a scoop for employers, competing to look after their staff. "We will provide you with the best communication device currently available to maintain contact with your loved ones, you just pay for the call time to them". I can see the Apple advert now - busy worker breaks off to video conference with family while away from home. "Happy birthday". 

Last chance post

Whew, I do like to get at least some predictions in vague terms out before Macworld SF. Just made it on the following items published today. 

Looking forward to an iPhone update so I can find where I am at any given moment (even if it's not where I should be). And just hoping that App knitting gets another step closer this year.

Happy new year.

Squeak.

Compact computing

This is a term for “not really a laptop”. And I suggest that it is not really (a current concept of) a laptop that we desire. Consider mobile computing for a moment. It needs more than anything to be lightweight if one is walking about with it. To slide easily into everyday compact bags with other everyday “stuff” and remain light enough to carry about, all day.

It has threfore to be inherently robust with few moving/breaking parts. It needs a reasonably sized visual interface easily manipulated (like the iPhone touch sceen), and ubiquitous data capture i.e some form of keypad but not necessarily permanently attached to the screen, perhaps part of the (rubber) cover? Wifi and usual wired connectivity to go, together with add-on options for data storage - USB sticks, firewire hard drives. Oh, and a docking option for home or office base use with additional drive capacity and ability to run other more demanding applications.

I really want to take all my communications with me on the road, some of my applications, those that allow note capture, visual presentation and contact and task management, but leave all my heavy-lifting high-memory-overhead applications at my home base or office. And yet why would I want two machines with all that syncing and potential for data mismanagement? When I get back to my base I just want more oompphh less compromised ergonimics and a wider (read “giant”) monitor with instant backup for all that external effort.

Data defectors

And what about data detectors in Leopard Mail. They are available, but hardly intuitive. Many years ago I cobbled together an Applescript which copied a name from any application using the clipboard, looked it up in the address book, then updated the clipboard to deliver all address, phone and email details back to the original application, in fact any application that could use the clipboard. Clunky but functional. 

I was looking forward to a similar but system pervasive “dictionary” style lookup in Leopard for any “person” so that data could be attached to people - I would call it “body tagging” but that has too many negative, morbid undertones, but you know what I mean. Tag a person to any data and when you look up that person you can view any system wide info, emails, notes, documents with their name in etc. Weren’t computers supposed to be able to handle such relationships easily? Type in a name, why look up data, get phone or email linkages instantly in a contextual pop-up derived from the address book app. System-wide Bento. I just cannot understand why data is corralled in such narrow confines, especially when the system databases are blatantly able (Bento, CRM4Mac) to work seamlessly together.

Monitor as Camera

Whatever happened to the “my monitor as camera” patent that Apple supposedly registered more than twelve months ago? The one that uses your monitor as a lens, with software to adjust the optics. Is it due to emerge in the rumoured compact laptop offering?

It would fit well with the iPhone, especially if it would allow VOIP. It might even be secreted away as a hidden application in the existing iPhone OS. Imagine speaking and viewing at the same time. Ichat on the move, now that would be cool. I just can’t imagine that Apple have not got iChat working on the iPhone.

Not that any recently contracted network provider would be too keen, but just hold your scepticism for a moment and imagine the convenience, the low cost, and the sheer magic of it. Communication for the 21^st century or what? It’s bound to arrive in some future version of the iPhone even if it is not a hidden feature in the current offer. I live in hope

iPod connect

Well everyone is trying to second guess what Apple will do in early January, so here is my contribution to the "what" of "possibilities" for the New Year 2007.

iPhone (iPod) predictions
(December 2006)
Actually these are iPod predictions. Why call it a phone? Just add functions to an iPod with something like an iPod Connect moniker and build on the successful name and market share.

Telephone
Ringtones from iTunes. Mobile phone through SIM card (any network). VOIP via Skype and iChat using voice and video with iSight camera built in to the phone combined with auto connection to wireless network or hardwire USB to Mac (and PC).

iPod (Advanced)
An iPod with input mechanism for text (keyboard) and numbers (phone requirement) and calculator/unit convertor etc with internet lookup for currency conversion, in fact a palmtop PDA by any other name.

Email access (blackberry style) via phone connection and wireless access (Airport). See December release of developer update to Tiger requesting refinements for sync functions.

Camera
Video capabilities as a webcam to replace the missing independent iSight camera. The "screen as camera" patents could allow video to work from the iPod Connect without a separate lens device. All it needs is a bracket to hang it on your monitor.

Try video blogging from your phone direct to the web via Google video/ Youtube connection.

Palmtop/PDA
Many palmtop functions are synced with Mac apps already on the iPod. An input mechanism would enable these functions to be live and mobile. (See "iPod Advanced" above)

Games
With evidence of games developer recruitment for the Mac it is possible to imagine the social interaction of Youtube and Myspace for video and music could be further cemented with network gaming via iPod Connect. Use iTunes Music Store to sell games and connect wirelessly via Airport for a shared gaming experience.

Apple app knitting

Here's an example of how close things feel to integration. We have some of the yarns, but the jumper will not be knitted without a few more balls of wool yet. "Projects" software is available like Easy Task which provides the first steps if only it were connected to other elements. Add something like OmniPlan between Projects and iCal for visual project views or add a Gantt visualiser into a filtered (CRM4Mac like filtering) project programme view within iCal.



While Apple have recognised Mail as the source for connections (I'm thinking Leopard previews), I think we should have a letters database and telephone calls database similar to Mail (or even as alternative window views on a iCommunications app). Ok I may be pushing it for a telephone dictation system - seeing as we have no iPhone yet, but we do have dictation on an iPod and some voice recognition software out there. That would add to the arsenal of communication apps immediately possible through our Macs. I haven't shown podcasts, as I figure text is the most searchable stored medium on Macs right now and I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

The critical aspect of all this is the ability to link by drag and drop and predictive typing from one package to another, knitting record ID's from one database to another. Top all this with a general viewer to provide an over view, then click in to any individual app for the detail.

Is anyone else getting this?

identifiers

As indicated in a recent post on Hawkwings, mailtags-hyperlink-to-emails-in-other-apps,
identifier links to Mail can be located in other applications reasonably easily. Now I'm no programmer, but if Apple could make database ID references from one iLife app simply connectable between other Apple software, then you already have most of the tools you need to create your own work methods.

Leopard has already hinted at connections between Mail and iCal and has included todo's as a first step to ACTION connections. In my imaginary landscape of Where When What Who How and Why, of a CRM system, many of the components already exist or nearly exist. E.g.

• Where = Address Book (with integral Google mapping)
• When = iCal (linked to the Where and Who in Address Book)
• What = An Apple Project/sub-project app (OK this is missing from Apple at the moment, but is available in the form of Easy Task, and being planned as OmniFocus by the Omni Group on "GTD" principles - it could even be attached to their excellent OmniPlan for visualising, but in my view it would be better sitting in an upgraded iCal with Project filtered views similar to CRM4Mac)
• Who = Address Book (OK needs some work on grouping people at same Company, but a good and very useful starting point for most users)
• How = Mail (Well Mail and iChat are the only loggable communication apps. Once Voice over IP is integrated into Macs and we begin to use then as phone devices then it might be possible to capture voice calls to text and store for later - iPhone with a huge hard drive anyone?)
• Why = Ah, this is the tricky one, but should really be connected to the Projects app so that each "What" is attached to a higher level "Why".

data connection

The really interesting thing about CRM4Mac's approach is that it illustrates the potential of tapping into the databases which underlie Apple's software. I was asked many years ago to develop a Filemaker database solution to customise a company's approach to Claris Organiser (remember that?). The Claris solution required a good knowledge of complex interaction within the programme. While I saw people using it successfully, I was never convinced that I would want to lose control of how I organise information enough to get me to work in the Claris Organiser way. I also knew that even if I developed a closed Filemaker system, it would be a monster collection of databases, difficult to explain to new users. So I declined.

What has really bugged me over recent years is that Filemaker does not interface or even sync with Address Book - a key component for customer information. If you want to develop people related data on a Mac, you either use Address Book and integrate with Mail, or you redesign your own Filemaker system and work up a people database with internal mailing links. Having it both ways is not easy - but in my opinion it should be and from the CRM4Mac solution it can be, even under Tiger.

integration?

I recently came across some interesting software CRM4Mac which delivers a higher level of integration of Apple apps than iLife et al. It also hints at the possibilities of Leopard integration, but I'm not convinced that Apple will deliver in Leopard those things which are possible even now in Tiger. Time will tell.

CRM4Mac brings information on People and Companies from AddressBook together with email info from Mail and todo's and dates from iCal into one viewable place. But...and it's a big but, it leaves the info in place in the Apple apps so that each continues to be the receptacle for that kind of data. What it adds to the party is a Project database (albeit a small one), which gives it the "Customer Relationship Manangement" in its title. User defined projects are linked with people and emails and people are already matched by date automatically. It is a really great connection which is only let down by the awkward date list view which I find too list-like for a Mac app.