And the Airline I fly for is replacing IPads with Surface Pros. The critical information, they say, needs constant compatibility checks every time iOS gets even a minor update, still on IOS 10 because of that, we unfortunately do weight and balance, passenger boarding and other ‘ancillary’ things as well as Jepps and integrated MMEL, not sure which direction this ‘step’ is......
The comment about "constant compatibility checks every tiem IOS gets a minor update" is pure utter bullshit and I've used every API on just every platform known to man, from mainframes IBM/CISC, VAX/VMS in the early 1980s to IOS/Android/Windows and all modern Unix variants in the last 35 years.
Considering how ridiculously lightweight, and removed from
hardware, those apps/functions would be for Ipad, makes the whole
argument absurd unless litteral idiots programmed those systems (which may be the case for all I know...).
Seems like someone wanted to switch and pulled something out of their ass to justify it.
It's more a matter of every app (that is used for flight operations) having to be thoroughly vetted each time there's a change to iOS. It's a requirement of the FAA, and for good reason. And yes, there are occasionally some compatibility issues that have to be fixed by third party App vendors, and the airline just has to wait for them to fix it before the OS can be updated on our iPads. I can't speak for Mork's little airline, but our apps are thoroughly integrated with the airline's back-end systems and we just can't risk breaking that integration with an untested iOS update... so it's typically several months after an iOS update before we can load it on our iPads.
There are advantages either way, but in ease of use (for the end users) Apple is dominating. The fact that Microsoft is basically abandoning is Microsoft Phone platform, made the situation even easier for the Airlines.
Microsoft isn’t necessarily a looser though. They are doing a much better job in getting productivity software on Apple IOS and Android. That often ties into other Microsoft services hosted on Azure. Businesses still want Microsoft products, they are very strong in servers, and helping managing things in the enterprise. Dynamics is reportedly and strong product in accounting and manufacturing. Exchange Server has become bloated, but it works very well for Mid-sized companies, and larger. And, for smaller companies hosting it in the cloud makes sense.
I’m not a big fan of Windows 10, it’s a messy UI. And, they move things around inexplicably. But it’s still the best Enterprise OS.
In other words, the Microsoft’s doing many good things. But, Joe Consumer isn’t seeing it. For example, Microsoft Office has never been as unstable as it is today, and probably needs a complete rewrite. That’s going to be almost impossible for so many reasons I’m not going to get into.
Sorry about going off on a tangent...
Apple IOS (IPhone/IPad) is fantastic, my biggest concern is what they’re doing in hardware. Apple has always been about premium hardware, the problem is they’re moving into SUPER premium. A $1000 phone is crazy, and the laptops are almost as bad. The problem is Apple products are becoming a poor value.
I think we’re already starting to see that in China where sales are declining. I’m willing to pay a 25% premium for a superior product, but Android is starting to work through through their greatest flaws, like security, usability, and timely updates. My next tablet upgrade is 2-3 years away, and there is a very good chance it will run Android.
Folk don’t realise that Apple’s demographic is a strange beast. It appears fixed, but as new people enter with different needs and aspirations, then Apple adjusts its product mix to cater for it. The current customer pool is more interested in portability, long battery-life, ease-of-use etc.
All that happened is that you fell out of Apple’s demographic, so indeed it is time for you to move on.
And the Airline I fly for is replacing IPads with Surface Pros. The critical information, they say, needs constant compatibility checks every time iOS gets even a minor update, still on IOS 10 because of that, we unfortunately do weight and balance, passenger boarding and other ‘ancillary’ things as well as Jepps and integrated MMEL, not sure which direction this ‘step’ is......
There are advantages either way, but in ease of use (for the end users) Apple is dominating. The fact that Microsoft is basically abandoning is Microsoft Phone platform, made the situation even easier for the Airlines.
Microsoft isn’t necessarily a looser though. They are doing a much better job in getting productivity software on Apple IOS and Android. That often ties into other Microsoft services hosted on Azure. Businesses still want Microsoft products, they are very strong in servers, and helping managing things in the enterprise. Dynamics is reportedly and strong product in accounting and manufacturing. Exchange Server has become bloated, but it works very well for Mid-sized companies, and larger. And, for smaller companies hosting it in the cloud makes sense.
I’m not a big fan of Windows 10, it’s a messy UI. And, they move things around inexplicably. But it’s still the best Enterprise OS.
In other words, the Microsoft’s doing many good things. But, Joe Consumer isn’t seeing it. For example, Microsoft Office has never been as unstable as it is today, and probably needs a complete rewrite. That’s going to be almost impossible for so many reasons I’m not going to get into.
Sorry about going off on a tangent...
Apple IOS (IPhone/IPad) is fantastic, my biggest concern is what they’re doing in hardware. Apple has always been about premium hardware, the problem is they’re moving into SUPER premium. A $1000 phone is crazy, and the laptops are almost as bad. The problem is Apple products are becoming a poor value.
I think we’re already starting to see that in China where sales are declining. I’m willing to pay a 25% premium for a superior product, but Android is starting to work through through their greatest flaws, like security, usability, and timely updates. My next tablet upgrade is 2-3 years away, and there is a very good chance it will run Android.
Fine piece of concern trolling there sir… 👏🏻… 👏🏻… 👏🏻…
1. S3 (and it's predecessor S2) are very slow, crash unexpectedly, and have outright failed in flight (no worries, we always have at least two devices on each flight plus sufficient paper manuals/charts to get us where we need to go).
2. Software on the S3 allegedly no longer being supported on MS products (most likely because vast majority of airlines that use an EFB use Apple products).
The original decision to go with the Surface was almost certainly driven by the IT department. It’s all about job security for their requisite increased support, training, and the usual false claim that MS is a better solution because that’s what they know, and only they have the secret sauce to keep it all working together. When factoring in support, training, hardware and software reliability, and resale value, price rolls to Apple’s favor.
Partially true. There was also a significant discount in price as Microsoft always sweetens the deal (it's a marketing budget payout).
I saw this play out at my workplace, where I naively thought it was about replacing 'just' 6,000 custom portable computing 'bricks' and the same number of 'flip' phones , 2 years ago. Samsung, Microsoft were almost paying us to buy their phones (Samsung was nearly 1/2 the cost of the iPhone at bulk, because Verizon was cosponsoring them to undercut our ATT contract) Microsoft was throwing in extended warranties for free and almost a free trade-up in 18 months , IT leadership was all for it (they had just bought into O365 'at a discount'), and saw it as great synergy. IT techs (and purchasing) preferred android, because, well, they thought they had 'OEM' competition (The old Dell vs Gateway vs Lenovo vs HP... we force them to outbid each other). The development team (all .Net and IBM mainframers] had already built an iOS prototype... the trade off was the first 100 would be iPhones for deploying the prototype.
fast forward 3 years later. I just found out we have 12,000 iOS devices now: 10,000 iPhones and 2,000 iPads (and 200+ macs). We recently had a change in leadership and the incoming CEO [a finance guy... we're definitely not a tech company] had a Surface Pro for 2 weeks, and then asked for a MacBook Pro, so he could have continuity between his iPhone and iPad.
And the Airline I fly for is replacing IPads with Surface Pros. The critical information, they say, needs constant compatibility checks every time iOS gets even a minor update, still on IOS 10 because of that, we unfortunately do weight and balance, passenger boarding and other ‘ancillary’ things as well as Jepps and integrated MMEL, not sure which direction this ‘step’ is......
The comment about "constant compatibility checks every tiem IOS gets a minor update" is pure utter bullshit and I've used every API on just every platform known to man, from mainframes IBM/CISC, VAX/VMS in the early 1980s to IOS/Android/Windows and all modern Unix variants in the last 35 years.
Considering how ridiculously lightweight, and removed from
hardware, those apps/functions would be for Ipad, makes the whole
argument absurd unless litteral idiots programmed those systems (which may be the case for all I know...).
Seems like someone wanted to switch and pulled something out of their ass to justify it.
Or to justify the crappy code that didn't abstract the underlying frameworks. It sounds like to me they ported an app from a PC using a generic interface builder (appcelerator?... we can build iOS, Mac, windows, android, even Xwindows apps from a common code base ), vs writing an iOS native app.
Although the FAA would require a formal compatibility check after code base update [FDA requires the same] 'still on iOS 10' one month after a major release is pretty normal in regulated industries. And with 'Windows Update' you think you'll get fewer 'minor' updates?
There are advantages either way, but in ease of use (for the end users) Apple is dominating. The fact that Microsoft is basically abandoning is Microsoft Phone platform, made the situation even easier for the Airlines.
Microsoft isn’t necessarily a looser though. They are doing a much better job in getting productivity software on Apple IOS and Android. That often ties into other Microsoft services hosted on Azure. Businesses still want Microsoft products, they are very strong in servers, and helping managing things in the enterprise. Dynamics is reportedly and strong product in accounting and manufacturing. Exchange Server has become bloated, but it works very well for Mid-sized companies, and larger. And, for smaller companies hosting it in the cloud makes sense.
I’m not a big fan of Windows 10, it’s a messy UI. And, they move things around inexplicably. But it’s still the best Enterprise OS.
In other words, the Microsoft’s doing many good things. But, Joe Consumer isn’t seeing it. For example, Microsoft Office has never been as unstable as it is today, and probably needs a complete rewrite. That’s going to be almost impossible for so many reasons I’m not going to get into.
Sorry about going off on a tangent...
Apple IOS (IPhone/IPad) is fantastic, my biggest concern is what they’re doing in hardware. Apple has always been about premium hardware, the problem is they’re moving into SUPER premium. A $1000 phone is crazy, and the laptops are almost as bad. The problem is Apple products are becoming a poor value.
I think we’re already starting to see that in China where sales are declining. I’m willing to pay a 25% premium for a superior product, but Android is starting to work through through their greatest flaws, like security, usability, and timely updates. My next tablet upgrade is 2-3 years away, and there is a very good chance it will run Android.
I just upgraded my 2011 MacBook Air for a 2017 13 MacBook Pro - fully decked out. Yes the price was nearly $1200 more for the MBP 7 years later, however, if this lasts 7 years, it will be a tremendous value for a device that I use for 12 hours per day. My old MacBook Air is now a perfect school laptop for my kids. MacOS and iOS are huge factors in hardware value in my opinion.
EVERY airline must have a huge relationship with Microsoft in the data center, but Delta seems unique among the big ones, anyway, in trying to roll out Microsoft devices to the flight crews. The initial device selection for the cockpit, IIRC, was a Surface that couldn't properly run the Jeppsen software, so those devices were scrapped & upgraded to Intel-powered tablets.
But the motivation must be around the attendants' Nokias, which are getting pretty old and obsolete at this point. The Surfaces, which on paper have nice specs, would've had to go along with the choice of a phone-sized device, to avoid an in-house team having to support two platforms.
Comments
I can't speak for Mork's little airline, but our apps are thoroughly integrated with the airline's back-end systems and we just can't risk breaking that integration with an untested iOS update... so it's typically several months after an iOS update before we can load it on our iPads.
Folk don’t realise that Apple’s demographic is a strange beast. It appears fixed, but as new people enter with different needs and aspirations, then Apple adjusts its product mix to cater for it. The current customer pool is more interested in portability, long battery-life, ease-of-use etc.
All that happened is that you fell out of Apple’s demographic, so indeed it is time for you to move on.
Two main reasons:
1. S3 (and it's predecessor S2) are very slow, crash unexpectedly, and have outright failed in flight (no worries, we always have at least two devices on each flight plus sufficient paper manuals/charts to get us where we need to go).
2. Software on the S3 allegedly no longer being supported on MS products (most likely because vast majority of airlines that use an EFB use Apple products).
At this airline, it is s welcome change.
I saw this play out at my workplace, where I naively thought it was about replacing 'just' 6,000 custom portable computing 'bricks' and the same number of 'flip' phones , 2 years ago. Samsung, Microsoft were almost paying us to buy their phones (Samsung was nearly 1/2 the cost of the iPhone at bulk, because Verizon was cosponsoring them to undercut our ATT contract) Microsoft was throwing in extended warranties for free and almost a free trade-up in 18 months , IT leadership was all for it (they had just bought into O365 'at a discount'), and saw it as great synergy. IT techs (and purchasing) preferred android, because, well, they thought they had 'OEM' competition (The old Dell vs Gateway vs Lenovo vs HP... we force them to outbid each other). The development team (all .Net and IBM mainframers] had already built an iOS prototype... the trade off was the first 100 would be iPhones for deploying the prototype.
fast forward 3 years later. I just found out we have 12,000 iOS devices now: 10,000 iPhones and 2,000 iPads (and 200+ macs). We recently had a change in leadership and the incoming CEO [a finance guy... we're definitely not a tech company] had a Surface Pro for 2 weeks, and then asked for a MacBook Pro, so he could have continuity between his iPhone and iPad.
Or to justify the crappy code that didn't abstract the underlying frameworks. It sounds like to me they ported an app from a PC using a generic interface builder (appcelerator?... we can build iOS, Mac, windows, android, even Xwindows apps from a common code base ), vs writing an iOS native app.
Although the FAA would require a formal compatibility check after code base update [FDA requires the same] 'still on iOS 10' one month after a major release is pretty normal in regulated industries. And with 'Windows Update' you think you'll get fewer 'minor' updates?