[clug] Vaguely off topic: iPeds and other Android tablets - availability and comparisons to that Apple one

[Alex Satrapa]

On 05/08/2010, at 09:33 , jeff wrote:
> I've been wondering if this will stop it being used in some environments. For example, a company would like to use it to replace the stereotypical clipboard, but needs to use an in-house app that is they don't want anyone else to have access to.

Apple has corporate/enterprise support - the company can control what software gets installed, and can "push" apps out to the iOS devices whenever they're connected to a/the network.

> The could be "fleet deals" being missed here due to the enforce "thou shall develop through us" model.

You have to develop using the device-native API for any of the smartphone products out there, unless you're doing HTML5 apps in which case they work iOS and Android devices just fine. Once you get into the HTML5 app space, there's no restriction on what device you use, besides the fact that it must support the HTML5+CSS+JS you use for your app.  If you want to do FOSS on the iOS devices, you'll be doing HTML5 apps - at which point you can easily do that development on any computer with an HTML5 compatible browser, only using a tablet device to ensure that your UX works properly in that context.

Alex

PS: there are editors available for the iPad which allow you to edit HTML (et al) on a remote server or locally on the iPad, but none that I've seen so far support git or Subversion.