Image via CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase
As detailed on our “About” page, I am both an accountant and an information technology professional. Many years ago, before I was qualified in either profession, I worked for a company that had a funny little Mac thing. I hated it. I guess that is where my aversion to Apple products started. Back then Apple products weren’t very willing to hold hands with that other lot, the Windows based systems. I don’t remember much about that machine other than it was little and and I didn’t like it.
Fast forward many years and my daughter and her husband (good grief – that is about 20-something years later) had a house full of Apple products and have owned every iPhone release. My son-in-law actually worked supporting iPhones talking to Exchange server, or something equally mysterious! Still I refused to be tainted by the dreaded Apple for a phone. For a start the damn thing didn’t have FM radio and couldn’t multi-task. Both features were show-stoppers for me. Plus all music had to be iTunes format. I didn’t want two music libraries on my PC. So I stuck with my trusty Nokias. I LOVED my Nokia N97.
Despite finding a Steve Jobs speech I quite liked and quoting him in an article on this site, Steve Jobs’ quotation fits me, I still wasn’t going to get anything with a half-eaten piece of fruit on it.
Image via Wikipedia
Roll forward again to 2012. My company (as in work for, not own) has a need for people in the field to have mobile devices for a variety of reasons. I have to say our Managing Director and the executive team are pretty up with the latest technology, so they all walk around with iPads. I suddenly found myself in possession of both an iPad and a Samsung Galaxy tablet to put throught their paces and see which I felt was better as a work tool in the field.
Image via Wikipedia
I SO, SO, SO wanted to love the Samsung. My aversion to Apple stuff was still reigning supreme!
I’ll try not to be technical here, but the first problem was a little application called Citrix Receiver refused to work on the Samsung Android device. This was a mandatory requirement. Despite several communications with Citrix, still no solution to that problem.
Then there was a strange problem: the Samsung browser would do some very strange things if I opened too many browser tabs, especially if one of them happened to be whereis.com, a website that just might be useful to staff out on the road. I would end up with bits of this website and bits of whereis.com displayed on the screen and the browser “stuck”. Not very useful!!!
Many of our field staff are not exactly technophobes, but they aren’t geeks either. So to test uptake of the devices, I handed the iPad to my kids. Remember these kids range from 9 to 17 and are just learning all this technology stuff. A good test, I figured, of usability AND ruggedness – if the iPad could withstand four kids, it could withstand anything! Not a problem! They were flying within an hour. Meantime, I worked with the Samsung Galaxy to try to prove to myself it was THE device to go with. Anything that wasn’t Apple!!!
After a couple of weeks, I wiped the Samsung clean of work related data and swapped: I took the dreaded iPad and gave the kids the Samsung. The kids have whinged ever since and tonight it is lying on the table, alone, forlorn, unused and unloved. Admittedly the Android Market doesn’t seem to have the plethera of free games the Apple Store has, but they don’t find it as usable, it seems.
So far, I haven’t mananged to fault the iPad. Driving home from work I heard on the radio the next iPad is out in Australia May 28. A wi-fi version, no less. We will wait. I will be recommending the iPad.
No tablets were injured or destroyed during the testing. Sadly, also no free equipment was received from either supplier. This is just one experience of comparing the two. There are many other experiences in the wild.
Image via Wikipedia
Random Observations of Life 
I’m glad you stayed honest on the assignment… Like you, I’m a PC girl but can appreciate the great products Apple churns out. 😉
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I did find a really strange thing though. I added my personal Gmail account to the iPad – and suddenly work emails were appearing in my home PC email client! Now that could be a security issue, so I am not happy about how that happens and now have to research how and why and can it be stopped!
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1 PC, 2 laptops (one is work related), 1 Kindle (about to become 2), 3 mobile phobnes and 5 transceivers! It’s amazing how technology sort of arrives in our houses these days isn’t it 😉
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The stocktake is scary! 😆
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Sure is … and we forget al the Televisions too!
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No, we only have ONE of those, believe it or not!
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I have a desktop computer as my sole connection to the WWW. I’m happy. 😀
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😆 You are also lucky! You ought to see the technology in this house! Being an IT person doesn’t help, of course. We have two desktops, two laptops, three tablets, 7 phones all functional. We have two retired laptops as well and a MacBook or something coming from school.
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I wanted that piece of half-eaten fruit on my new laptop, but, alas, I could not afford it. I got a laptop I adore with more features than I know how to use for roughly half what the Apple equivalent would have cost me. I’m a happy camper.
I looked at an ipad, but when it comes right down to it, I find the size a bit awkward. I have a Nook tablet (which is smaller) and I still don’t know quite how to hold it comfortably. Thank goodness for those handy cases with the stands (yet another expense!!)
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The expense has always been one of my consideration too, when it comes to personal purchases. I could never justify the cost compared with what I could get a Dell for, and all my Dells (bar one) have been really good machines.
My typing is always better on a keyboard than a screen. Tablets etc are good for quick updates and email replies on the run, but for anything serious (like writing a full article) please let me dit at my desk and use my keyboard and mouse!
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Interesting post Robyn. I love sexy sleek gadgets and have looked at buying an ipad just because of that but I’m also anti apple! I had a play with a friends recently and its a nice toy but I wouldn’t have any serious use for it so it would gather dust. At home a laptop and a pc are enough and on the move my lovely ANDROID is quite big enough for me to carry!
I intend to save myself a few hundred quid, sexy or not 🙂
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I always wondered what on earth anyone would do with what was basically just a small screen!
Seems it can be more useful, just personally I think tablets are a pain to carry around. Too big to fit in a handbag and too small to justify a bag of its own. 😆
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Oh, Photobooth is so much fun!!!
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The kids loved that! And another app about dancing…..
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Welcome to the wonderful world of Apple 🙂
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Huh! I’m feeling like a traitor after all these years of firmly refusing to touch the fruity phone!
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Android tragic here! Swimming upstream as ever.
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I’ve got an Android phone and got Mr O one too and neither of us like them much. Battery life is shocking, but I think battery life is shocking on most smartphones once you use the “smarts” like browsing, bluetooth, wi-fi etc. They seem to freeze a bit!
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Hey Team O, I’m an Apple tragic. As much as I admire their products, I abhor their employee treatment in Chinese factories.
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Yes, I do too. We need to bring more pressure to bear and demand improvements.
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I could have guessed it – the first “Like’ from the abovementioned daughter with a house full of half-eaten Apples!
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