iPad, Mac, and PC’s
iPad is on pace to outsell Macs – CNN.com
According to this article the iPad is set to out-sell Macs. This is no big surprise to me as I would not purchase a Mac computer. An iPad? Maybe. A PC? Definitely. I have purchased an iPod Touch to see what it does. In my opinion, not much, but it is still early.
I do see a future for the iPad and any other tablet type computer. Most of this is convenience. One thought is for Internet surfing. How many of your employees launch a bug because they spend more time “shopping”, or something else, online than working? I see them in some form in the studio for the same reason: How many bugs have been released due to a lyric website visit? (Side question: Do lyric sites host bugs because they are Apple loyalists?)
I did see something written about an engineer using the IPad to “configure their Nautel tranmitter”, but I cannot find they link. The thing that got me was the fact that he had to use VNC to do it. This means there was a PC somewhere as the go-between. Also, since the Nautel AUI access requires Adobe Flash, which Apple will never integrate, leads me to believe a PC was in the middle again. Now if there was a native application or use, the iPad would be very useful for such things. I would love to see some sort of integration with a tablet computer for remote systems. With a nice GUI this would be the most useful item in the shop.
Until then, I will use the PC. With all our the different interfaces required to connect to broadcast equipment: IP, serial (RS232 or RS485), and even parallel ports for control, only PCs are useful. To all you manufacturers, why not standardize and thing of the future: IP with IPv6? I’m ready, are you?
Feel free to discuss!
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Tech Notes from the Field 
The Nautel transmitters which feature the AUI (Advanced User Interface) have a built-in web browser that allows remote access. It is the user’s choice how this is set up. There is no VPN native to the system. The customer in this case may have chosen to install a VPN as a means of additional security. The AUI-equipped transmitters have a PC internal to the system. Thus once this is connected for remote access (via WAN, Internet, etc., any suitable device which can use a web browser can access the system, assuming connectivity is available. Thus, a PC, iPad, etc. could be utilized.
As long as that browser can do flash. We’ve been caught with a version of IE that failed to communicate with the AUI until we upgraded flash. So, how can a device not using flash work?
If this can be configured in the AUI, I have not found it. Please clarify.
Thanks for the response, Hal!
Bill
Upon further research and discussion (thanks Bill Hicks), yes you do need a computer capable of running Flash to access the AUI. You also need some interface that is friendly to many other devices and that is a PC as Apple devices do not normally of natively talk to these.
Manufacturers should start looking at the miriad of mobile devices and consider the best way to allow utilization of these beasts: iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, and Android being the main ones.
Tieline has the iPhone app. Comrex announced the Android app. I would like to see them and others take it further.