iOS 8 – Benefits for Companies and Employees
The world of Business is changing rapidly, trends change rapidly without warning or notice. You need the tools to keep you in the loops with your office, customers and market trends. Fortunately, the iPhone and iPad can be a great help in those areas. Productivity is another part of your daily workday, where you need assistance. Let’s take a look at some areas where the new iOS 8 operating system, unveiled at WWDC 2014, can help you in some key areas of your business, such as;
- Security
- Hands Free Operations
- How you can have an office assistant, at your disposal to help you, whenever you are being swamped with work.
- Predictive Typing, Video and Voice options, which triple your productive work as well as making it easier as well
Security is the Name of the Game in Business
iOS 8 has some significant enhancements to its security that makes it an ideal business and productivity tool. TouchID prevents anyone except the authorized user of the device to utilize it. The sapphire crystal surfaced, fingerprint scanner makes sure you are who you say you are. This prevents the loss of critical corporate data from a cell phone left out in the open. As most cases of info tech, spying is done by passersby who pick up valuable information left lying out in the open. Millions of dollars in trade secrets have been lost in numerous cases such as this. The most notable was the loss at Los Alamos of all the US nuclear weapons data left on laptops that were easily accessed.
The New message encryption features of iOS 8 also prevents the interception of traffic between a handheld and your corporate headquarters. Information is sucked out of the air if you have the necessary hardware available. The US intelligence services have used this method for years, which was first made famous by KGB agents sitting under telephone lines in the 60’s recording Washington DC phone conversations. Your text and phone traffic is a valuable resource to your competition as well as foreign governments. iOS 8 has a tighter rein on your business traffic.
App Lock builds on the fingerprint id methodology by adding a further layer of security by preventing unauthorized use of an app. Many companies issue stamped iPhones and iPads this saves on costs for updates and maintenance. Now you can issue a handheld that only Apps that are needed by your employees will be unlocked for them. This cuts your IT costs dramatically.
Typing that thinks ahead of you
iOS 8 now can anticipate your thoughts, learn your writer’s voice, and finish your words, sentences and phrases for you. This in effect can double your typing speed and increase your productivity as your device learns from each message document and word you enter.
This allows business letters to be written as if you were almost dictating to a secretary, which cuts down on misspellings and miscommunication between you and your clients as it also auto corrects as it goes along with you as you create your text. It’s almost like having a spelling teacher, grammar coach and office assistant all rolled into one app. Your documents come out cleaner and more professional looking in less time that you can imagine.
You now have time to focus on other things like customer visits, sales meeting and the other work which is time usually spent writing.
Why write in the first place?
Along with the predictive typing already mentioned, iOS 8 has enhanced voice-messaging capability that allows for not only voice messaging but also video messages as well. This brings the personal touch to all of your communications where body language accounts for almost 55% of all communications. Text gives you only 5% to 20% of your real message. Tone of voice gives another 30%. With the Video features, you now can get 100% of you message across with no misinterpretation.
You can also now judge the reaction to how your communicated message is received by your customers and clients. This allows you to tailor your approach and individualize it for a particular person.
Voice to text of course is a poor runner up to true video, but is highly useful nonetheless especially in a hands free environment, such as driving, walking or even riding a bicycle in the park. Now you can write better documents with iOS 8’s improved voice to text capability. This feature alone may put keyboards out of business and save millions on repetitive stress related injuries plaguing America’s workforce.
Your writing takes on the flavor of how you speak, after little training your iPhone or iPad will learn your nuances and idiosyncrasies of speech as well. So, a person can almost hear you speaking to them through your writing.
You have an enhanced Office Assistant at your Beck and Call
Siri has gotten a revamp in iOS 8 and now responds to voice commands and will wake up and run so you now have true hands free operation as Siri. It now features Shazam song recognition, where Siri will give you info on the song such as singer track and its opinion whether you should buy it or not.
We are taking a step closer to the total A.I. in the palm of your hand. Siri makes the operation and use of you Apple device more streamlined and gives you the ability to multitask; being on the phone and getting work done on you iPad at the same time, checking your e-mail and dictating replies and performing other activities in a truly hands free environment.
Siri can post traffic to you your social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search for specific tweets, do math for you and tell you the number of days between dates. You can change settings on the fly and the voice streaming recognition so Siri can learn from you.
This new updated Siri will be a welcome addition to the businessperson on the go and shoulder some of the load in this new short-staffed lean business environment of today.
Final Thoughts
IOS 8 has added many enhancements to the iPhone and iPad and today we have only scratched the surface to give you a foretaste of what is to come. We have shown how you can leverage some of its new features as well has enhancements to existing features to make your company more productive.
New Apps that can double or even triple your employees productivity as well as making it easier to get their work done with things like Siri’s new A.I. capabilities, video messaging, predictive typing and voice-to-text, which give you more flexibility in getting your work done in a hands free environment. This frees the company and businessperson to focus on what is truly important in their work.