A discussion forum on the use of iPads and iPhones in local government in Australia has found plenty of organisations on the cusp of delivering more power to council mobile users.

Sonjoy Ghosh, Team Leader, says Adelaide City Council, is “looking at using the iPad as a potential replacement for laptops with elected members. The issue we are currently facing, is how to "easily" transfer documents to the iPad especially if we don't give them a corporate laptop/computer. I've been looking at using cloud services, such as DropBox or SugarSync.”

Meanwhile, Caroline Hodkinson, Manager Information Technology at Lane Cove Council, has replaced Windows Mobile devices with the iPhone a year ago for Senior Management.

“It has been great,” said Hodkinson. “Previously with the Windows Mobile device (for emails), although the devices were also mobile phones, all but 1 of the Management had difficulty and we thus had to provide them with the Windows Mobile as well as a separate Nokia phone.

“Since we moved to the iPhones, they are now all using the iPhones for email and phone calls. We are in the midst of moving to Microsoft Exchange (from Novell Groupwise) which will sync better with the iPhones (using activesync).

“The iPhone is definitely more stable (and require less IT support) than the Windows Mobile devices, however, we were running Windows Mobile 6 then and had to reformat the devices almost every 6 molnths - I am told 6.5 is more stable.

“Feedback from management is also that the iPhone screens are clearer and easier to read with the clear text and larger screen (and possibly older staff). We are still trying to justify a use for the iPads - our Councillors all obviously want one!

Ashe Potter is Desktop Services Team Leader at City of Melbourne, whhere iPhones have been used in earnest for a while now.

“They were initially introduced for the elected members, who were clamouring for a device with a better UI,” said Potter.

“We were a solely Windows Mobile shop prior to that, but with quite a few steps now in iPhone app development as well, we've seen the benefits of the iPhone go beyond just the UI and ease of use, but more into practical business use (by more than just senior management) and an actual takeup by general staff.

“We are an Exchange shop, and the iPhones work seamlessly with Exchange for all staff. We also have separate iTunes accounts for users and use the iPhone Configuration Utility to centrally manage them from a single point, as well as lock down the devices, farm out apps to them as needed, etc. We never have support grumbles from staff who have iPhones, as opposed to those in the past who received some of the HTC devices.

“We've more recently started looking at iPads and the benefits of the device to us. Whilst only very early in it's adoption here, one of the key points for us was the partnership between Citrix and Apple. As we already have some investment in Citrix and had done some early investigation into the Citrix Receiver App, I've maintained the intention that the UI and local apps on the iPad can feasibly work, in conjunction with our corporate apps centrally hosted on our Citrix XenApp platform. Does the iPad necessarily meet business needs for council enough to replace laptops though? Not quite yet. It's a great device, however we do need ruggedised devices out in the field, and I do still have some concerns about how they can be centrally managed, patched, etc, given we do not have this level of control setup within our architecture as yet for iPads.”