So
exactly how many iPads may they claim on expenses?
Just asking
MPs may have had their heavy parliamentary drinking habits curtailed, but the 650 politicos occupying the Palace of Westminster might be cheered by the fact that they will soon be issued with their very own fondleslab. Taxpayers, however, might be less impressed given that the upgrade from laptops to Apple iPads will cost …
... essential for their duties as an MP
It's fortunate Labours gift to the UK in the form of the first woman Home Secretary is no longer in the House of Corruption, but then again nanny doesn't allow pron in it's app store so that's alright then.
Some MPs are, or at least fall into the "competent user" category. I heard Louise Mensch yesterday on the radio regarding her current issues with abuse on networks such as Twitter. Regardless of what can be thought of the platform she went out of her way to point out that the issue lay with the users and not with twitter as a platform, which was a pleasant surprise given that many in power might just call for "more regulation" or similar, clearly she understands that users are responsible for their actions/statements and also that in most cases, current laws suffice perfectly well if applied where required.
"It was made clear they weren't iPads... However it seems some tech writers don't know the difference."
It's already common for "the man on street" to call any mp3 player an "iPod". To some extent I'm hearing smartphones beiing generically referred to as a iPhone. No doubt it's happeing with tablets too.
It may be that in a few years time Apple may find their trademark iThingy drastically watered down through "common usage", similar to Hoover, Sellotape and Post It.
For some reason I can just see that most Westminsterians will, after receiving their documents* in a rainforest-friendly way on their new iPads, print these very documents for filing purposes on their new (expenses claimed back) home printer (ink and paper claimed back)**.
Effload of good that does.
But it's good to know that they'll be save from pr0n Apps.
* formerly printed in the cabinet's outsourced printroom on recycling paper on a Xerox Nuvera 144 at 0.7p a page.
**now printed on HP AirPrint inkjet MFD , Staples HP paper and cartridges for 18.3p a page.
The system already allows for BYOD. I'm a government employee, and at work I use a 23" widescreen monitor that I supplied myself. The sticking point is that if it breaks, my employer has to replace it with another 23".
In and of itself BYOD is a great idea, and in smaller businesses it works a treat. However, when you're dealing with hundreds or thousands of employees the effort required to get so many different devices talking to each other is not cost effective. You're also faced with the issue of what to do when someone's personal property breaks in the course of doing their job; they have every right to claim a replacement from their employer, and the employer loses all savings from central procurement contracts because they can't establish a standard device to buy in bulk. It's easier and cheaper just to give everyone the same.
With alledged savings of also £50K, I think £30K of it was one tech guys job.
Costing £160 each year for 3 years with a data bundle on top of around £15 per month.
Still unsure how the locations services function, and the other fun bits will get on etc..
Sounds like a security and privacy nightmare, mind you might be fun using a FindMyMP app and see if your MP is actually at work.
Lords are getting them too - currently being tested.
>If there's a saving to be made in terms of paper and printing costs
Not really - assuming they mostly buy iPads, they'll all be needing new printers with AirPrint support - probably in all 4 stations [home1, home2, parliament & constituency offices].
As much as I am not a fan of apple, I have to agree that given the costs of excessive amounts of paper which then incur further costs of secure shreading and proper disposal, (which seem to be forgotten by some costings) the fondleslabs do appear to be a potential money saver and; let's face it, the competition has been slow to the mark so deserve to be left out.
There are specialist companies dealing with the software that adds extra security to the documents should the fondle slab find itself being fondled by digits other than its parliamentary masters.
Politics and personal pernickity perceptions put one side, I reckon this is a good move and I applaud Apple for actually achieving business success by being the first to this market niche with a product that does the job.
That is, of course, that in the future, we don't see some minister facing yet more calls for resegnation for being too close to Steve Jobs which, if you look inside some Whitehall department offices, might not be too far from the truth.
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One of the highlights of Auntie's revamped F1 coverage is Gary Anderson doodling over a photo of an F1 car. Part of me despairs that the Beeb can't knock up graphics. But mostly I relish a simple, efficient solution that eschews needless high-tech gimmickry. Go Gary!
Indeed, I always preferred the wobbly light-pen on the snooker compared to the solid white bars (that no doubt accurately predict angles off the cushions).
Hawkeye's pretty snazzy though, bit creepy how Virgo personifies it though.
And when they are away from the 'Office' in Westminster and are required to work offline on documents - how are slabs going to help them then?
Oh, I know, they print them out, rather than having a laptop with reasonable storage, where they could work offline.
Slabs - great for reading the daily paper f-all use for much else in the business world!!
To those not used to the mental 'abilities' of MPs and others of that ilk, here's a story.
Secretary in London gets call from MP boss in France who is looking at a pdf that's on the UN web site. MP boss in France asks secretary in London to go to the address, then to print off the pdf (300 pages) and FAX it to him.
Yup, they are that dumb and the above story really happened less than 5 years ago. You see an MP would never print off anything, they have a girl to do all that tedious admin stuff.
I'm looking forward to seeing a load of confused MPs on Parliamentary TV all suddenly realising they can't wave their bits of paper and 'rabblerabblerabble' 15 times every speech is made. Instead they'll all lift up their iPads, realise they're heavier than paper, then all sit back and start quietly start playing Angry Birds or something instead.
We're looking forward to the quietest, most non-debated years in Parliament's history...
I can see this going wrong.
Apple people - iProducts don't get viruses!
Hacker - Oh, all of the UK government are using iPads. Better make a virus.
Make a virus to crash the systems/steal sensitive data. Government collapses.
I suppose it's no different to the current situation. It will just be that the iPad has been hacked and sensitive data has gone missing, rather than the politicians leaving a USB drive on a train, and them losing the data that way.
Given that some MPs see *very* sensitive stuff we have to assume that this will end up on the ipads. Apple knows who the owner of these ipads are and thus the USA government also does. Since Apple seems to have total control over these things we have to assume that the USA government is not going to be able to resist the temptation to see what is on these machines and, perhaps, even 'borrow' the odd document or few.
Question: would the NSA let Obama have one of these unless it had a special build that had been crawled over by their top security people ?
I had not realised that spying had become so easy!