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In my previous article I talked about the compatibility between out-of-the-box iPad (without a SharePoint / Office application) and SharePoint. To be honest, that was not a big success. The compatibility is really poor. I am only not giving up! Today I want to test the following functionalities:
- Browsing through sites
- Using the Social features
- Creating items
- Searching for content or people
After this test I will give a final decision about using the iPad and SharePoint.
Browsing
Browsing through sites works fine, you click on a site and it loads instantly. There is only one problem, if a site contains sub sites you cannot use the drop down icon. You don’t have a mouse to hoover over; your finger automatically selects the site. You have to be quick…and I mean REALLY quick to select the sub site in the drop down menu. Another browsing issue that occurs is that I cannot go lower than a certain point on the page. This is the same problem I had with the Excel Web App.
Social features
Let’s check the social features such as the My Site and Tags/Notes. How does this hold up? I click on my username and choose My Profile. I get prompted with a login screen. Strange because I already entered my credentials the first time. Seems like an issue with cookies and the browser. The My Site loads and I am able to leave a status update:
I can also click on More information and see all the other profile fields. Clicking on InfoPath 2010 results in a search for other users with this skill. Great! I want to leave a message at my colleagues wall to chat about InfoPath 2010….Only leaving a message with the note board is not possible. The keyboard refuses to show up. This is the same issue as the Office Web Apps.
The organizational chart only loads in HTML view because I am not able to install Silverlight. The tags and notes are all there. I can even load the tag profile page! Does this mean I can create new tags and notes? No not really, because the keyboard is nowhere to be seen.
Creating items
You could say that creating new items is pretty important while working in a SharePoint portal. I am able to load the new item screen. The problem is that typing a title for an announcement works great but when I want to add a body, the keyboard does not appear. This is getting really frustrating! This results in not being able to create any items. Let´s check how the search works.
Searching for content or people
I am kind of happy this is the last part of my test because I am getting a little bit sad ;-). Let´s say I want to search for a document? This is actually kind of cool, if you want to select a different scope the following screen appears:
You can now select a different scope. The search results screen works fine; it is the same in the normal browser. The refinement panel responds well. This is the first part of my test that actually works as you would expect.
Conclusion
I have to start with saying that I love the iPad! It is an amazing device BUT I have to admit it is pretty shocking how poor the integration is with SharePoint. At this point I really advice to start working with interface applications such as SharePlus and Documents to Go. If you are interested in more information about using these applications check my previous articles:
Follow my blog to see more cool stuff about using the iPad with SharePoint.
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