IBM Releases 100th MobileFirst for iOS App, Expanding Suite to iPad Pro

Wednesday December 16, 2015 4:58 AM PST by Joe Rossignol
IBM today announced that it has released its 100th MobileFirst for iOS app, fulfilling its goal set in partnership with Apple. The made-for-business apps are used by enterprise customers across 14 industries and 65 individual professions, including wealth advisors, flight attendants, first responders, nurses, retail buyers and more.

MobileFirst for iOS apps include Advisor Alerts, Asset Care, Hospital RN, Passenger+, Sales Assist, Sales Consult, Train Tickets, Traveler Care and dozens others, used by clients such as Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Air Canada, AXA, Bosch, Coca-Cola Amatil, Japan Post, Rimac, SAS and Vodafone Netherlands.

MobileFirst-iOS
IBM also said it is developing MobileFirst for iOS apps for iPad Pro, which will take advantage of the 12.9-inch tablet's expanded power, performance, larger screen size and iOS 9 multitasking features. Apple Pencil's precision and functionality will enable enterprise users to design and layout a room, log transactions or annotate maintenance logs.

Apple and IBM announced an enterprise partnership in 2014, released the first ten MobileFirst for iOS apps at yearend and have launched new apps periodically since. MobileFirst for iOS apps are designed in a secure environment, and can easily be deployed, managed and upgraded through IBM cloud services.

Apple and IBM list all of the MobileFirst for iOS apps on their websites.

Tags: IBM, MobileFirst
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nagromme
50 months ago

Based on the short list those do not look like any apps that would appear as enterprise apps. More like niche type apps that could be used by business users (or consumer alike).


You missed some of the short list—but also the full list. (And "enterprise" does not mean "non-niche"—often the reverse, in fact.)

As limited as this portfolio of 100 apps may seem, remember, it has been 16 months! I say, not half bad for starters. Some of the 100 will become big successes, some will not. Inevitable.

More and longer case studies will come, but it takes time. For now, these will have to do:

http://www.ibm.com/mobilefirst/us/en/mobile-case-studies/
Rating: 5 Votes
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Fzang
50 months ago
These enterprise apps look damn sexy at that.

Too many professional apps run with the philosophy "if it works, and the GUI sucks in every possible way... It works and the GUI isn't relevant". Especially in natural science there's an overweight of "while I code this steaming turd of Java and Python on my Linux machine".
Rating: 4 Votes
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jayducharme
50 months ago

The made-for-business apps are used by enterprise customers across 14 industries and 65 individual professions

While that's admirable considering Apple's past difficulties in getting enterprise adoption, the statistic has no context. How does this stack up to the usage of MS or Unix in those industries and professions? It's hard to tell from this if Apple is making significant inroads with the adoption of their ecosystem, or whether they're still just an outlier.
Rating: 3 Votes
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2457282
50 months ago

While that's admirable considering Apple's past difficulties in getting enterprise adoption, the statistic has no context. How does this stack up to the usage of MS or Unix in those industries and professions? It's hard to tell from this if Apple is making significant inroads with the adoption of their ecosystem, or whether they're still just an outlier.

Agreed. I would like to know how many of those 100 apps are actually deployed. In how many businesses. With how many total users. I would like to see an actual use case or case study of these apps helping an organization optimize their productivity. Until then this has no context. For all we know they wrote all these apps and they just sit there with zero usage.
Rating: 2 Votes
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Only Mortal
50 months ago


I worked for IBM for many years and can say they have a VERY jaded past with application software. They are not Oracle, Salesforce, Infor, Microsoft, etc.. Their success in software has largely been systems software, not applications. They get into and out of applications spaces so frequently that most businesses would be very hesitant to invest heavily, because they've bailed out of markets many times.


As one of the former devs on ViaVoice for OSX you're right but the Mac team was very conscious about UI. I spent lots of time making the preferences look like the Apple System Prefs and the ViaVoice floating window work well with its drawer.

To be honest, we were all Mac heads who just happened to be in Florida :-)
Rating: 1 Votes
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Zirel
50 months ago

But, but there's no pro apps for the iPad.


"It can't run PhotoShop, business have no use for it, buy the Microsoft one"

The Verge
Rating: 1 Votes
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Doffy86
50 months ago
But, but there's no pro apps for the iPad.
Rating: 1 Votes
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jackth29
50 months ago
the big ONE DOUBLE OH
Rating: 1 Votes
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jackth29
50 months ago
On a more serious note, I'm glad to see the IBM & Apple enterprise partnership progressing.
Rating: 1 Votes
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appledefenceforce
50 months ago

Agreed. I would like to know how many of those 100 apps are actually deployed. In how many businesses. With how many total users. I would like to see an actual use case or case study of these apps helping an organization optimize their productivity. Until then this has no context. For all we know they wrote all these apps and they just sit there with zero usage.


lol who are you, IBM/ Apple shareholder? Even if so, aren't you supposed to get information from somewhere else rather than a website called MacRUMORS?
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