iPhone and iPad first choice for workers

Apple devices are the pick of the crop for most mobile workers...

Most mobile workers would pick Apple devices if given the choice, according to research from iPass.

When the enterprise mobility service provider asked mobile workers what device they would choose if they could only use one, 57 per cent said they would opt for an Apple device. Some 29 per cent said they would choose an iPhone, 19 per cent would choose an iPad and nine per cent would choose a MacBook.

The report defines a mobile worker as any employee who uses a mobile device - including laptops, netbooks, smartphones and tablets - for work purposes. Record sales of the iPad, iPhone and Mac helped Apple achieve profits of $6bn in the last quarter of 2010.

After Apple's iPad and iPhone, Nokia Symbian smartphones were the next most popular choice - for 17 per cent of mobile workers. Smartphones using Google Android and RIM's BlackBerry smartphones were each chosen by eight per cent of the surveyed mobile workers.

In terms of device type, tablets have very quickly become an important technology for mobile workers since the release of the Apple iPad at the beginning of last year.

The equivalent iPass report from 2010 found that if workers could only use one device, 63 per cent would use a smartphone and 37 per cent would choose a laptop. In this year's report, the percentage choosing smartphones and laptops has fallen to 49 per cent and 27 per cent respectively, with 20 per cent now reporting they would use a tablet as their only device.

These figures coincide with a report released by Morgan Stanley, which said tablet devices are becoming more prevalent in the workplace. Analyst house Gartner also reported that nearly 20 million tablets were sold in 2010.

Senior vice president of marketing and product management at iPass, Steven Wastie, said in a statement that the growth of cloud-based applications has been a significant driver for the proliferation of tablet and smartphone devices in the enterprise market. He said the reasonable pricing of many of these devices is also an important factor in their success.

The iPass research also reported that nearly all mobile workers would troubleshoot a technical problem with their mobile device themselves, rather than going straight to their IT department. This finding suggests fears over increased IT department costs due to the increase of tablet devices in the workplace may be unfounded.