How AirPlay and iTunes could enable the ‘post-PC’ office

My favorite IT guy loves to sneer about iTunes when we talk about iPhones. He dislikes that it’s the tool for users to back up and otherwise manage their iOS devices — namely, iPhones and iPads. And I often hear complaints about users wanting to install iTunes when talking to CIOs and other IT pros; they seem concerned about people wasting time listening to music at the office (not that they need iTunes to do that!).

But iTunes could become a great enabling technology for IT, and so could Apple’s latest consumer technology: AirPlay. Let me explain how and lay out the case for working with iTunes today in the corporate context.

What it would take to have an AirPlay-enabled business Think about the possibilities: Today, AirPlay creates wireless connections between iOS devices (iPhones and iPads) and peripherals (TVs, speakers, and Macs’ screens) for the streaming of content. Apple also has technology in iOS 4.2 for the iPad and iPhone that let apps display their screens onto monitors and projectors, plus the AirPrint facility to print over Wi-Fi to compatible printers.

Imagine if AirPlay subsumed all of these, so you could stream media, apps’ screens, and the iOS device’s own screen, as well as print files to any compatible device on the network. In a business context, iPad-, iPod Touch-, and iPhone-equipped users could wirelessly mirror or display to a monitor (no longer requiring a physical cable, as is the case today), as well as print to a local printer. Toss in iOS devices’ Bluetooth keyboard connectivity (augmented with mouse support) and the use of network file-sharing tools such as Box.net, Dropbox, and ShareFile, and you have a great setup for “post-PC” mobile workers within your offices.

Yes, Apple would need to make the routing functionality of the 2010-model Apple TV media portal or to an AirPort Extreme wireless router as a network box it sells and/or by licensing the technology to networking providers. That’s not unreasonable; Apple already licenses AirPlay to wireless speaker makers, so they can directly receive streamed audio from iOS devices without an Apple TV or (for music only) an AirPort Extreme wireless router.

Apple has also worked with Hewlett-Packard to make its AirPrint capabilities available in some HP wireless printers; the company says it’s working with other printer makers as well. Additionally, there’s already a third-party Mac app that lets the Mac act as if it were an Apple TV; the program allows media to be routed from an iOS device through the Mac to an attached TV and speaker.

Where does iTunes come in? iTunes is the management console for iOS devices, as well as the central backup of its media and apps. Apple’s current approach to AirPlay is that you set up an account that all devices use to access the peripherals attached to an Apple TV. You also have a separate iTunes account that ties iOS devices to a specific PC or Mac, to ensure that copy-protected apps are kept only on the devices associated to that account.

Again, Apple could extend that concept to allow iOS devices to associate to multiple iTunes accounts — one for home and one for work — so offic and personal resources could be managed and backed up separately. Likewise, it would need to allow multiple simultaneous AirPlay accounts; today, users must manually log out of an account to log into another, and switching is a bit of a pain. Again, this is a logical extension of what Apple is already doing.

Of course, what a reasonably sized business — and even a family at home — will want is a central iTunes-like admin tool to manage multiple accounts. As mobile devices increasingly replace PCs, home users will likely have a media-server-style PC or Mac and a bunch of tablets and mobile gadgets. They’ll want to be able to manage those units and their content over the network rather than tie them into separate PCs. (Apple TV is a step in that direction.)

In the workplace, that need is even more pronounced. That’s why in the BlackBerry world, BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) is so popular — it is that central tool not only for securing the devices but for provisioning apps. An iOS Server would make a lot of sense as the multiuser iTunes service for security, app management, content backup, and — a new direction for iTunes — AirPlay access management. Maybe Apple would develop such a server, its own BES or Microsoft Exchange-like offering. More likely it would provide the APIs to allow third parties that capability, as it did for iOS 4.2 mobile device management and is now doing with AirPlay.

How close can you get today? Today, iPad- and iPhone-toting workers can’t operate so seamlessly with peripherals, but there are probably more capabilities than they and IT realize.

To show presentations, you need an Apple VGA cable to connect to displays and projectors. For video presentations (though not slideshows), you could get an Apple TV for $100 and connect it to an HDMI-based display, such as in a campus theater or large conference room. From there, you’d provide iOS users the account ID and password to air the clip wirelessly.

For printing, you could get AirPrint-enabled printers to replace any older units, but there are wireless printing apps for iOS devices that work with regular Wi-Fi printers. They cost about $10 per user device, so in some cases it may be more cost-effective to get a new printer.

For account management, iTunes today is quite limiting — it assumes there’s only one iTunes instance involved for each user. If you connect an iOS device to another computer’s iTunes account, you’re asked to wipe out the iOS device’s contents and associate the device to the new iTunes account.

The reality is not quite so harsh: You can have apps synced to one iTunes account and media to another. The trick is to uncheck syncing in each account for the apps, photos, music, and videos you don’t want wiped out. In other words, if you want your work PC to manage and sync apps, uncheck apps in your home iTunes. Note that you’ll still get a warning saying your contents will be wiped out, but only files in the checked groups are targeted. Clearly, this is a messy process and not convenient for the average user.

However, in some circumstances, IT could deploy iTunes as a corporate app. One is for iPads and iPhones issued for strictly corporate use. By having iTunes on each iOS user’s PC, you can essentially discourage access to personal media and apps. After all, if the employees synced the device at home, they would wipe the corporate resources, and when they synced at work, they would wipe the personal resources (and reinstall the corporate ones).

For shared iPads, you could set up iTunes kiosks and have employees sync to to a single account to get the same restricted set of apps, media, and policies installed on each device. Yes, people can log into their personal iTunes account and wirelessly download iTunes Store media and apps, so this is not a perfect solution, but it introduces a hassle factor that will discourage most users.

For broader usage, iTunes can be deployed as a corporate app as part of your standard image. Most people don’t know iTunes can be configured to do as little as activate iOS devices, to just update iOS on associated devices, sync some types of content, or provide the full capabilities we see on our home PCs, notes Jesse Lindeman, director of product marketing at mobile device management vendor MobileIron. You could set iTunes at the office to sync specific content types and tell users not to sync those types at home.

But that use of the iTunes app is not necessary in a business setting, Lindeman notes, because you can download media and apps directly from an iPad or iPhone wirelessly. You need an iTunes account to do so, but not the iTunes software. The iTunes software is required for only updating iOS itself and backing up the contents of the device, although media and apps purchased through iTunes are also backed up at Apple’s servers.

Few businesses of course distribute their enterprise apps via iTunes. Apple provides facilities for direct app installation, and in large organizations, you can use mobile device management (MDM) tools, such as those from AirWatch, Boxtone, and MobileIron to provision apps to iOS devices wirelessly, without conflict with the user’s personal apps managed via iTunes.

Don’t you need iTunes to back up corporate apps and data? No, Lindeman notes. The backup that iTunes makes on users’ PCs does not include enterprise apps, nor any email, calendar, or other data provisioned by Exchange ActiveSync; that’s all kept on the Exchange Server or the MDM server. That’s great for security.

With a catch, Lindeman says — iOS apps store data locally on the iPad or iPhone. If a device is wiped or its apps deleted, that local data is also gone. Syncing via iTunes saves that data — but because enterprise apps aren’t synced via iTunes, their data is not stored. The solution, Lindeman says, is to have your enterprise apps transmit their data to your servers periodically. Thus, you can let employees sync their iOS devices to iTunes at home without worry that your corproate data is being copied over as well.

Most organizations today don’t have to worry about iTunes conflicts for devices in the new era of smartphones used for both business and personal purposes — as long as you use Exchange or an MDM tool to provision corporate assets. But if you want to use the AirPlay features, your options are limited.

It will be interesting to see over time how iOS handles the notion of AirPlay access management in the corporate context and how its iTunes facilities change to handle dual-use deployments, especially as more of the syncing and provisioning happens wirelessly, not through dedicated PCs. Someone will have an app for that and the associated service.

This article, “How AirPlay and iTunes could enable the ‘post-PC’ office,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Mobile Edge blog and follow the latest developments in mobile technology at InfoWorld.com. Follow Galen’s mobile musings on Twitter at MobileGalen. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.