iPhone 'Halo' Driving Corporate iPad/Mac Adoption, 25% of Cisco-Owned Laptops Are MacBooks

Apple is seeing increased success in selling its wares to large corporations thanks to the iPhone, reports The Wall Street Journal. A number of Apple products have acted as "halos" over the years, selling to first-time Apple owners and seeing that penetration lead to sales of more products.

The iPod helped drive Mac adoption with consumers, particularly amongst college students, but the iPhone is the most successful product in Apple's history and has driven tremendous amounts of Mac and iPad sales. One-quarter of Cisco's company-provided notebooks are Macs following that company's decision to allow employees to choose which platform they preferred.

Bechtel
Many companies are deploying custom applications for iPhones and iPads, with the iPhone often being Apple's first foothold in a business.

LG&E and KU Energy LLC, Kentucky's biggest electric utility ... approved the iPhone for employees in 2010. It then introduced iPads, and built apps such as one to help its helicopter patrollers survey 5,500 miles of high-voltage power lines. Using an iPad's global-positioning system, patrollers can pinpoint the location of a problem and select from a menu of common issues, such as a damaged pole or an overgrown tree.

"For years, we looked for some way to automate this and we heard all sorts of fairy tales, but we could never find anything," said Robby Trimble, LG&E and KU's manager of transmission-line services.

Now, the utility's engineers who run power plants use iPads to record how much electricity is generated. Warehouse managers use the tablet to scan bar codes and track the utility's tools and materials.

Forrester says Apple accounts for 8 percent of global business and government spending on computers and tablets -- that number does not include the iPhone -- and could rise to 11 percent by 2015.

Apple executives frequently mention enterprise adoption and custom app development in earnings release conference calls with analysts, touting large corporate adoptions of iOS devices and how companies are using internally developed apps. The company also has large websites profiling how businesses are using both the iPhone and iPad.

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Render Front Page Tech

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. iPhone 17 Pro's alleged design via Front Page Tech Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone...
iCloud General Feature Redux

iPhone Users Who Pay for iCloud Storage Receive a New Perk

Thursday March 20, 2025 12:01 am PDT by
If you pay for iCloud storage on your iPhone, Apple has a new perk for you, at no additional cost. The new perk is the ability to create invitations in the Apple Invites app for the iPhone, which launched in the App Store last month. In the Apple Invites app, iCloud+ subscribers can create invitations for any occasion, such as birthday parties, graduations, baby showers, and more. Anyone ...
iOS 18

Top 5 New Features Coming in iOS 18.4

Friday March 21, 2025 3:26 pm PDT by
We're not getting new Siri Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.4 as expected, but the upcoming update does have quite a few new additions that will be worth upgrading for. We've rounded up the five best features to look forward to, and if you're not running the beta, you can expect to get access to these in early April. Priority Notifications If you have an iPhone or iPad that supports...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock

iOS 19 Coming in June With These New Features

Thursday March 20, 2025 2:04 pm PDT by
While the first iOS 19 beta is still more than two months away, there are already plenty of rumors about the upcoming software update. Below, we recap the key iOS 19 rumors so far. visionOS-Like Design In January, the YouTube channel Front Page Tech revealed a redesigned Camera app that is allegedly planned for iOS 19. According to Front Page Tech host Jon Prosser, the Camera app...
Generic iOS 18

Apple Seeds iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 Release Candidate With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music and More

Monday March 24, 2025 10:07 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming a week after Apple released the fourth betas. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update. With iOS 18.4, Apple is adding the Priority Notifications...
airpods max 2024 colors

Don't Buy Into Apple's Hype About AirPods Max Gaining Lossless Audio

Monday March 24, 2025 4:24 pm PDT by
Apple today announced that AirPods Max with a USB-C port will be gaining support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio with a firmware update next month, alongside the release of iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS 15.4. For context, audio files are typically compressed to keep file sizes smaller. There are lossy compression standards like MP3, and Apple's own Advanced Audio Codec...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Iridescent Search

Foldable iPhone Expected to Launch Next Year, Costing Around $2,000

Monday March 24, 2025 3:43 am PDT by
Apple will launch its long-rumored foldable iPhone next year with a ~$2,000 premium price tag attached, expects well-connected Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. Gurman's comments on Apple's launch plans for its first foldable device appeared in the Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter. Earlier this month, the reporter said Apple's foldable iPhone could be arriving "as early as 2026,"...
iOS 19 Rounded UI Elements Light

iOS 19: What to Expect From Apple's Dramatic Design Overhaul?

Monday March 24, 2025 9:47 am PDT by
Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Apple is planning "one of the most dramatic software overhauls in the company's history" – an update that aims to bring iOS, iPadOS, and macOS into closer visual alignment. The redesign is said to be "loosely based" on visionOS, the software behind Apple's Vision Pro headset, and will reportedly update the look of icons, menus, apps, windows, and...

Top Rated Comments

AngerDanger Avatar
146 months ago
I can just imagine the two men in that photo playing Angry Birds.

Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Jaro65 Avatar
146 months ago
1 company for every 5000 companies have a Mac install-base over 20%. Big deal.

Macs (like most business-class Wintels) are nice computers. Pricier, yes.

I'm not sure what the big advertisement is that Cisco has a 25% Mac user base. So what. I'm sure company X out there has a 25% linux base, too. And Company Y out there has a 25% Pepsi-drinking user base.

Talk to me when Macs hit a 25% install base in EITHER the consumer market or business market for a personal computer (not a tablet or a smartphone). As far as I can tell, for the past 30 years Apple peaked at 15% in either of those 2 markets...and that was in 2011 I believe.
So...how's the weather in Redmond?
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dilbert99 Avatar
146 months ago
When you quote the ENTIRE post that contains multiple points, your single question pretty much becomes invalid. Please don't quote the entire post.

You do realise that MS is in Redmond?
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
djgamble Avatar
146 months ago
That's good news... reading these forums recently you'd think everybody viewed Samsung as being the only option for mobile phones.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
psn Avatar
146 months ago
Apple is the worst company to deal with for an enterprise

I'm working as IT for a 20k users company.
service:
- they don't come to you. you have to bring the laptop to them.
- Very often they tell you to wait a week or two till it's fixed.
connectivity:
- NO docking from apple.
- 300$ dockings from elsewhere... and even that requires you to connect more than one cable.
I can go on about working in the enterprise software...
you end up working with Fusion / remote desktop very often.
to make things clear:
I got MBP 13" retina, MBAir 13" and iMac at home.
and i think anybody who considers a MAC in an enterprise is naive ( i had some other words... but let's make it more polite...).
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mrhick01 Avatar
146 months ago
1 company for every 5000 companies have a Mac install-base over 20%. Big deal.

Macs (like most business-class Wintels) are nice computers. Pricier, yes.

I'm not sure what the big advertisement is that Cisco has a 25% Mac user base. So what. I'm sure company X out there has a 25% linux base, too. And Company Y out there has a 25% Pepsi-drinking user base.

Talk to me when Macs hit a 25% install base in EITHER the consumer market or business market for a personal computer (not a tablet or a smartphone). As far as I can tell, for the past 30 years Apple peaked at 15% in either of those 2 markets...and that was in 2011 I believe.

And doing such would make them a $400 billion a year company rather than the ~$250 billion a year company that they are now.

How is not achieving this magical 25 percent number a demerit?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)