These new repair locations will have to have an Apple certified technician on staff.  This gives the repair locations access to Apples parts, tools, training, service guides, diagnostics testing and additional resources from Apple.  These parts and services will be offered at the same price structure that authorized Apple service providers. 

In 2017, 8 states brought forward a bill that would force OEM’s to give access to repair manuals and diagnostic equipment at a reasonable price.  These could be accessed by small independent repair shops and product owners.  This was pushed to the legislature across the nation by repair shops, farmers and business owners.  The reasoning behind the bill was the owners of electronics, farm equipment and manufacturing equipment have the right to fix their owned equipment themselves or at the repair shop of their choosing.  They believe that forcing equipment owners to only use manufacturers reps and authorized repair shops violates current Anti-Trust laws. Apple and John Deere let the charge of opponents to the bill and all 8 of these bills did not pass.   

With the strong opposition to the differing Fair Repair Acts pushed forward in 2017 across the United States, it was surprising to find Apple allowing more access to their repair manuals, parts and diagnostic equipment.   

The actual cost of lost data can be astronomical for some.  15.8% of respondents spent at least $50,000 to recover their data and 3.8% spent over $1 million dollars.  This figure only covers the cost to pay outsourced IT. This does not include internal IT staff, or lost revenue. 51% of companies that suffer sever data loss close within 2 years and 70% of small firms go out of business within a year of a large data loss incident. Data lost is more common than most business owners and executives realize.  36.8% of businesses surveyed lost at least one critical business application.   

With this valuable information, what can be done to prevent data loss.  14% of data loss can be attributed to weather and 24% to power failure.  Some of the power failures also fall under weather related causes.  Unless this becomes a disaster level weather occurrence cloud or off-site back ups can mitigate any loss.  The question becomes what is best for your business, continuous, daily, weekly, or a combination depending on how critical the data is. There are differing costs associated with the levels of backup and many of these decisions will be based on this.  

What does happen when you lose your data? If you are properly prepared it takes a simple phone call and recovery can occur almost instantly. If you aren’t, a mad scramble to see what can be done. The outcome more often than not means catastrophe for your business.   

To schedule a visit with HubWise Technology about your backup solutions, call Jason at 402-339-7441 or fill out our contact form.

 

So why should someone use instant messaging, and why is it beneficial in the workplace? First off, most instant messaging systems come with your current suite of applications like Microsoft Teams or Skype for Business. This means that you shouldn’t have a big bill to pay for you to start using IM applications. Secondly, it allows for group communication as the option for smaller user picked groups allows for projects to be better handled and more efficient. Also, it is great for improving other forms of communication. For instance, if you are on a conference call and you need additional information from a co-worker you can silently message them without leaving the call. Thirdly, it promotes employee engagement. When co-workers have open lines of communication, they are going to be more likely to care about the work they do and the company they work for. It promotes friendlier communication which can result in more productivity and creativity. Lastly, it allows increased productivity from remote users. Whether you are in the office, or elsewhere you can communicate just as effectively. Home users can communicate without having to dial a phone at the hope that the end user is available or has time for a call. It helps speed up work as you do not have to wait to send emails that have to get scanned by filters and firewalls.

Finally, the benefits of instant messaging should be a fundamental function of your business and how you operate as the benefits of increased communication easily outweigh the potential costs you may have.

The changes most users will notice immediately are cosmetic. Android is moving to a more minimal feel with the removal of the back, home, and app tray buttons that would typically be found at the bottom of the display. This is being replaced with a variety of gesture support surrounding fundamental tasks on the phone. These will include swiping up to get to the app drawer, swiping right to go back a page, etc. The beautiful thing about Android is, if you miss the buttons, there are launcher apps that can be installed which functionally change aspects of your home screen.

The other large cosmetic change is the implementation of a system wide dark mode. This will allow you to set a black theme with an accent color in any operating system specific context menu. In conjunction with this, there is also a rumored theme overhaul. This would likely mean the ability to change fonts and generally create a more personalized, coherent experience.

Q will also be receiving some new accessibility features. The most exciting is Live Caption. This is a feature that can create closed captioning in real time from any kind of media with spoken words. This functionality works in videos, podcasts, games, or music.

Rounding out the major updates are some security changes. Most apps today will ask permission to use certain services on the phone. From there, yes or no can be selected and you can carry on with the app if a critical service was not declined. What is new in Q is the ability to allow and deny, but also to allow only when the app is in use and active. This will mean less battery consumption for apps that may use GPS or scan for Wi-Fi in the background. It is also a great privacy quality of life change.

There are some newer features Apple has to offer. First off, it will have the option to silence unknown callers. This option will let you send all unknown callers straight to voicemail automatically, saving you time wasted on spam callers. Next is optimized battery charging. This option is to improve battery performance. Once the setting is enabled your iPhone learns your charging habits and can wait to charge your phone completely until you need it. For example, if you wake up at 7 AM every day, your phone will charge you to about 80% up until 6 AM and will charge the remaining 20% so its at 100 just as you wake up.

Next, they have low data mode. This is very important as carrier companies keep raising prices per GB and pushing us onto even pricier unlimited plans. Lastly, the location settings. With IOS 13 you will have the option to go to each individual app and change the location services and set it to ask every time you open each app.