Our store is not in the ipods/iPads devices but on the old trusty palm pilots! Lol but I tell ya when they work they work great if only they were reset periodically to ensure they are working great especially on the BIG ad set in the 1st of the month!
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1exa - Looks like the iPod Touch hasn't been discontinued yet, it's all the regular iPods that have been. Wikipedia:
"The current iPod touch is the sixth-generation model, released on July 15, 2015.
As of September 2017, the iPod Touch is currently the only product in Apple's iPod product line, following the discontinuation of the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle."
We have it in our Appliance and Footwear department.
@ ifyq I believe they can do remote approvals on the palm pilot sncs
Cool on digital signing ~ is it only in the appliance department?
We are Digital Journey Store and let me tell you that Digital Signing is so much better. Our appliance department is all digital signing. It’s the best thing ever. As for the equipment, the iPods and IPads are a headache. They are so outdated and they keep cramming them with new features and apps so they are slow. Now we have the CallSears app so that we can answer the store’s phone on the iPod and it s---s because it relies on wifi calling. The only good thing about the iPod is that we can do manager approvals remotely and not have to go to the register and swipe, all the details of the transaction show on the app.
Gotta admit the palm pilot sncs are durable! We were promised the new stuff a long time ago but glad we didn’t with what everyone says how terrible they are!
They should have went to digital signing a loooooong time ago, would have paid for itself by now with the amount of signing paper is wasted and thrown out every week. Especially in shoes!! All those tiny signs in the tiny pouches!! Ugh
I would love to see some of the bean counters walk in the shoes of us grunts for a week especially on the first of the month when ad set is huge!
The RMUs at Kmart (Kmart's version of the SNC- symbol) are just as bad. Half of the 6 that we have never work. Most of the batteries don't work. The printers are useless. They have these annoying messages that pop up when you are trying to do something....such as the blue light reminder, online orders ready to pick reminder, and the open price exceptions reminder. Half the time these messages will crash the RMU or freeze the screen
I'd like to know what the company intends to do being that the iHeld (iPod Touch) devices are well past their useful lifespan. At this point, they are garbage. Without the cradle, they are worth maybe $10 on eBay.
It doesn't help that they keep adding more and more features to everything. Look at the POS software running on the IBM registers (which are 15-20 years old) as an example. Ever since they migrated from the fairly reliable DOS-like software to the GUI touchscreen interface, the registers became slow and unresponsive. They also crash frequently. The same thing is happening with the SNCs and iPads and many other systems. SHC IT keeps rolling out "improvements" which really end up being a downgrade.
Not only that, Apple no longer produces an iPod Touch. Uh-oh. So even if the company had the cash to deploy newer devices, the entire SHC Connect/SNC/ShopSears codebase would have to be rewritten, unless they wanted to buy unlocked iPhones, which are at least $500 a pop. Otherwise, they would end up moving everything to Android or would simply go proprietary (Symbol guns).
I am shocked that there are stores still using the Palm. Palm devices withered away around 2005, I think. How deeper does the outdated IT equipment situation go? Are there dual processor Pentium III servers in active use at the datacenter? Do some stores still have the original 1980s registers that really run DOS and have the small old CRT monitors? Any offices at corporate on a NetWare network? Any stores using an old physical dumb terminal for Store Systems/NPS/RIM? Speaking of which, how many gaping security holes are lurking because of the outdated systems?
Maybe a liquidation of the rest of the company will make obsolete equipment of no concern.
Well this post just made me lol . We still use the snic(palm pilot) and they never connect, are absolutely ridiculous and cannot ever find one to use anyway . Are you really serious that the iheld devices are worse than the snic. Here's an idea let's just have a mystery price and members get to be surprised when they get to the register ,better yet we can do a name your own price.
@cdl Usually we use it for Backroom, Softlines, Shoes, Hardlines MCAS (the ipods) for scans, sets ups etc. Usually sellers use the ipads for sales.
As for this ihelds this are just pure junk I remember when we had the old ones the ones that look ancient you dropped those bad boys and it was still their. I heard they used them for years and yet they were so reliable and now we use the Apple junk and it doesn't last probably cost the company more to be repairing them. Obviously the ipods werent made for this type of use they were made for consumer use not commercial use.
what do you use an iPod for?
When we got the iPods and iPads, everyone had to sign an agreement that we would have to pay for any device we broke. Somewhere between 500-700ish. Of course no one wanted to sign, but we were forced to use them so we had to sign. Someone dropped an iPad a few weeks later. He quit before they could deduct it from his paycheck.
We got 10 iPads originally, and 28 iPods. We now have 5 iPads and 7 iPods. But some are ALWAYS out for repair, so we usually have 2-3 iPods to fight over.
@emo I personally like the palm pilots devices and so sturdy if you accidentally drop them
Did the company charge you a $500 deposit to use the new devices? That’s what we were told 6 years ago when we were also told we would be getting the iPod/iPad devices.
At least with palm pilot if they’re not working just gotta reset the radios, unless it’s a bigger issue company wide
We have printer battery issues, have about 30 and not all keep a good charge.. very frustrating
But when everything is working good, especially on ad set, devices work pretty fast
My store has the ipad/ipods and they are terrible. They desperately need to be updated to modern generation (given the company’s financial situation it’ll never happen). We constantly have to send them out for repair. Out of 30 devices probably only 8 work at a given time. It’s a battle every morning with each department especially on Markdown or Ad set days. Everyone always say the old devices were more reliable.