Last summer, Apple and IBM announced a partnership make mobile business apps both smarter and easier to use. Today the two companies deliver the first wave of IBM MobileFirst for iOS solutions in a new class of made-for-business apps and supporting cloud services that bring IBM’s big data and analytics capabilities to iPhone and iPad users in the enterprise. IBM MobileFirst for iOS solutions are now available to enterprise users in banking, retail, insurance, financial services, telecommunications and for governments and airlines. Citi, Air Canada, Sprint and Banorte have announced support for IBM MobileFirst for iOS.

"What we’re delivering aims directly at the new quest of business-smart technologies that unlock new value at the intersection of big data and individual engagement," said Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, IBM Global Business Services.

Built exclusively for iPhone and iPad, IBM MobileFirst for iOS apps are delivered in a secure environment, embedded with analytics and linked to core enterprise processes. The apps can be customized for any organization and easily deployed, managed and upgraded via cloud services from IBM specifically for iOS devices, with security across the data, app and device.

For airlines, for example, the Plan Flight app allows pilots to pull together information on flight plans, schedules and weather conditions and report issues to ground crews for in-flight fuel-saving decisions.

The Passenger+ app enables flight crews to view information on trip progress and to rebook flights en route for travelers likely to miss their scheduled connections.

Other MobileFirst apps include:

• Advise & Grow (Banking and Financial Markets) puts bankers on premise with their small business clients, with secure authorization to access client profiles and competitive analyses, gather analytics-driven insights to make personalized recommendations, and secure transactions.
• Trusted Advice (Banking and Financial Markets) allows advisors to access and manage client portfolios, gain insight from powerful predictive analytics-in the client’s kitchen or at the local coffee shop, rather than the advisor’s office-with ability to test recommendations with modeling tools all the way to complete, secure transactions.
• Retention (Insurance) empowers agents with access to customers’ profiles and history, including an analytics-driven retention risk score as well as smart alerts, reminders, and recommendations on next best steps and facilitation of key transactions like collection of e-signatures and premiums.
• Case Advice (Government) addresses the issue of workload and support among caseworkers who are making critical decisions, one family or situation at a time, on the go. The solution adjusts case priorities based on real-time analytics-driven insights, and assesses risk based on predictive analysis.
• Incident Aware (Government) converts an iPhone into a vital crime prevention asset, presenting law enforcement officers with real-time access to maps and video-feeds of incident locations; information about victim status, escalation risk, and crime history; and improved ability to call for back-up and supporting services.
• Sales Assist (Retail) enables associates to connect with customer profiles, make suggestions based on previous purchases and current selections, check inventory, locate items in-store, and ship out-of-store items.
• Pick & Pack (Retail) combines proximity-based technology with back-end inventory systems for transformed order fulfillment.

Expert Tech (Telecommunications) taps into native iOS capabilities including FaceTime for easy access to expertise and location services for route optimization to deliver superior on-site service, more effective issue resolution and productivity as well as improved customer satisfaction.