I came to Cisco to create incredible technology experiences for millions of enterprise workers. That’s why I’m so thrilled to be the executive sponsor of our partnership with Apple; together, our two companies are capable of “incredible” on a pretty massive scale.
Since our announcement in August, engineers, user experience and design teams from Cisco and Apple have been working side by side and testing together to make sure you have a truly delightful experience with your iPhone and iPad on your company’s Cisco assets. And today, as Apple introduces iOS 10, we’ve reached a major milestone.
When we announced the Apple partnership last August, we promised to change the way people work by:
– optimizing networks to deliver improved performance for iPhone and iPad.
– creating an even better experience for Cisco voice communication on the iPhone.
– reinventing teamwork and meetings with Cisco collaboration tools.
Here’s how we’ve done that by integrating into new capabilities and APIs that Apple has built into iOS 10:
– We’ve optimized how iPhone and iPad communicate with a Cisco wireless network. When you’re at work and on the go, your iPhone or iPad will simply “know” what’s the best available wireless access point for you—and will select it by default. This makes performance of all your apps, especially real-time apps like voice and video, much more reliable, particularly when you are on the move.
– We’ve created a “fast lane” for business critical apps. No longer will you have to ask your coworker to lay off the cat videos while you’re on a Cisco WebEx or Spark Call on your iOS device; your IT department can now effortlessly prioritize the apps most critical to your business, helping you get the job done from your mobile device.
– We’re making Cisco Spark on iPhone a seamless experience. Cisco Spark is our platform for the future of work, and now it is completely optimized for your iPhone and iPad. With Cisco Spark app installed on iOS 10 you’ll be able to tap a contact in your address book and instantly make a VoIP call without having to launch a third-party app. The integration doesn’t stop there, you’ll also enjoy other native iOS calling features with Cisco Spark—calls will now ring on the lock screen, just like a regular call, users will have access to mute and call waiting. Even more conveniently you can now ask Siri to use Cisco Spark to call contacts in your People app.
We’re so excited to get these features into your hands. You can find out more about the network enhancements and the collaboration improvements at www.cisco.com/go/apple.
I look forward to your feedback. Let me know @rowantrollope.
So very excited for our #Cisco and #Apple partnership! GoTeamGo. The true collaboration is breaking the mold of our technology companies.
The integration of Cisco Spark within iOS 10 is seamless. Great job to the software engineers!
Great follow up update which I was eagerly waiting for. There seems to be a lot of progress and a lot of opportunities too! interesting days ahead for Cisco and Apple
WebEx still needs some tweaking, so waiting for iOs 10 upgrade
I was watching the WWDC today and instantly downloaded Spark on my iPhone the app looks really useful, and with IOS 10 Voip changes it would make it even better.
This is exciting how IOS is evolving and our apps evolve with it.
Typo – instantly downloaded Spark on my iPhone.
Great news, I hope to so more integration in Jabber and also Facetime vs Telepresence so calls can go across
Some great things coming out of this partnership. I hope we see more to come.
I think the wifi and app fast-track features are fantastic, looking forward to more such useful capabilities.
This partnership can be very fruitful for both companies. Cant wait to see what comes next …
Cisco Spark app is fantastic!
Wonderful integration and can’t wait to see what’s next in the pipeline!
“…iPhone or iPad will simply “know” what’s the best available wireless access point for you—and will select it by default.”
Is the protocol for this specified anywhere, so other platforms can use it too?
Exciting stuff. Love the Apple integration! Nice work.
I’m guessing Jabber and Spark and gonna ‘square up’ soon…?
Great to hear the first fruits of our partnership are coming very soon!
Does ios 10 already ship with Spark installed already? It is consumer behaviour that we have to take away from from other apps like Whatsapp to make it more widely used amongst our business customers.
This seems to be a great partership and using the technology at it best.
We do have a feature in iPhone for FaceTime where the other party also need to have iPhone. Now with CISCO spark the party will also have some dependencies. But yes, hoping it will with in same way as FaceTime works. But I think Apple FaceTime usage will be less and people will be using spark.
But again great partnership and great thought for using technology at it best.
It’s great that Apple’s devices will finally roam better. This will benefit everyone.
However, what about Jabber? This announcement leaves out a lot of detail, not available on the referenced links, either. You have an embedded base of Jabber clients will full VoIP functionality that could be taking advantage of this improved technology. Spark is necessarily a direction Cisco needs to take to provide cloud options, but don’t forget about the millions of endpoints you have out there now. Give some of this development $ to the existing BUs to improve function on iDevices.
Mr.Trollope:
How can we circumvent the unlawful surveillance by law enforcement ?!
As recent as yesterday, after my posts; a response was to wipe out messages I have sent to myself of articles I find relevant while searching, when I have access, how can you help that from happening to individual like me that have been targeted for defending freedom? I have been blocked for over ten years, perhaps since the Internet began; and it never matter the brand of the phone, so how can u help honest, innocent people to win the battle of Freespech?!
Marina Meadows
305-788-7679
Great post! A lot of exciting new innovations and opportunites announced yesterday during the 2016 Apple WWDC.
One of the most notable was Apple’s announcement of its expansion of its relationship with Cisco, the world leader in business collaboration. From an SMB, Mid Market, and enterprise B2B perspective, the organizations that recognized the strength of Cisco’s collaboration ecosystem prior to this announcement (as well as thise following it) will undoubtedly now be positioned to draft off of this game changing endorsement. The integration of the undisputed leader in consumer customer innovations with Cisco Spark provides an unprecedented opportunity B2B technology providers around the world. Few companies have demonstrated the power of being truly customer focused as have Apple and Cisco. With this new strategic product integration enhancement, the borders between our curently separate worlds as consumers and business professionals are quickly eroding. In a good way. The way we have alWAYS subconsciously wished for (maybe without quite realizing it). As with most things that are separate we wish for them to be “seamless”. The integration of Kudos to Cisco, Apple and all of the technology providers helping tostreamline our tools of communication. “Seamless” is now a bit closer.
Great work! Addressing the massive barrier to mobility, WiFi and all of its nuances, as a first step is a savvy move. Elevating Spark to something equivalent to FaceTime, from a user experience is a novel move and an important stake in the ground reinforcing the consumerization of IT – it must be simple, intuitive and must be contained within the context of the everyday mobile experience in which we live.
As a heavy user of WebEx *recordings* (300-400 recordings a year), I’ve been disappointed that we’ve not made improvements towards greater Apple compatibility. Sharing a clip from a meaningful conference or uploading a recording to social media (think teachers who want to upload lectures to YouTube) are faced with a proprietary file format that nobody, and I mean nobody supports. Conversion to a format like mp4 that Apple or others recognize is a tedius, time-consuming process using software that won’t even run on Apple systems. Can we please make progress in letting the content we help people capture with WebEx be accessible afterwards on the world’s video platforms and visible on Apple devices? Our customers’s recordings and our own are totally inaccessible to Apple iOS users.
Webex has for sometime now been able to export recordings in standard formats. You should check your settings in your Webex account and verify with your Webex vendor that you aren’t on a locked down version of Webex. If you are on the locked down version have them upgrade you immediately as you are missing out on a big bucket of new features and UI improvements.
Great job with integration I cannot wait to deliver first demo using my mobile
So excited to be a part of such an amazing company! This #partnership will change the way the world works, plays, and lives. #NeverBetter
Making Spark an integral part of IOS10 is superb. Looking forward to use it and excited to see more progress in this integration.
Very exciting! Thanks for the update.
Excellent! Empowering the best possible user experience with the power of Cisco feature rich/performance networking has always been the goal. In the end people buy solutions – not hardware. We’ve long been building incredible products that just needed the user’s touch points to avail themselves of our framework. iOS, Android, Linux and Windows 10 (IOT version) will sing harmoniously as one thanks to Cisco. No one else can do it; no one else comes close. It’s coming together!
These are very exciting news!
Love being able to call team members right from a Spark room when a conversation really gets going. The video and call quality is amazing and the continued dialog is so valuable to my projects. Great job team!
Great insight into and update on the partnership
Very exciting! Thanks for the update.
Exiting news
thank you…
perfect . yesss Betist
Bursa Beko Servisi
thankyouu.
More excited for Jabber. Hope to use it very soon.
When will Spark be available for my Surface?