Update to Teamcenter for iPad adds input capability

Teamcenter Mobility 2.0 lets users create product information and add markup, not just review data from the server. Where’s the competition?

Siemens PLM Software has updated its iPad app for Teamcenter, moving the product beyond being only a tool for review. New features in Teamcenter Mobility 2.0 allow users to capture and contribute additional knowledge, browse product structures, initiate workflow processes, and markup or annotate existing documents and images.

TC mobility 2 image 2 — Teamcenter Mobility 2.0 adds the ability to create and edit PLM data on the iPad, instead of review only as in verison 1.0. (Source: Siemens PLM)

As with the original version, Teamcenter Mobility 2.0 is free, but restricted to connecting to a sample database supplied by Siemens PLM. Paying for the app ($19.95) opens access to the user’s servers.

Markup requires the use of some other iPad app capable of marking up images. There is no officially approved app, but one Siemens PLM representative says Autodesk Sketchbook Express for iPad is a good choice, adding “how’s that for open?”

New features in 2.0 include:

• Alerts for critical tasks and changes
• Import files into Teamcenter
• Submit objects to workflow
• Mark up documents or images stored in Teamcenter (requires a 3rd party markup tool)
• Change your active group or role
• Create relationships between information
• View product structures
• Perform where-used/where-referenced queries
• More intuitive display for attachments
• Open files from Teamcenter into other iPad apps, such as markup tools

The app iOS 4.2 or later, running on iPad only. Supported languages are English, Chinese, Czech, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Users can connect to their Teamcenter server using both WiFi or 3G mobile broadband.

What we think

Siemens PLM is at version 2.0 for its iPad connection to the PLM database, while Dassault Systèmes and PTC are still at version zero point nothing. Dassault has 3D VIA Mobile, but it is only for viewing models, not connecting to an Enovia PLM database. PTC has a couple of videos posted showing model-viewing on the iPad/iPhone, but again, nothing for connecting to Windchill PLM. Could it be Siemens PLM is in the lead because they are willing to contract out the development, while the other guys are trying to keep it in-house?

It would be nice if image markup tools were built-in, instead of having to use another app, but at least there are good apps like Autodesk Sketchbook Express available. It would not surprise us to see a JT Open app coming from Siemens PLM soon; iPad outlets in Detroit would sell out immediately if such an app hit the market.