Viewing Sharepoint Internal Companyweb from iPad

...but we cant get Safari to load the companyweb from the new iPad's we purchased....

What happens when you try? What do you see and what error messages do you get?

Are these 3G iPads and are you connecting to companyweb via Wi-Fi or 3G? And is the iPhone connecting via Wi-Fi or 3G? For example, if your iPhone is connecting via 3G and if the iPads were connecting on the office's internal Wi-Fi, so trying to connect "internally" compared to "externally" for the iPhone, and you're trying to connect by "www.companyweb.com", then many routers do not resolve DNS to internal hosts correctly that way.

IOW, if you took the iPads to someone else's house outside of the office, or to Starbucks or where ever, do the iPads work connecting to comanyweb? If so then that's a router problem and the workaround would be to connect by the Sharepoint server's internal IP address instead. (i.e.: "192.168.x.x/Sharepoint" instead of "www.companyweb.com/Sharepoint".

Otherwise, please try to provide more details about how the iPads are connecting to the network.

You will have to use third party apps for this...checkout mCloud FS, from www.copiun.com

I tested my setup and am able to use Safari to access both the public and private sections of Sharepoint. (i.e.: requires domain password.)

• iPad1 with iOS5
• Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 (WSS) on Windows 2003 (pubic and private)
• Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 on Windows 2008 (private)

Safari is fine to both servers and I get prompted for domain credentials at the appropriate places. I don't know what version of Sharepoint came with Small Business Server (it varies depending on what version of SBS,) and of course, you could install the full version of Sharepoint instead of WSS. (I do not have access to a machine running the full version of Sharepoint at the moment, so I can't confirm iPad access to those.)

Are the versions of iOS the same on the iPhone(s) and iPad(s)? I don't know where you read that Safari is different on the iPad vs iPhone, but the error "Cannot connect to server" doesn't seem like that issue. If it is, perhaps it's something with a failed authentication to the domain (due to browser incompatibility.)

To confirm, is Sharepoint on the same machine as SBS? In both my cases, the Sharepoint server is separate from the domain controller, but the network is "flat" and doesn't have any complex routing, which would be about the same as Sharepoint on the domain controller.

Partyof1 wrote:

iphone was 4.3.5 and worked, i updated it yesterday to ios5 and it still works.

iPad is 4.3.5 have not tried updating it yet.

We run SBS 2010 which as always is a DC, has Exchange and Sharepoint integrated on same machine. i dont think its just WSS its Sharepoint Foundation but i could be wrong, was not sure how to check. Everything on SBS seems to be a slightly limited version of the standalone product. We do not run an external sharepoint site, its basically just an intranet...

(I think the version is actually called Windows Small Business Server 2011.) I haven't worked with SBS2011 yet. A quick Google shows that SBS 2011 includeds Sharepoint Foundation 2010, which used to be called Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS). (a.k.a.: the "free" version of Sharepoint.) So basically the current version of WSS.

And yes, SBS is a license restricted version of Windows. They made it to give "deals" on CAL pricing. Normally, you need separate CALs for Windows, Exchange, SQL, Terminal Services, etc. A SBS CAL includes access to all of those (or whatever you're licensed for) in just on unit license for a significantly reduced price. But you're limited to 25 or 75 users max (depending on SBS version.) You're also limited to "everything on one machine" (depending on version of SBS.) Most of my small clients I had using SBS originally. Those that expanded, grew past SBS's user limit and we migrated to standard versions of Windows Server. Those that didn't are finding cloud based services more attractive so I haven't been playing too much with SBS recently.

...here is the link of the thread i read, its about a mac not an ipad though, i didnt catch that first time around.

http://simultaneouspancakes.com/Lessons/2005/11/26/safari-and-companyweb/

thanks for looking into this

In the past websites based on Microsoft back-ends (i.e.: SQL) didn't play well with non-IE, mostly due to the use of ASP and IE plug-ins. Sharepoint is not bad, but until recently, IIS didn't work 100% with anything except IE. For example, it was only in Exchange 2010, that Outlook Web Access gives you the "full rich content" with Safari (which is the version I believe you're running.) But one could consider that this version of IIS as almost a 1.0 version for non-IE support.😝 Thus some internal authentication glitches are not surprising.

That said, Safari in iOS devices is a bit different than what's in OSX. It could still be the same bug that the person is describing. But if that's so, then I'm not sure what you can do. My "public" Sharepoint site is basically setup as a "public webserver" as a proof-of-concept to see how well it would work as such. So it has anonymous access enabled, which may be why I don't see that error. (And of course different version of Sharepoint, different version of iOS, etc.) That would fall in line with the person's statement that they had to change from integrated authentication to basic, which is what I had to do. Many things in Windows domain integration do not work on non-Windows platforms. (e.g.: Group Policies and login scripts only partial work with OSX.)

So perhaps you can change your IIS settings. Or try different browsers. I'm forced to have Windows and IE around on a few machines so Safari access to Sharepoint isn't an issue for me. I realize that it may not be a solution for you, but in all my years of selling and configuring Windows to clients, I always end up having to use IE. 😟