All major players in the tax and accounting market have something to offer that can utilize an Apple product. Thomson Reuters has introduced Mobile CS which gives users of its Practice CS practice management system access to that database via the iPhone. CCH Mobile provides access to research tools on that company's IntelliConnect platform via Blackberrys and iPhones. Intuit, which has a variety of mobile products, has QuickBooks for the Mac. That version of QuickBooks, along with AccountEdge (formerly MYOB), are among the few financial applications for the Apple platform.

There are no professional tax or write-up applications for the Macintosh and no mid-market accounting packages of significance and no indication.

For Stevens' firm, most of his workers are using Hewlett-Packard laptops with a handful of desktops in use by those who want to run multiple monitors.

Jim Bourke, principal with WithumSmith+Brown of Red Bank, N.J., sees the same situation. "The iPad and the iPhone are great from a mobile professional perspective. But from a functional perspective, it [Apple products] doesn't integrate into critical applications," he says.

That includes the inability of Apple products to access data store in the firm's document system. CPAs with iPads are primarily checking email or browsing the Web. But for the moment at Bourke's firm, all staff members get Dell laptops and Blackberry as the standard phone. However, Bourke thinks the situation may change with Apple products becoming better able to integrate with other systems, whether or not Apple accounting and tax applications develop.

"We are going to see more penetration as more vendors are migrating to the cloud. So many are using it [Apple products] and are going to want this," he says.

Bob Scott

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Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards.  Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He  has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that.  A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind