Every week I’ll blurt out (really that’s what it is, a blurt) some product ideas I have for a specific technology. This week it’ll be the iPad.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about the iPad, especially after reading Paul Bucheit’s thoughts on it. I was pretty excited to hear about the iPad when it was first announced and after reading his thoughts, I’m much more excited about it. What he says is true, there are no other devices that are lightweight enough to carry around. Most of the PCs we’ve seen so far to do this have been big fat and really clunky. I don’t think that the iPad will be a huge success however. I just don’t think many people are thinking about the product for future uses. I think like Paul has said, most people are comparing the product against current technologies.
Regardless here are a couple of ideas that I came up with this morning:
1) The first thought that came to my mind was a recipe flipper for when I’m cooking. I’ve always found it frustrating to have to print out a recipe or carry a book with me into the kitchen. the book always ends up being in the way or all the way on the other side of the room, and I have to run back and forth to read it.
2) Student notebook. I remember in school i had to carry around my notebook, i think kids of the future will most likely be carrying these things. I think the iPad is a perfect replacement for the notebook as we see it today.
3) Menus or Order taking devices – take orders, find out who your customers are. see who is checking into your restaurant via Foursquare/Gowalla.
4) Sales devices – i think this is most likely where it will have a huge enterprise impact. most sales reps in the drug industry need to carry around laptops everywhere. It’s heavy and a pain in the ass to carry around. This would be their new demo device.
4.5) No more doctors forms – hand out a light weight device that people can fill out medical forms with (or login to Google Health and auto update your form with that)
5) Here’s a simple product – an iPad upright tray that you stick anywhere (kitchen cabinets so i can scroll through recipes… 
). I suspect most people will want to hang their iPad upright and use it as a display of some sort.
I’d love to hear what other ideas people have!
-d
