The iPad hasn’t been available in Japan for very long, but it’s already been incorporated into a highly clever and entertaining street magic show by a magician named Shinya. It’s really cool to see such an awesome mashup of traditional sleight of hand tricks and modern technology.
Velcro + iPad
Velcro + iPad = a practical, but somewhat aesthetically unpleasing solution.
Touch Tablet Use Case: iPad DJ
Rana Sobhany is doing some pretty cool DJ stuff with a couple iPads and a mixer. It’s amazing how functional and inexpensive the apps are just a few weeks after the iPad debuted. I’m sure there’s going to be even more amazing musical stuff within another month now that developers have had hardware to play with as well.
Rana also has a blog focusing on her iPad DJ exploits at Destroy The Silence that I plan to keep an eye on.
Touch Tablet Use Case: Turn Signal
Combine one iPad, one jacket with nifty pocket, and some accelerometer aware software and you have an automatic bicycle turn signal. Pretty clever!
iPad Sprocket Pocket from MAYAnMAYA on Vimeo.
Touch Tablet Use Case: Basketball
Apparently the Wake Forest men’s basketball team has an assistant coach on the bench that uses a full size laptop all game. Seems like a multi-touch tablet like an iPad would be a better fit once the software catches up to the hardware. Maybe by the NCAA tournament next year?
Touch Tablet Use Case: Football
How long is it going to take for an iPad or similar tablet to pop up on a football sideline?
With the Super Bowl just a couple days away it seems appropriate to close out the week with a football oriented tablet use case brainstorming session. Here are a few thoughts that occurred to me today.
If you watch football with any regularity, you’re probably all too familiar with the camera shots of head coaches/offensive coordinators on the sidelines brandishing big laminated sheets with all their plays. They usually have a pen or highlighter as well and make notes/check plays off as they call them and the game progresses. Seems like a task that an iPad would be perfectly suited for given the right software. Besides assisting in tracking the play calling a tablet could even be hooked into some kind of real time stat system as well so you could know exactly what the outcome of a previous play was.
Other coaches and players could benefit from having tablets to use as well. When NFL quarterbacks come out of the game it’s pretty common for them to go look at printouts of the defensive formations they were just going against. Piping those pictures (or video) into an iPad would work just as well or better.
A tablet would be just as useful outside of a game scenario during the week of preparation leading up to a game. Coaches could use a tablet to replace their practice planner, playbook and simultaneously add a portable video display all at the same time. The latter two uses would make it perfect for players as well as they’re learning their playbook and preparing for the next opponent by scouting their tendencies.
Those are just a couple different ideas off the top of my head. What other potential uses for football players and coaches am I missing?
Scoble Interviews Mike Mayo About The iPhone SDK
Robert Scoble has put together a pretty interesting interview with Mike Mayo, the iPhone Developer for Rackspace (and Slicehost!) about the new iPad SDK.
Ars Technica JooJoo Update
…there’s still a lot riding on the completion of the JooJoo software, and it’s a bit troubling that we were looking at the prototype software less than four weeks before its US launch. Fusion Garage claims that the software is now “closer to the 90 percent mark” and says it will meet its target for shipping.
Ars Technica with a Joojoo tablet progress update that’s pretty sparse on the user experience and software details. I think the Joojoo has a tough road ahead even if they do succeed in beating Apple to market.
Last Week’s Initial iPad Reviews
Some initial reviews and impressions from last week’s iPad event:
Andy Ihnatko for the Chicago Sun-Times: Hands-on with the Apple iPad – it does make sense.
John Gruber on Daring Fireball: Various and Assorted Thoughts and Observations Regarding the Just-Announced iPad.
John Carlton and Glenn Fleishman for Tidbits: Hands-on Impressions of the iPad.
Om Malik at GigaOm: My Early Impressions of Apple’s iPad & a Quick Hands-on Review
Walt Mossberg for All Things Digital: First Impressions of the New Apple iPad
Stephen Fry: iPad About.
Jacqui Cheng for Ars Technica: Hands-on, first impressions, and Photo gallery of Apple iPad
Brier Dudley for the Seattle Times: Apple iPad: Hands-on first impressions
Blank Slate
It’s been just over a week since the big iPad introduction in San Francisco and the resulting disturbance in the technosphere shows no sign of abating anytime soon. Yesterday at midday I noticed that iPad was still a twitter trending topic worldwide (and is again this morning) and more conventional news commentary and analysis continues to arrive daily on the web. And there’s been plenty of related news in the last week too like the Amazon vs. Macmillan Kindle pricing brouhaha and Google Chrome OS tablet mockups. Tablets are big and I expect them to remain so going forward.
I’m starting Tablet Dreams as a fresh start on blogging this coming third revolution. It’s my belief that we’re at beginning of a new paradigm with conventions yet to be fully explored and defined and I want to be part of documenting and participating in this revolution from the beginning.
When the iPad arrives in March it will usher in a new era of multitouch computing devices, but this is only version 1.0 and one company’s vision. While Apple is going to lead the way out of the gate, I expect competition and innovation from Google and others to really fuel progress and societal adoption at an unprecedented rate. Whether it’s an iPad, a Google Chrome OS tablet, or a completely new multitouch computing device, it’s going to have a place in Tablet Dreams.