iPad in the Kitchen

I decided I wanted to purchase an iPad. The first roadblock was my wife, the more level headed of the two of us, who said “of course honey, but by the way, what’s your business case?”. I didn’t have one other than; a. I wanted it. b. I wanted to explore whether the device would change my relationship with “the machine”. Since I have a budget for discretionary spending on technology I went out to buy one.

The second roadblock was that despite advertising being everywhere, nobody had any in stock. I had to order it in.

Its now three weeks in and I’ve had 3 insights that surprised me.

1. Its instant on. Unlike my PC and netbook which both take over a minute to get to a state where they can actually run an application, the iPad is basically instant on because it uses a version of the iphone OS. This means that I can look something up on the web (eg Masterchef recipe) with out interrupting my flow of thoughts or discussion. Doesn’t mean much if I’m sitting at my desk, but means an awful lot if I’m out and about or talking in the kitchen.
2. Its flat form factor and light weight means that I can mount it on vertical surface. Why pay $17,000 for an internet connected fridge, when you can have the same thing for $600 and a some gaffa tape.
3. The touch screen interface isn’t that big a deal. Sure its harder to type out a document, but typing is an abstraction anyway. If I want to draw or simply click on links, touch screen is the go. And if I did mount the ipad on the fridge, a keyboard would just be an annoyance and a mouse would be unworkable.

These thoughts lead me to believe that we will start to see Ipad’s or their competitors embedded into everyday furniture and appliances. Its just to easy to do and I now want web access pretty much all the time, especially when I am cooking and want a recipe. I may even get some nice mounts to put it on the freezer door.

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