Businesses lure in customers with iPad-led innovation
If you thought the iPad would make a good contribution to your coffee table, something you fiddled with while watching the news, you are wrong. The little tablet gem is proving pretty popular with businesses the world over, and more importantly, it’s driving innovation.
Budget Aussie airline JetStar – whose parent company is Qantas – is renting out iPads as part of its in-flight entertainment system.
The Apple iPads will be available for passengers to rent on flights over an hour long (and in Australia that’s not hard),and will be pre-loaded with movies, TV, books, music and games, for $10 (£5.70).
The service is a combination of Australian in-flight entertainment service provider Stellar Inflight and UK-based Bluebox Avionics 2 the in-flight entertainment software company.
THE iPad is already a tasty product among gadget lovers, but a North Sydney restaurant has become the first in Australia to replace their printed menus with Apple’s new touch screen device.
Meanwhile, another Aussie business, the Global Mundo Tapas restaurant in Sydney’s Rydges Hotel, is handng out iPads with a custom-made iPad application which allows customers to browse the virtual pages of the menu with a sweep of their finger.
Diners can peruse the dishes and see a picture of what the dish looks like along with tasting notes before compiling their order and sending it wirelessly to the kitchen.
The iPad menu can also suggest the best wines to go with certain dishes and suggest the best food pairings.
When ordering steak, users can even specify how they’d like the meat cooked and which sauce they’d prefer. It will even ask them if they’d like fries with that.
With innovations like these, it’s no wonder analysts are expecting sales of the iPad to hit 5.5 million by the end of this year.
Next year, one Macquarie Group analyst reckons that sales will top 13 million units worldwide, citing continued strong demand.
I can’t wait to see how other businesses will be utilizing their iPads!
