I’ve been thinking about various uses for the iPad. At first, it was just a ‘bigger iPhone’ but quickly people found that the personal iPad serves different purposes than an iPhone. And I’ve enjoyed using friends’ iPads in certain situations where I didn’t have my laptop and didn’t feel like doing a group browse on my iPhone.
But lately, there’s a new usage I’ve been intrigued by: the public, shared-use iPad. For example, a gym that has an iPad at the front desk that allows people to post their workouts to their Facebook friends, and to have circles of competition with their Facebook friends to see who’s benching more, who’s winning in racquetball or basketball.
This is interesting because it’s a social interaction facilitated by the venue. It doesn’t require you, the attendee, to install anything on your phone… doesn’t require you to have a particular phone… and is displayed in front of you that can allow immediate usage. It also calls up unique privacy issues. For example, Facebook Connect, the reliable gatekeeper, is not as secure when you’re entering your Facebook credentials into a shared, public computer.
These are all reasons that point to new developments in this space, I’m looking to get some ideas out there myself and play. It’s subtle, but it’s actually a pretty big shift.
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