App Innovation Will Make Tablets in Business Vital

I don’t think people will use tablets for applications like Word, Excel, or Powerpoint. Hardware keyboards definitely make writing easier on tablets, but I think when they first came out people only looked towards traditional office programs or retail used like for POS systems just because that’s all they knew.

Just like the innovation that went into designing and releasing the iPad in the first place, the ways tablets will penetrate the workplace, the way they’ll eventually become as ubiquitous as smart phones is the innovative ways we will be able to work with them.

Just like Scott Belsky said that technology innovations take place in the consumer market before they are adopted by businesses, there will be a delay before new ways of working are going to get adopted. First we have to look at what’s hitting consumers.

There are are signs of what’s coming though

Apps like Agendas, Penultimate, GoodReader, Roambi, Sketchbook, apps from the Omni Group, and Evernote is the sort of stuff that will make these devices hard to take out of the hand of any modern business person.

Just the other day I talked to someone who developed an iPad app for film editors to use in order to find royalty free music instead of going to a website. You could use a computer with a browser for that particular task, but the iPad gives those same people more flexibility, mobility, and makes it much easier to share the work he’s doing with the others around him.

I think the opportunities are tremendous right now.