I don’t own an iPad, but I’ve had a couple of great iPad experiences recently that I wanted to share. Both were quite eye-opening. If you have your own story to share, please submit it in the comments section.

Story One – Traveling around the Ohio countryside

When my old roommates Jeff Heller and Sears Carpenter and I met at the Columbus International Airport a few weeks back on our way up to Gambier and Kenyon, I was delighted that Jeff had brought his 3G iPad with him. I was the co-pilot and immediately pulled up the map and found us lunch at my favorite Ohio food institution, Skyline Chili. I had a feeling that this Cincinnati favorite had spread more thoroughly into Columbus in the last 25 years. The wide number of red pins that dropped when I searched for Skyline Chili proved me right. I found one that was on in Gahana, Ohio, right on the way to Gambier and we had a great lunch.   

  
We picked up some supplies and then headed up the route that Maps provided. But then we got to talking about our old cars (my red Duster was famous for stalling on left hand turns, but Sears’ VW Scirocco was by far the fastest), and some of the towns we used to drive through. While we had driven through New Albany (I always looked for New Delmar, it should be just south of New Albany, but it’s never there), we realized that the route Google had charted for us was not our old route and we decided that we really needed to drive through Centerburg, (it is the geographic center of Ohio after all) and Mount Vernon (the childhood home of Paul Lynde). The wide screen of the iPad once again came through in a way that the iPhone or a GPS just would not have been able to handle. And on a printed map you would almost never be able to find roads of the size we were looking for, and you certainly wouldn’t be sure that they would be able to take you where you wanted to go.

I found Centerburg and saw that if we took upcoming County Highway 26, we could get there easily.  But of course we missed County Highway 26 and had to take South County Road and then North County Road to get up to Centerburg on Rt. 36. But the map was so clear, so easy to manipulate and (thankfully for my aging eyes) and so easy to see – it was simple to make adjustments and the 3G signal was fine. We made it to Centerburg, up to Mr. Vernon and on to Gambier in high style, even “enjoying” Jeff’s music from the surprisingly good speakers on the iPad. It was a fabulous, spontaneous roadtrip, thanks in great part to the iPad.

Story Two – Restaurant Menu Replacement

My friend Eric and I were exploring local “foodie” places and ended up at the terrific Sugar and Olives in Norwalk,CT for lunch the other day. As we sat at the table we were handed an iPad to share with the menu laid out in a beautiful, chalk-on-chalkboard font. We were encouraged to tap the screen and in doing so paged to sections featuring Appetizers, Salads, Sandwiches, Entrees and Desserts. It was a great interface that also worked by swiping the screen.

And what was the fancy program behind the menu? iWork Keynote. It was in presentation mode when the iPad was unlocked so we paged thru the menu on a loop. I was able to get out of the program and snoop for just a second.

So in this scenario the folks at Sugar and Olives replacing expensive, easily damaged and impossible to update paper menus with a beautiful iPad presentation of the menu. Easy to edit, archive seasonal menus or old menu items, and fun for the patrons to use.  And my salad was amazing.

So those are my two iPad stories so far.  What’s yours?