An iPad used in place of a cash register at Sightglass Coffee. Photo courtesy of Tony Conrad.

Most of the discussion around Apple’s iPad has been about what a great consumer device it is. It’s a book reader, movie player, newspaper, photo viewer, RSS reader and more.

But the iPad has a lot to offer businesses as well. Sightglass Coffee in San Francisco is using an iPad, with Square’s payment system as a point-of-sale system. A restaurant in Australia is using iPads in place of printed menus and wine lists. Patrons can drill down on items that interest them for more information. Mercedes Benz is using iPads to allow customers to start their credit application while still intoxicated by the new car smell. The Plaza hotel in NYC will soon use them for concierge services and room service ordering.

As companies like Twitter, Groupon, Living Social, foursquare and Yelp focus on the small business market, it’s easy to see the iPad becoming an essential tool for small businesses.

I cringe every time I go to a business with a Groupon and see the clerk pull out a binder and manually cross out the Groupon on the list. An iPad app would reduce the transaction time and provide the business key metrics such as how many redemptions are outstanding and how much people are spending beyond the Groupon value. It would also reduce mistakes and fraud.

Other possible applications:

• Reputation management with live feeds from Twitter and Yelp, with the ability to quickly respond to applications.
• Check in information from sites like foursquare to show who is visiting right now and keep track of frequent customers. An alert could appear when the mayor/duke/etc. checks in.
• Frequency programs to replace traditional punch cards.
• Real estate agents could use iPads to show off alternative properties and keep track of reactions from buyers.

iPads could also interact with mobile devices such as iPhones to receive payments.

Of course, all of these things can be done with a computer. But the iPad offers a number of advantages:

• It takes less space. All of this power takes less space than a computer monitor, much less a PC.
• It doesn’t create a barrier between you and the customer. The tablet feels more collaborative versus using a laptop.
• Fewer maintenance headaches due to viruses and malware.
• It shows innovation and forward thinking.

See also:

• Twitter and foursquare: the tipping point to getting local business online
• Why don’t local businesses use the Internet?

The two biggest complaints others have voiced about the EVO are bulk and poor battery life. Yes, it is bulky. It’s the heaviest phone I’ve had in at least 5 years — at 6 ounces, it’s 25% heavier than the iPhone 4G. It’s width makes it more awkward to hold than an iPhone, but not uncomfortably so. But it also has a big, beautiful screen. Life is a tradeoff.

I haven’t had issues with battery life, but then I don’t talk a lot on my phone. Unlike with the iPhone, you can carry around a spare battery.

The other issue that has been mentioned regularly is the on-screen keyboard. The iPhone’s keyboard is less complicated, but the EVO let’s you accomplish more tasks (like entering numbers) without leaving the main keyboard. The one issue I’ve definitely noticed is that some keys on the left side haven’t been registering consistently. (e.g. “A” and “S”)

While others have railed against one or the other, the phones are different enough that they’re likely to appeal to different people. I’ve tried to identify those below.

For typical consumers, my recommendation would be the iPhone, provided that you’re in an area where AT&T’s network isn’t saturated. For me? I’ve got three more weeks to decide.

If you…

… have a lot of music or photos and like iTunes.

Go with the iPhone. I haven’t been able to find a decent media synchronization experience for EVO. I used my iPhone frequently for podcasts and those are easy to set up and synch with iTunes. I also synch photos from my computer to my iPhone. Again, not something I can do with the stock EVO.

… want to customize your phone experience.

Go with EVO. You can customize a lot of elements of how the phone operates. You can create themes for different uses, e.g. a work theme, play theme and travel theme. Each theme can have different applications, shortcuts and widgets. It’d be even nicer if you could change themes automatically based on time of day or location. (e.g. work theme while at the office)

… don’t want to know what a task manager is.

Go with iPhone. Ordinary users should never have to see things like com.google.android.apps.googlevoice. It’s difficult to figure out what apps are running on the EVO. That’s problematic because you could easily have an unknown app running down your battery.

… want something that looks pretty.

Go with iPhone. It’s hard to top Apple design. The EVO is bulkier and certainly looks more utilitarian than iPhone. The EVO screen also shows fingerprints a lot more than my iPhone 3G.

… give out your Google Voice number to friends, family and colleagues.

Go with EVO. The Google Voice integration is incredible. Calls you make can be routed through GV automatically. Calls are logged correctly in the phone and on the GV site. Voicemail is also seamlessly integrated. Text messages aren’t integrated into the phone’s messages app.

… want a broad selection of apps.

Go with iPhone. Yes, it’s not open and yes, Apple can arbitrarily reject apps. But iOS has many more apps written for it. While many of the major apps are on both platforms, I couldn’t find equivalents for flickr or Zipcar on Android. Google Voice is the key exception of an app that’s on Android but not iPhone.

For gamers, the iPhone advantage is even stronger. With the gyroscope on iPhone 4, gaming will only get better.

…  like flickr, Facebook and Twitter.

Go with iPhone. The Facebook and Twitter apps for iPhone are much more polished than their Android counterparts. For example, on the Facebook app, clicking on a link someone has shared sends you on an infinite loop between the shared item and the person’s wall.  (Google VP Vic Gotundra recently gave a Facebook intern an HTC Evo in hopes of getting a better experience on Android.) I couldn’t find an official flickr app for Android.

HTC includes some tools for all three networks that integrate them into the phone’s UI. For example, contact lists from all three can be integrated with the phone’s main contact list. This sounds great — and is the right direction for phones — but the software isn’t ready for prime time. I often see the same people listed 3 or 4 times. (You can manually consolidate these for each person, but that’s a lot of work.) If you set up favorite people, you’ll see when they’ve updated their social networks. Background downloading of status updates also takes a toll on battery life.

… have terrible AT&T coverage.

Go with EVO. AT&T’s networks in SF and NY are overloaded and getting data connections or making a call can be a real challenge.

I’ve had few issues with Sprint’s network. Sprint also includes roaming on Verizon’s network.

… want something that “just works” out of the box.

Go with iPhone. The stock EVO is much more customizable than a stock iPhone. With customization always comes complexity. When iPod came out, a lot of techies criticized it for being a dumbed down MP3 player. Other MP3 players of the time had FM radios! They didn’t tie you into one company! But by stripping away all those extra features, Apple created something that just worked for the most common tasks for most people.

Same is true with iPhone. Owning the entire stack gives Apple a huge advantage in creating a user experience that just works across its enormous userbase. Video calling will work the same across all iPhone 4s. Not true with Android.

With HTC’s Sense UI, Android, Sprint customizations and apps all playing a part, the EVO experience doesn’t hold together.

Although features like social networking integration will be important, what HTC has done with EVO is too confusing for most people.

… want to be able to connect your laptop, iPad or other devices.

Go with EVO. Although AT&T is now offering tethering, they’re charging an extra $20 a month and the usage still counts against your 2GB data limit. For$30 a month, Sprint offers unlimited data and a wireless hotspot that supports up to 8 devices simultaneously. If you don’t need that, you might be able to use an app like PDANet to tether your laptop without paying the $30 a month.

… talk a lot, text a lot, use a lot of data or use navigation and want to economize.

Go with EVO. Sprint’s pricing plans are generally cheaper than AT&T for heavy users. For $80, Sprint includes unlimited nights (beginning at 7pm vs. 9pm for AT&T) and weekends, unlimited calls to any mobile phone (vs. just AT&T customers), unlimited texting (an additional $20 on AT&T) and navigation (extra $10 on AT&T). Sprint also has generous corporate discounts that can knock up to 25% off the bill. Low volume users who can get by with less than 250MB of data a month are better off with AT&T.

… are a world traveler.

Go with the iPhone. With GSM, you’ll at least have the option of international coverage in most countries, even if you have to pay exorbitant roaming rates. Of course, it’s best to unlock your phone and use local carriers if you’re spending any amount of time outside the country.

… are uncertain.

Try EVO. Sprint offers the most generous return policy in the business. You have 30 days to decide whether you like it. If you don’t, you can take it back and you won’t pay anything. They won’t even charge you for the service you used. AT&T will charge you for the service, plus the activation fee, unless you return within 3 days. Sprint’s early termination fee is also lower, $200 vs. $325.

NOTE: Comparisons here are based on a stock iPhone vs. a stock EVO.

Sony Dash at Best Buy

Last week, Google announced Google TV, a product that marries the Web with TV. It’s a product category that I’ve been excited about for several years.

But creating new product categories is hard. Retail is hard. Doing both together is really hard.

I was reminded of that today at Best Buy, where I saw a display for Sony’s Dash. As best as I can describe it, it’s a cross between an alarm clock, picture frame and MP3 player. Despite Best Buy having a real Dash, I still couldn’t try it out. The unit seemed to be glued to its stand. The screen said it was looking for a network, which it never found.

I then went over to check out Insignia GPS devices. The connected GPS unit sells for $199. Given that Insignia is Best Buy’s house brand, you’d figure it would get some decent promotion and training. I asked the blue shirt if there was a display unit. Nope. How much is the service? “I think it’s like $10 a month.” (The correct answer is $14.99 a month.) What’s the difference between it and the not connected unit that sells for $69? “I think it lets you connect to Google.”

Like Google TV, these are products that need to be experienced. They are either new products or significant (and premium-priced) variations on existing product categories. If people can’t try them or, at the very least, talk to someone who has in-depth knowledge about them, people won’t buy them. (As an early adopter, I probably will… but that’s not a huge market.)

Contrast this experience with the Apple Store in the same mall. There were two tables, each with about a dozen functioning iPads. You could pick up an iPad and play with it for as long as you wanted. There were employees available who knew the device and could answer questions. The biggest challenge? They were sold out of all but the 16GB WiFi iPad.

As I wrote before the first iPhone was released, Apple’s retail stores give it a huge leg up when it comes to introducing new product categories. The excitement that they create for product launches (read: free media), combined with the opportunity to experience new products is unmatched in retail. If Apple decides to make Apple TV more than a hobby, its store employees will play a big part in shaping user perception.

A big unknown is the price of Google TV. People might pay an extra $50 on a $800 TV for the Google brand, even if they’re not quite sure what it does. It’s unlikely that the price premium will be that small, given the cost of just the Intel Atom processors. I’d expect Google TV to add at least $100 to the price. The other big challenge is that a lot of people have recently replaced their TVs as a result of the digital TV transition. 65% of homes already have at least one HDTV, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

A standalone box is going to to be an even harder sell to all but the geeks. The market is littered with unsuccessful standalone boxes from hard drive and networking gear manufacturers. They’ve all suffered from poor retail support and complexity of set up.

For Google to succeed, it will have to spend a lot more money on buyer education than it traditionally has.

See also:

• Revolutionizing television
• MeCasts coming to your TV

More on: Google, television

My nit with the design is that when you update applications, the app icon on the phone doesn’t stay put. In fact, the iPhone 2.1 update scrambled the order of all my applications. That’s the kind of detail I’d expect Apple to get right.

See more iPhone design pet peeves.

But there are also details of the UI that have bothered me; some big, some small. This is the first in a series of posts about iPhone pet peeves.

Pet peeve #1: Apple allows developers to access the address book without asking the user’s permission. Apps can copy your entire contact list to their servers and you wouldn’t necessarily know. Early versions of the Loopt application abused this to send spam text messages to your contacts. Apple knows better: applications have to ask for permission when accessing location.

The central idea of mobile social networks is to connect you with your friends while you’re out and about. Unfortunately, they all require you to rebuild your friend list. Early versions of the Loopt app went so far as to spam people in your iPhone’s address book with text messages.

Local events on Where

Here are some of the keys to success in mobile social networks:

• It’s the network, stupid. Getting people to create Yet Another Network won’t work. I’ve already created my network. Use it. My only friend on the iPhone version of Loopt is 2,500 miles away — hardly someone I can run into when I’m out in San Francisco on the weekend. Loopt and Where have Facebook apps, but their iPhone versions don’t seem to tie into them.
• Let me control when I update my location. Location is very personal. Don’t automatically update my location just because I’ve launched your application. I may just want to check something.
• Let me publish beyond your app. Early adopters who try your app are willing to accept that there is a ramp up period, but they aren’t going to do work for zero return. If I my update my status and no one is there to see it, have I updated my status? Let me automatically publish the information I collect using your app to Facebook, Twitter and my blog. Not only does it give me a reason to use your app, it becomes a distribution vehicle for you, providing exposure to my friends who just might say “How’d he do that?” I taught a lot of my friends about Facebook mobile simply by updating my status from my phone. (Facebook puts a mobile phone icon next to such updates.)
• Seed your app with other content sources. If I don’t have friends, at least give me other content that makes your app worth using. Where does a good job of this, pulling in content from Yelp, eventful and Zipcar. If you can, get ego bloggers like Scoble to use your app.
• 128 King St is not a place. Pete’s Tavern is. Whenever posting information, it should include a human understandable version. You’d never post a location of 37.778911, -122.391223; a street address is marginally more helpful. With the margin of error built into GPS and density of urban areas, place names are critical.
• Let me take pictures. For a long time, mobile developers haven’t had access to cell phone cameras. With the iPhone, they do. The ability to take and send a picture makes it easier to communicate a lot of information quickly. And it adds life to your application. (Bonus points for dropping a copy of the picture in my flickr account.)
• Tie into IM and SMS. Loopt claims that the most commonly asked question via SMS is “Where are you?” That claim is probably made up marketing b.s. without any hard data. Nevertheless, it is a frequent question. Make it easy for me to answer it. Let me send an SMS or IM that includes where I’m at (Pete’s Tavern, 128 King St.). To anyone. Include a URL with a map and optionally a picture.
• Don’t spam my friends. What you do with my friends’ contact information reflects on me. If you spam my friends, I will never use your application again. And I will tell everyone you’re a spammer.

Tying into the various APIs I mentioned may seem like a lot of work — and it is. But the alternative is spending a lot of money on distribution and marketing.

See also:

• Improved iPhone invites (Loopt blog)

Screen grab of Rotary Dial app for iPhone

One of my favorite iPhone apps is Rotary Dialer. There’s just something fun about making the latest and greatest device act like something from the 60s. Rotary Dialer isn’t like the “classic” phones from Pottery Barn, where the buttons are just laid out like a rotary phone. You have to make a circular motion from the number you want to the metal thing at the end. (Anyone know what that’s called?) And just like on real rotary phones, if you slip you have to start all over. It took me 1 minute and 2 seconds (and three tries) to dial my own number.

“Dial” is one of those words that still hangs in there, despite a lot of changes in technology. Most people haven’t “dialed” phones in this country in two decades. When I was in Minnesota, the local phone company made it impossible. It was costing them too much to maintain the equipment to detect the pulses, so they forced everyone to Touch Tone.

Some other words and phrases that are hanging in there:

• Film, rolls. We film events, even though a lot of that is actually on DV tape or recorded on an SD card. Hollywood still makes actual films, but many of those are now going digital. Apple refers to the recent pictures on the iPhone as the “Camera Roll”.
• Rewind. Back in the day, the VCR had to physically rewind the tape to show a scene you missed. Now you hit rewind, but you’re probably just going back through a buffer.
• Albums. Vinyl has all but disappeared, but album art is still with us.
• Turn off the the TV. With no more knobs to turn, we’re actually pushing it off.
• Washboard stomach. I think I might have seen a washboard in a museum, but I can’t be sure. At least we still have six packs.

Wireless carriers had long held on to core cellphone features with an iron grip. Want access to the camera, GPS, microphone or address book? Good luck. It usually involved spending a year or more negotiating with a carrier and then writing and (rewriting) your app to work on dozens of phone models. And when you were all done, you brought it to a market with little distribution support at a price few people would pay.

In the last couple of days, I’ve downloaded more apps than I had in my entire history of cell phone usage (dating back to 1996). There’s one big reason: once developers had access to features like GPS and the camera, they created compelling applications.

The most compelling apps have come from independent developers or startups. Some have used public APIs for other products; although there isn’t an official flickr app, there are several apps that interact with flickr. AOL is the lone exception among large companies, with apps for AIM and AOL Radio.

Here are some of the apps that caught my eye. With the exception of iMilk, all are free. That’s another refreshing change: Apple is making it easy for application developers who want to distribute free applications. Even paid apps can be relatively cheap, with a one time price of $3-$10 being common. (Versus the previous $3-$5 per month.)

All is not perfect in app land, of course. Much like when Facebook launched their app platform, some developers are having a hard time keeping up with the demand. I’ve also had my phone reboot at least half a dozen times when using various apps.

The functionality in some of these apps is limited compared with their other incarnations. For example, in Jott, you can’t send Jotts to others. As these apps are revved, they’ll become even more compelling.

Jott

Jott allows you to record a voice “note to self”. The note is then transcribed and put in your Jott account, which is available by phone or Web. It isn’t as robust as Jott’s

Where

A mobile social network that lets you plot friends on a map, look for restaurant reviews, find and reserve Zipcars and even look at a map of the night sky where you are with the constellations plotted. (Video of the app.)

There are a number of players looking to create mobile social networks. Whrrl, Loopt and Limbo offer somewhat similar apps. Where offers a range of features beyond social, while Limbo is the most social.

(Disclosure: I did some consulting for Where last year.)

Facebook

Facebook took an early lead with the iPhone 1.0 by having one of the best iPhone optimized sites. The lead developer released a toolkit that was used by other developers. The application version adds the ability to upload photos and IM, but lacks some of the features found in the browser version.

AirMe

Upload pictures to flickr (or an AirMe account). The pictures are automatically geotagged with your location. AirMe also tags you pictures with the current weather conditions.

NearMe

See pictures from Panoramio of places around where you are.

Twittelator

See and update Twitter. Post pictures and location updates. Twitterific has less functionality and also has ads.

Urbanspoon

Kind of like a Magic 8 ball to decide where to eat. Uses GPS to find where you are. Shake your iPhone and it will select a place for you.

iMilk  ($2.99)

“Drink” virtual milk. Uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to empty the glass. If you prefer, you can pour it into a glass before drinking.

Remote

Control your Apple TV or iTunes. Play songs, see album art and search your iTunes library. Works over Wifi, so you don’t have to be in line of sight. Much better than the flimsy remote that ships with Apple TV.

Pandora

The world’s greatest music discovery service now streams to iPhone. The app is beautifully simple. Add in an aux in jack or FM transmitter for your car and say goodbye to the $14 a month you’re paying to XM or Sirius.

Yelp

Why settle for the hand-picked (usually glowing) reviews displayed in the restaurant window? Pull out your iPhone and check Yelp. My favorite feature is a filter that limits the search to restaurants that are open now. Very helpful for those midnight cravings.

• Clay Shirky at Web 2.0 Expo on the cognitive surplus (Web 2.0 video) – Author Clay Shirky spoke recently on how much could be done if only a fraction of the time spent watching TV is put to other uses. He estimates that 2,000 Wikipedias could be created with just the time Americans spend watching TV in a year. (I just clicked off the TV to write this post.) While Shirky focuses his talk on production of content, all that production also has a significant effect on consumption. Time is a zero-sum game. The time I spend on Facebook or reading about Jon’s exploits in Russia is time I’m not spending with TV or traditional media. And for every producer, there are at least 10 to 20 consumers.
• Larry Page on how to change the world (Fortune) – Google co-founder Larry Page lays out the challenges we face in changing the world. The core problem is that not enough people and companies take risks. Part of this undoubtedly is due to the risk/reward systems in most companies. Innovation (and the people who chase it) are often the first to go when belts need to be tightened.
  I was at a conference last week where Erik Jorgensen of Microsoft demoed some amazing technologies in mapping, such as 3D map tours. A questioner from the audience, a Microsoft shareholder, asked what the ROI was. Fortunately, Microsoft and Google do well enough in their core businesses that most investors give them the freedom to innovate.
• ‘CSI’ sleuths out Microsoft’s latest technology (USA Today) – CSI:NY producer Anthony E. Zuiker is teaming with folks at Microsoft labs to bring bleeding edge technology to viewers. (And no doubt frustrating real life criminalists with increased expectations.) Last week’s episode featured Microsoft’s Photosynth technology. CSI:Miami used variations of Microsoft’s Surface computing. Microsoft isn’t the only one in the CSI product placement game; many of the pictures processed by the Photosynth technology in that episode were taken with iPhones.
• Honda system to warn motorists of crime hotspots (AFP) – In-car navigation systems and PNDs are getting more data rich all the time. On recent Acuras you can get Zagat ratings. With a Dash Express PND, you have access to Yahoo! Search results. Now, in Japan, your Honda can tell you when you’re in a dangerous neighborhood. I suspect that fears of redlining and disparate data sources will keep that from happening here. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some enterprising Dash users use create and share localized feeds for such an app.

• Futurist: Digital TV’s Mixed Signals (CQ) – Congressional Quarterly takes a look at the impact of government action/inaction on the development and adoption of technology. As we near the Feb. 2009 date when analog broadcasting in the United States will cease, CQ looks back at what happened when television first came in to being. Similar blame/credit could be assigned to the government for the division in the United States between two incompatible wireless technologies. via Mark Stencel
• Don’t Fear Starbucks (Slate) – What happens to mom and pop coffeehouses when Starbucks moves in to town? According to the piece from Slate, business increases. As Starbucks educates local audiences on the value of high-priced coffee, independent coffeehouses benefit. I prefer independents because, unlike Starbucks, many of them have free WiFi. via Robert Franklin
• Apple’s Piping Hot Innovation (Forbes) – In related coffee news, a recent Apple patent filing describes a “wireless system that would allow customers to place an order at a store using a wireless device such as a media player, a wireless personal digital assistant or a cellphone.” In theory, you’d be able to tap a button on your iPhone as you’re driving to Starbucks to place your order. If only it would tap into the nav system on your car to know that you’re headed to the Starbucks and save you that button click. Hmm… where’s my patent attorney?
• 10 Questions for Richard Branson (TIME) – One of my favorite billionaires talks about global warming, risk taking, the state of the music market and dyslexia. “Life is a helluva lot more fun if you say yes rather than no,” Branson says. The podcast of the interview is worth a listen.