iPad and digital signage

Interesting post by David Haynes on his blog Nanonation jumps on iPad buzz, starts developing to it. David is wondereing what the iPad means for digital signage and he is intrigued that Nanonation has immediately jumped to announce that they are writing a digital signage app to support it.

As much as I am a huge Apple fan, own many Apple devices and will buy the iPad and as much as I am a software developer for digital signage, I just can't see how the iPad fits in just yet. I am sure most of my co-workers just hit the floor given my usual stance on all things Apple.

Here's why.

From everything I have read the iPad looks to be one heck of a device but what just keeps hitting me hard is the level of control that Apple has applied to it. This is an iPhone for all intensive purposes and Apple doesn't let anything run on it unless they approve it. They won't even let Flash run on it because they don't want Flash based apps circumventing their apps control.

I believe in open source, open systems, few if any restrictions and I believe in leveraging the web to reuse all resources that reside there. Putting the App store censor board between myself and my client is not something that I want to get involved in. But, if HTML5 based apps on the iPhone keep going the way they are and this becomes a great device to run a browser on, and I can point that browser to my app, then for sure I can see the iPad finding it's way into digital signage. Till then I am playing wait and see.