When Apple’s iPad went on sale in the US a few days ago, the first phase of the iPad hype cycle reached its ‘peak of inflated expectations’. It remains to be seen what the next phase brings, but we can be sure that there will be continuing speculation of the device’s capabilities and areas of application, which already includes the world of laboratories. Amphora Research Systems have just announced that the iPad will be supported in their PatentSafe product. Jode Plank, in an article on Bitesize Bio asks the question ‘Will the iPad Replace Your Paper Lab Notebook’. Jode, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Davis, doesn’t commit to an answer, but his article revisits a number of the issues associated with the conversion from paper to electronic notebooks.
I’m reminded of an unsubstantiated story from a few years ago, of a company that chose to implement an ELN by equipping their scientists with tablet devices, but were dismayed to find that the tablet proved to be a convenient tray for carrying samples around the laboratory. Apart from a smaller form factor, the typical Apple glossy surface and the lack of a protective rim, the iPad is unlikely to become a laboratory tray purely on safety grounds.
