Wine Technology Blog @ WineWeb.com

We've been saying for a while that our winery POS system runs on an iPhone, which makes it very portable. Now, with the release of the iPad, I needed to see how the POS would look and function on that device (at least that's the excuse I used to justify purchasing this new gadget).

As expected, the WineWeb point-of-sale application displays nicely on the 1024 pixel wide iPad screen. We made a couple of very minor tweaks to the software to optimize it for this display and proclaimed the software "good to go". However, connecting other devices to an iPad is currently an issue. In a POS environment, a credit card reader and a receipt printer, though optional, are typically used. Since the iPad does not have any USB ports, we need equipment that can connect via the charging/sync port or the headphone jack, or over Bluetooth. Based on some limited research, there are products either announced or shipping that will work. I noted a credit card reader that attaches to the headphone jack, a Bluetooth credit card reader and a Bluetooth card reader/receipt printer unit. I'm confident that the coming months will provide more options.

My impressions of the iPad have changed in the past few days. My initial thought was that it would be just a larger version of an iPod Touch and it would replace a netbook for surfing and email when traveling. I'm now seeing more for this device. After spending time with the Apple developer guides and their interface standards documents, I'm sensing that the iPad will usher in a new way of interacting with web content. The eBay app is a good example of how a more visual, touch-oriented approach can be applied to an application.