The App store for iPad is live and it includes a number of apps for business use.It’s a mixed bag, with media publications alongside apps from Cisco, LinekdIn and Box.net.
We got a demo of the Box.net app, and it provides a glimpse into how the iPad changes the customer experience, compared to the iPhone or a laptop.
We’re not sure how a customer may actually use the app. The Box.net team says it may have an impact when a salesperson brings it to a sales meeting. They say the “business meeting” use case is there. But we agree with them when they also say that there will be a lot of use cases they did not anticipate.
Box.net focused on taking advantage of the larger screen and so it can be used in a number of orientations.
Initally, people will have the capability to view and share documents . Eventually, we can expect to see some of the new features that Box.net introduced in the past few months, including its viewer for watching videos in the Box.net environment. That would be interesting if no other reason than to see an enterprise-focused company adopt HTML5, as the iPad does not support Adobe Flash.
In the next few weeks, the company will add more features for the app:
- Download files from Box.net to the iPad
- Upload files from the iPad to Box.net
- Work with iWorks suite
- Ability to open third-party apps to edit certain files
- Launch the Box.net Ipad app from third-party apps
The iPad is not designed for creating documents. It looks like it better for viewing and sharing more than anything else. The keyboard is a shift that will take time to adjust to. Is the keyboard going extinct? If so, we still have a long way to go with the multi-touch experience.
The app is available for free from the App Store on the iPad or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.