Mobility

Photos: Creative ways businesses are using tablets

By · February 28, 2014, 2:33 PM PST · lyndseygilpin

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  • Innovative uses of tablets in business

    Tablets can offer a customized, enjoyable user experience. Businesses have come up with lots of creative ways to use tablets to offer a better way to interact with customers. This photo story showcases several interesting examples that we've found. 

    Image: Xiomara Blanco/CNET

  • Food menus and restaurant reservations

    Some hotels allow guests to use a tablet in their room to order room service, make reservations at the hotel restaurant, or tell a chef any specific information they have, like dietary restrictions or allergies. This is powered by Incentient software.

    Image: Incentient

  • Extensive wine database

    Also using Incentient's software, guests select a wine using an interactive menu. They are offered pairing suggestions, images of labels and tasting notes. 

    Image: Incentient

  • Customized drink menus

    The Incentient software also allows businesses to run analytics to find out exactly what guests are touching on the screen and eventually buying.

    Image: Incentient

  • Bar games

    Buzztime uses Samsung Galaxy tablets and a mobile app to offer bars and restaurants arcade games, card games, and trivia tournaments. 

    Image: Buzztime

  • Socializing with tablets

    With Buzztime, customers use the tablets at their table for individual or group games and receive branded rewards and targeted advertising.

    Image: Buzztime

  • Concierge services

    Back to Incentient, instead of going down to the front desk to chat with the receptionist, guests can log into the concierge service on the hotel platform via a tablet and book reservations, download and print boarding passes, and add specific notes. 

    Image: Incentient

  • Google's pop-up store

    For a short amount of time around the holidays, Google, Microsoft, and Intel all opened pop-up stores across the U.S. and used tablets as the primary tool for sales, product searches, and customer interaction. Google called its store the "Winter Wonderlab."

    Image: Google

  • Microsoft pop-up store

    Microsoft showcased its new tablet in Times Square several years ago. Today, pop-up stores are popular for big tech companies wanting to showcase new gadgets for a few weeks at a time in a variety of cities. 

    Image: Shara Tibken/CNET

  • Intel's pop-up store

    Intel's pop-up store was its first attempt at a brick-and-mortar store, called the "Intel Experience," which used tablets as the main avenue to interact with customers to show them product inventory, place orders, and offer games and social networking.

    Image: Anders Krusberg/Intel

  • Sleek digital signage

    Armodilo makes freestanding iPad kiosks that come in many different shapes, sizes and colors. Many of their clients use the stands at research conferences and exhibitions as an addition to a booth or a stand-alone kiosk, but they are also useful inside stores for an interactive experience.

    Image: Armodilo

  • Photo booths

    Boothify is a custom photo booth that is downloadable for tablets for company parties and other events. It is also a social experience, using a live feed of the booth's photos and aggregating guests' photos on Instagram using a specific event hashtag.

    Image: Boothify

Innovative uses of tablets in business

Tablets can offer a customized, enjoyable user experience. Businesses have come up with lots of creative ways to use tablets to offer a better way to interact with customers. This photo story showcases several interesting examples that we've found. 

Image: Xiomara Blanco/CNET

Related Topics:
Mobility Security Hardware Software Apple Android Google

By Lyndsey Gilpin

Lyndsey Gilpin is a former Staff Writer for TechRepublic, covering sustainability and entrepreneurship. She's co-author of the book Follow the Geeks.

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