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Business

Primarily a consumer device, the iPad has also been taken up by business users. It is reported that within 90 days of its inital release, the iPad managed to penetrate 50% of Fortune 100 companies. Companies are adopting iPads in their business offices by distributing or making available the iPads to employees. Examples of uses in the workplace include attorneys responding to clients, medical professionals accessing health records during patient exams, & managers approving employee requests.

A survey by Frost & Sullivan shows that iPad usage in office workplaces is linked to the goals of increased employee productivity, reduced paperwork, & increased revenue. The research firm estimates that "The mobile-office application market in North America may reach $6.85 billion in 2015, up from an estimated $1.76 billion in 2010.

Education

The iPad has several uses in the classroom, & has been praised as a valuable tool for homeschooling. Soon after the iPad was released, it was reported that 81% of the top book apps were for children. The iPad has also been called a revolutionary tool to help children with autism learn how to communicate & socialize more easily.

Many colleges & universities have also used the iPad. Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio, began offering three-hour rentals for the iPad for its Fall 2010 semester, in addition to rentals for the Amazon Kindle, laptop computers, & Flip cameras.

Healthcare

In the healthcare field, iPads & iPhones have been used to help hospitals manage their supply chain. For example, Novation, a healthcare contracting services company, developed VHA PriceLynx (based on the Mobile application platform of business intelligence software vendor MicroStrategy), a business intelligence app to help health care organizations manage its purchasing procedures more efficiently & save money for hospitals. Guillermo Ramas of Novation states, "Doctors won't walk around a hospital with a laptop. With an iPad it's perfect to walk around the hospital with as long as they have the information they need."

Sports

During the 2010 Major League Baseball free agent season, the agent for the player Carl Crawford was sending iPads to prospective teams interested in Mr. Crawford. These iPads were pre-loaded with video clips highlighting his player, & how it would benefit their team to have him.

Fans attending Super Bowl XLV, the first Super Bowl since the iPad was released, could use an official NFL app to navigate Cowboys Stadium. In 2011, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers became the first NFL club to discontinue the use of paper copies of playbooks, & instead distributed all players their playbook & videos in electronic format via an iPad 2.

New technology proposes the viewer the ability to choose alternative angles while watching sporting events.

Music

In addition to iTunes, the iPad is able to support many music creation applications. These include sound samplers, guitar & voice effects processors, sequencers for synthesized sounds & sampled loops, virtual synthesizers & drum machines, theremin-style & other touch responsive instruments, drum pads & many more. Gorillaz's 2010 album, The Fall, was created almost exclusively using the iPad by Damon Albarn while on tour with the band. The young conductor Alexander Geralis became popular by being the first conductor in the Balkan region to conduct an orchestra with the use of Apple's iPad.

Travel

Since March 2011, the US Federal Aviation Administration has approved the iPad for in-cockpit use to cut down on the paper consumption in several airlines. In 2011, Alaska Airlines became the first airline to replace pilots' paper manuals with iPads, weighing 0.68 kg compared to 11 kg for the printed flight manuals. It hopes to have fewer back & muscle injuries. More than a dozen airlines have followed suit, including United, which has distributed 11,000 iPads to cockpits. Also, many airlines now offer their inflight magazine as a downloadable application for the iPad.