iPad 2.0 could herald the paperless office (at last)

Author : Rob Ashton

Posted : 09 / 03 / 10

Printer manufacturers must be getting a bit twitchy about the iPad. Or if they’re not, they should be – because it could well make a serious dent in their profits, writes Rob Ashton.

Generally, I’m in the ‘pro’ camp when it comes to technology. I’ve bought a fair few examples over the years. And although I discarded some once the novelty wore off, others became an integral part of my life. The iPhone could have been invented just for me.

I realise that not everyone’s like this. And even I admit that modern technology is often no substitute for more traditional devices.

But in business, technology tends to be adopted wholesale when there’s a sound financial reason for doing so. And that’s why I think we might see a dramatic reduction not just in paper usage but in printer-toner sales in the next few years.

It wasn’t so long ago that we used to send documents to each other in the internal mail. Now we’re much more likely to email them. Yet most people still tend to print them out to read them. Despite the cost and the terrible waste of paper, we still like flipping through the real thing.

But the business world may not be far behind the newspaper industry in seeking to cut the use of paper. This is because there are huge potential cost savings to be made if technologists could produce a way of reading onscreen that more people would accept.

Influential technology blog Silicon Alley claimed last year that printing the New York Times costs twice as much as sending every subscriber an Amazon Kindle e-book reader on which to read the electronic version. Now universities in the US are experimenting with delivering textbooks this way.

Just before the iPad’s launch, the technology was already there for ‘acceptable’ forms of electronic reading. The world’s biggest technology show in Las Vegas earlier this year was awash with electronic alternatives to paper.

Electronic paper or ‘e-paper’, as it’s inevitably being dubbed, helps overcome objections from people who prefer the look and feel of real paper rather than a chunky electronic device. And documents displayed in this way should be much easier to proofread.

But problems with lighting mean that, at present, electronic paper can display only black and white images, as can e-book readers such as the Kindle. Such technology relies on electronically magnetised ink, which also needs good lighting conditions to be readable.

The iPad’s colour screen and LED back-lighting get round these problems. And while some have commented that these cause eyestrain, ophthalmologists have disputed this.

What’s more, the iPad electronically reproduces the action of flipping through a document, bringing the experience a step closer to the real thing – but without the waste of printing.

If the iPhone is anything to go by, it will probably be the second-generation iPads that truly find popular appeal, once Apple have ironed out any post-launch teething problems.

But whether e-ink, iPad or iPad 2.0 wins the day, the paperless office may – at last – be just around the corner.