After playing with an ipad for the first time this past week, I realized two things:

1 .  It’s not just a bigger version of the iphone
2.  The web looks sexier on the device

As I embark on developing my first set of apps for the ipad, many ideas in our design group have been floating around. Our potential mobile development firm alluded to the fact that once you build an app for the iphone, you can reuse around 60% of the code to build an ipad version of the app. That’s all well and good from a cost standpoint but what about the user experience? Because the ipad library of apps is rather sparse right now, Apple makes all the iphone apps available and usable on the ipad. You can choose to run the iphone app in its intended aspect ratio or you can double the size of the interface. The problem is that it seems a bit awkward and it looks stretched on the ipad when you do this.

Although iphone apps run just fine on the ipad, one thing that I decided right then and there is that the ipad deserves a better version of the application to take full advantage of the real estate and all the things the ipad can do. As I head down the path of developing for the ipad, I will be looking at building an interface specifically for the device. Here’s the opportunity we’ve all been waiting for. The ability to develop and shape applications that will drive a new platform and set new standards in user interface design.

My advice to all who want to start working with ipad is to stay away from the easy route of developing another version of your iphone app. Instead, approach it as a blank canvas and create something unique and exciting. Its best not to take a “one size fits all” approach.

As web professionals, it’s easy to get caught up in the web-centric business world where we are constantly trying to do everything online. We forget that there are many entrepreneurial opportunities where you can apply new web and new marketing strategies. This is too broad a topic for me to single out just one business channel  but you can apply your experience and thinking to almost any channel that hasn’t fully taken advantage of innovative thinking to fortify a position in a given market space.

For the purpose of this article, I’ll use the example of an ice cream shop. There are many ice cream shops, most of which are big chains such as Dairy Queen or Baskin Robbins.  If you do your home work and look within a given geographic area, you might find that the ice cream shops that exist may not be offering the best service. They may not be offering new or innovative products that could create buzz in that local market.

You could try the ice cream at different shops within a certain area and get an idea what people are willing to put up with to get some ice cream or just how far they have to go to get good ice cream. Entrepreneurs in local markets can and will make outrageous claims and embellish the truth about their product. Some of them may just get lazy and take for granted that they’re the only ice cream shop within a ten mile radius and so they feel secure that the public in the local market has fewer options. They may continue this way until public attention shifts to a new ice cream shop that does it better.

Now imagine if you take what we’ve learned over the past fifteen years in online business and applied that strategic “click” thinking to a brick and mortar business.  You’ll suddenly find a new world of opportunities. There is still a major disconnect between web and traditional businesses and somewhere in between is innovation and the ability to create a new market. Online users are very demanding and less tolerant of a bad experience because there are simply more choices on the World Wide Web. Consumers in a given local market will put up with a lesser product or lesser service because it’s a local market and the choices are limited. If you can apply the savvy from your online strategy to a local brick and mortar business, you’ll find that you’re already driven and motivated to keep up your game and play at a higher level.  This is the advantage of having fifteen years of web strategy and e-commerce learning behind us. As web professionals, consider your future business opportunities in the lazier local markets and take that opportunity to innovate and push the envelope.