iPad over the Atlantic


A meeting at work this morning reminded me of something I noticed on the flight over to Florida at the tail end of last year and which is worth sharing.

Inspired, possibly, by reading Runway Gir l who has talked about this as a possibility, I had my iPad all loaded up with movies, TV and games ready to entertain me for the near-9 hour flight. And it did the job just great. I still had around 40% battery life left at the end of the flight. (Can anyone name the film I’m watching in the photo? 🙂 )

But that wasn’t the thing that was interesting. Here’s what was: the guy next to me was also using an iPad (he was watching opera videos). And so was the woman across the aisle from me (playing Fruit Ninja, mainly). And so were two other people in the block of five seats she was sitting in. And so were other people all up and down the plane. As many people were using iPads as were watching the in-flight entertainment – and this was just in the economy class.

We found out earlier in the week that Apple has shipped 15m of these things. And it’s beginning to show…