iPads and tablets are getting faster and cheaper by the day. Apart from the cash drawer, they could easily replace a full workstation.
What would you need to make this possible? I can name 3 requirements and they all happen to be peripherals.
- Support printing via other browsers, including Airprint for the iPad
- Have to be able to swipe credit cards. The swipe could either use the head phone jack or the 30-pin Apple port
- Support Bluetooth barcode scanners
If I had to prioritize the above I would choose Credit Card swipes as being most important.
Printing would be next but the ability to email receipts would solve most of this problem. This has the side benefit of getting emails for mailing lists. 2-birds, 1-stone!
Now the barcode scanners. I have done some research on these. I believe the current challenges are around the hardware itself and not the software. When you match a Bluetooth scanner to an iPad, it is matched as a Bluetooth keyboard and disables the on screen keyboard. Not cute. I'm going to dig into this more but I believe this is what stopping us from using them now. I need to get my hands on one to test, maybe the Symbol LS4278.
I'll report back what I find but wanted to get this conversation started so we can hear all the different needs and cool stuff you want to do with iPads.
Jeff Heffner
Scanning tickets for events using the camera on the iPad or iPod would be easy for event staff and for record keeping. Currently we use a separate barcode scanner that doesn't always work well with Altru entry fields.
We would need to POS terminal and credit card data capture to be PCI compliant and having a chip reader is preferred over a swipe since swiping cards is going to be obsolete soon with regulations. Having the ability to also accept Apple Pay etc. would also be needed.
We would like to be able to have iPads at our information desks so that we could sell memberships and reduce the amount of paper forms needed. Plus, all of the membership information would land directly into Altru reducing staff data entry time. If I could vote for this 100 times I would.
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Any news on this??
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What about an Altru Events App that allows users to scan with the camera of an ipod or ipad (or similar device). When we used Etix for our ticketing, the ipod cameras could do the scanning so that everything was in one step and very portable. There was no scanner talking to an ipad that talks to the computer. The scanner and the screen that says that tickets scanned were all in one. The app could also allow an option to manually scan someone in from the list of registrants without having to type the long number in (similar to how check in works in Altru now... but counts as scanned rather than "attended"... I want the numbers live and all together!). If there is a discovery meeting for this one, I would love to be involved!
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Bluetooth is challenging in a noisy 802.11 (2.4 GHz) environment. Why would you work up a 30 pin solution when lightning is the new kid? Cash drawers are troublesome. I've demo'd many a web based POS that can print forms without a specialty host driver. Most recommend configuring the printer to open the drawer at each print job. Of course for security and oversight this is a no-no. We do watch out for skimmers by tracking draw pops versus tickets sold.
What I'd like to see is one POS hardware platform be it iOS, Android, or Windows. And a list of supported and tested peripherals. I think a USB/lightning barcode scanner would be best as 2.4 GHz wireless isn't going anywhere too soon. Printed receipts are still a requirement for many a back office, but for most ticket sales we can get by with email.
A reality for us is our POS terminal are also used for some back office work and group sales. iOS is not the best environment for these tasks. We've invested heavily in our Windows domain and all the management tools. We've built group policies that set up each machine that is added to an OU as an Altru workstation. The Altru Workstation gets installed automatically, Trusted Sites are set, and all the other details are controlled via policy. With 20 POS terminals this is a must. Whatever platform should have this kind of config automation as well. I'm not sure if others are working with that number of registers,but it is a challenge that is only met by Windows Group Policy and PowerShell.
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