NFL Teams Considering IPads To Replace Playbooks

bonch writes "Pete Walsh, technology head for the Dallas Cowboys, says he and other teams are considering iPads and other tablets as a replacement for paper playbooks, saving about 5,000 pages of printouts per game. Not only is it a huge savings in paper, but a lost iPad might also be remotely wiped to prevent a team's plays falling into the wrong hands. One concern is security and whether or not a tablet could be wirelessly hacked."

Comments

Maybe for dome teams

[mykos]

Good luck using it with gloves on

iPad makes zero sense

[drinkypoo]

Kindle, on the other hand, makes total sense.

iPad is total overkill, Kindle is way way WAY cheaper and does all the same things that they need to do.

Re:iPad makes zero sense

[drinkypoo]

You are probably right. The NFL pays their player multi-million dollar contracts, but I'm sure they'd squirm when they saw the $500-700 price tag on the ipad.

There's no reason to waste money. If they use iPads it'll be because Apple paid them to do so (possibly just free hardware and support, possibly advertising revenues.) In fact the press release which stimulated this article (didn't even RTFA but I'll bet you a dollar that there was one) is probably nothing more than a public solicitation for bribes.

Re:iPad makes zero sense

[spudnic]

Ever try to read an iPad in the sun? If they do this and go with anything other than an eReader we will all know it is a publicity stunt.

And what about when it snows or rains? Do they print out copies of the playbook just in case, or hand out ziplock bags?

Re:iPad makes zero sense

[node 3]

Kindle, on the other hand, makes total sense.

iPad is total overkill, Kindle is way way WAY cheaper and does all the same things that they need to do.

How does full-on nonsense like this get modded so high on Slashdot? Oh yeah, that's right, because it puts down Apple in some way...

Kindle makes absolutely no sense. Kindle is a book reader, and flipping through pages is damned slow. With iPad, you can have fast, full-color, networked playbooks that you can edit in real time, draw on, zoom around. The absurdity of your post is not that Kindle isn't an overall better choice, but that it's difficult to even come up with a few ways in which it is. Maybe that the screen is a bit clearer in direct sunlight?

As far as "overkill", the mics that the coaches wear probably cost more than your car. It's absolutely foolish to worry about $199 vs $499, or whatever.

Or put another way, if you went to a team with a best-possible Kindle playbook system, and even a mediocre iPad playbook system, which do you think they'd pick? Let's say the iPad system had a 1000% markup, and you offered to pay them that same amount to use the Kindle system. Can't you see that they'd laugh the Kindle system out of the room? iPad is vastly superior to Kindle that it's not even funny.

But hey, you put down Apple, and putting down Apple is seen as necessary around here to promote Android, so job well done. Here's to your +5, may sanity never rear it's ugly head around here ever again...

Re:take the batteries out or put it in a faraday c

[Anonymous Coward]

Battery is built in. Apple decided that like all of their devices - form over function.

So who actually plays an NFL game?

[OzPeter]

Is it really the teams themselves or is it just one playbook pitted against another and the players are just there to provide some colour?

It seems as if the NFL could just be replaced by a large D&D session with the refs as the DMs