iPad city... how the Apple tablet is powering London

It could be how you order a drink in the pub or shop for clothes or even how doctors look up medical notes — all that’s needed is an iPad. There’s an iRevolution going on and London is leading the way. Here’s how the city has been iPadded out.

Music

Violinist Daniel Hope, who recently played lead violin for Max Richter’s Vivaldi Recomposed at the Barbican, says: “I’ve been using the iPad as a digital music stand for a year. With the AirTurn bluetooth footpedal and Forscore App, you have complete freedom to play complex scores without ever worrying about turning the page. You can also mark things directly into the music, something which will have important implications for orchestras and ensembles in years to come.”

In her Crazy Coqs cabaret show, Stacy Sullivan also read the music off an iPad. At Camden’s Roundhouse, iPads were used to scan ticket barcodes for the iTunes festival, while the Royal Opera House uses them at functions. The ROH uploads guest lists onto them because it’s easier to search for names and tick them off.

In dance classes at Everybody Ballet, music is no longer played on a piano. Musicians just download what they want and hook iPads up to speakers. Founder Isabel McMeekan says: “This works brilliantly. Not only are our iPads pianos and orchestras but they also help us to plan ballet classes, draw images to aid teaching, photograph and film our dancers and keep us in communication with all our students.”

Fashion

Clothes are adapting to fit iPads. Designer Lucy Borland has made a coat with iPad-sized pockets because, she says, “people cannot be without their tablets and have to feel close to the internet at all times”. Her coat is even designed to look similar to an iPad, with metallic Lurex.

At Matches boutique shop, iPads are changing the way people shop. Assistants carry iPads and the shop calls its style “omnichannel retailing” — if you like what you see in store, get online and find it in your size.

Food and drink

The days of queuing for drinks will soon be over at The Thirsty Bear in Southwark and the Lazy Fox in Fulham. There’s a beer keg with a tap on each table so you just pour as much as you like and a tablet clocks it all up. There are also inbuilt jukeboxes and users can order food.

The iPad is also changing childcare. At Brick Oven pizza restaurant in Chiswick there’s a video camera in the play area, linked to four iPads on tables, so parents can enjoy their meal and keep watch on their bambini.

Over in Soho, Asian restaurant Inamo was one of the first restaurants to use iPads. Order on an iPad and then, if you’re tired of your fellow diners, play games. At pop-up restaurant Shrimpy’s the waiters tap orders into iPads that send them straight to a computer in the kitchen.

Wine lists are also presented on iPads. At Maze in Mayfair, Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s and Bread Street Kitchen, you click through to select your wine by grape, price, region or food pairing. Meanwhile, over at JuJu Bar on King’s Road, you can throw iDarts at a dartboard screen on an iPad.

Medicine

More doctors in the UK use iPads than in any other European country, with 31 per cent of them owning the devices, according to a survey by Manhattan Research. Cardiology staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital are using iPads to instantly access 3D images of patients’ hearts. “They can make a real difference,” says Mark Large, IT director at the hospital. “If an urgent case conference is called to discuss treatment for a sick child, clinicians can join it no matter where they are and access information.”