Hoping to save some trees and time, Charleston County Council opts for iPad 2s over info packets

Image by Flickr user k jwpriebe Digital representations: Better than the real thing?

Eyeing nearly $30,000 a year in labor and materials savings, Charleston County dropped half that amount to buy 15 iPad 2s so that county council's meeting packets can go pure digital.

The Post and Courier has a short but informative report on the move; read it here.

There's lots of nitpicking that can be done here as to why the county didn't opt for the cheaper last-generation device or a competing device capable of displaying Flash graphics and video, but those are relatively small issues.

The big question here is: Does the iPad represent such an evolution in technology that the paperless office promise of computers that was first made in the '70s and '80s is finally coming, or will council tire of not being able to see two pages at once and draw on them and simply wind up asking for both a digital and hard copy?

That will be the real story. 

Check back in a few months.

Filed in