The iPad as 21st century notebook

[Jim Colgan](http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/digital-strategies/142139/how-journalists-are-using-mobile-devices-to-enhance-their-reporting/):

I’ve found mobile devices to be especially effective for on-the-street interviews. When New York City brought in a new system of letter grades for restaurant health inspections last year, the WNYC newsroom asked me to get reaction from New Yorkers. Using my iPad, I asked people on the street where they liked to eat and then looked up the restaurant’s inspection report online. I was able to capture their reactions when they heard the details — things like evidence of live vermin at their favorite restaurants. It was tape I could not have gotten in the moment without an iPad.

I suspect we’re only scratching the surface of the reporting possibilities a device that can be a notebook, a research tool, an audio recorder, a video edited and a publisher, and yet slip easily into a bag.