The humble cash register, a device that seems sprung from the imagination of an accountant, has become the darling of designers, adding a dash of style to the most ordinary daily transactions.
With the advent of tablets, particularly the iPad, many stores have traded in their clunky cash registers for mobile devices. Now, though, they are dressing up those tablets with inventive accessories to make them both more pleasant to look at and more practical for cashiers.
Retailers from doughnut shops to department stores are putting in tablet-based cash registers that hang on the wall or can swivel around like desk lamps to face customers. At Coco Donuts in downtown Portland, Ore., iPad registers hang on a track on the wall, and employees slide them over to customers at the counters, who can sign for their bill, barely missing a bite.
Some designers are using eye-catching materials like bamboo to make iPad enclosures that scream for attention; others are using minimalist designs that make the register all but disappear. And sales associates are plucking the tablets off countertops so they can take orders from anywhere in a store using tiny credit card readers attached to the devices.
To help the cash register fade from view, Mr. Heckler has created a steel sliver of a stand for the iPad, called the WindFall, that sits low on a counter. It can be bolted onto a surface to prevent theft and pivot around to face customers. Lees hier het hele artikel.