The folks at Prompter People keep finding new ways to make teleprompters lighter and more affordable. Gone are the days of the fifty pound CRT monitor hanging off the edge of the tripod, and even the large LCD screens seem antiquated now. The iPhone prompter is a cool idea, but for those with less than perfect vision, the small screen may be too much of an eye strain. This is where the iPad fits in.

The 10 inch iPad screen provides a vibrant text display that can be remotely controlled via an additional iPhone or iPod touch running their app.  There is one limitation that is quite a bummer. Currently, there is no way to display the prompter text on the remote, meaning anyone operating the prompter can’t see what the talent is reading unless they themselves are looking into the glass as well.  This means the traditional position of the operator next to the camera guy or behind him/her will not work.  They will have to operate from in front of the camera, out of view. Mark Ditmanson, President of Prompter People says they are working hard to get around this limitation. We hope to see the 2.0 version, that could manifest itself once iPhone OS 4.0 comes out this Summer.

A great feature of all Prompter People teleprompters is that they are forwards compatible.  This means if you have an older version like we do at Blackburst, you can modify it to work with the new iPad prompter. Very cool.  The iPad prompter retails for $599 sans iPad.