“I have it on very good authority that many Apple fanpersons eat at McDonald’s simply because they serve Big Macs,” Chris Matyszczyk reports for CNET. “These people will do anything to extend their Mac affiliation.”
“Perhaps, therefore, it’s for them that a McDonald’s in Virginia Beach, Va., has struck upon a novel idea to induce loyalty from its customers: it has placed iPads in its restaurant for their use. Yes, entirely for free,” Matyszczyk reports. “The iPads are mounted on tables, so that you can surf while you chew.”
Matyszczyk reports, ” the franchise owner, Hugh Fard, seems delighted with the idea. He first noticed the concept at a worldwide McDonald’s convention in Florida. (I wonder what the catering was like.) So he leased the iPads from a French company, which looks after them and even replaces them, should some full-bellied miscreant decide he needs to perform a takeaway. Oddly, though, Fard chose to block YouTube, as he oddly believes that some of its content is pornographic.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This is good news, as it will introduce iPads to a certain older demographic (who goes into McDonald’s these days? Just go into one and look around) who might not even know what iPads are, much less have a chance to try them out.
(No kidding, just last week we were on a plane with an older, rather talkative gent. We put an iPad on the tray table and he immediately asked, “What’s that?” Suffice to say, he now knows exactly what an iPad is and what it can do. You should’ve seen his face! He really had trouble believing it was real. He’s got to have one of his own by now.)
Anyway, this McDonald’s thing is also good news for makers of hand sanitizer. We know we’d bring a 55-gallon drum of the stuff with us, in case we were ever tempted to touch an iPad screwed to a table in Mickey D’s (shudder).
MDN…. hehehe You kill me! Nintendo has been in bed with the big M for well over 15 years. Nothing to see here. Move on.
Should help stylus sales to MCD regulars.
Medicare overhaul? Get old people to stop eating at McDonald’s!
it’s more the young than the old.
<– older, and you won't catch me there. and *most* of the older generations, don't eat fast food regularly. and when they do, it's not grease burgers.
off topic a tad.. but I passed by a Pizza chain that had a sign in the window "EBT accepted here" (thats Food stamps if you didn't know) THAT right there is a stupid thing… no wonder people get fat. I'm no health food Nazi, but thats just insane.
carry-out food, sit-down restaurants and grocery store pre-prepared foods are not allowed by EBT. You are either lying or hallucinating.
Sadly, I have to say…. you are fucking wrong.
http://www.papamurphys.com/FAQ
“Yes. Papa Murphy’s gladly accepts EBT at nearly every store location.”
SIMPLE google search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sugexp=les%3Bcpsugrpq2&qe=ZWJ0IGZhcw&qesig=dSx1BRX_ndlT99tdYHbrOQ&pkc=AFgZ2tlJP1Lme9_9K0FS5ywDfQ6fWvUJ4Wqv4qYCJ9JHNc-hRjqDSseSofeel9RidBCdYGc21v5mlvshHfGAecyHUVU0diTmnw&cp=7&gs_id=p&xhr=t&q=ebt+fast+food&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bpcl=35243188&biw=1725&bih=1219&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=PGp2UMX3BMjziQL65IGgAQ
Just the images of fast food stores with “We accept EBT” displayed…
Rules must be different state-to-state, above is how it works where I live, mea culpa regarding comment, I assumed it was the same in every state.
Lol. I came here to say exactly that.
After my snarky comment last night, I never thought about that… Until about 20 min ago.
So in the end, we are both correct. 😉
lol, all’s well that ends well.
Papa Murphy’s isn’t “take out.”
It’s “take and bake.”
I think that technically makes it count as groceries.
It’s a loophole.
I just linked Papa Murphy’s cause thats the pizza place I mentioned I walked past and saw the sign.
if you click the link to google, Mcdonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, JITB, etc ALL are shown with the EBT sign in the window. and they are not “take and bake”
(Just rechecked on the link… lady’s arm in the fourth pic kinda says it all..)
but the conclusion Botvinnik and I both ended up coming to… I think it’s a state by state thing.
But… Do you actually have to buy the food to use the iPad?
And yeah… Bring hand sanitizer by the gallon.
Just like in other places in the US… Prepare for 911 calls when the iPads are taken away, or not enough available for everyone to use.
(Not a joke.. 911 has been called when McDonald’s has been out of mcnuggets..)
I just hope they watch the young ones. I went to those McDonalds restaurants once in Va. Beach. It was crazy. The teens were loud and a bid too active and there was a few cops outside the restaurant to make sure things don’t get out of hand.
Greasy, salty screens. Hand sanitizer a must, but I think I’ll pass.
You’d think those oleophobic iPad screens would pry themselves from their moorings and rocket out the door.
“who goes into McDonald’s these days?”
More people go to a single McDonald’s in a week, than visit MDN in a month.
Hand sanitizer? Give me a break, the average restaurant is cleaner than the average home. By a long shot.
Greg… Thanks … the people who post here often seem elitist, classist and just a big high on themselves … Now I am not defending the nutritional value of MD’s fare …, but they are generally clean, and well maintained …. However having to touch screens that have been touched by ” the great unwashed” seems to be a big issue here …. I bet the screens are cleaned by the dining area staff and ste generally more sanitized more often then any personal iPad of the average
person posting here .
Contrary to McDonald’s in the US, their european and asian branches are in fact frequented by many regular people and today I saw 6 iPads on display at a McDonald’s, Kurfürstendamm, main street, Berlin.
That must be one of the 12 stores mentioned yesterday.
The two reasons McDonald’s blocked YouTube.
1. It didn’t want to pay for extra bandwidth when everyone used their iPads to download videos.
2. McDonald’s didn’t want to spotlight their slower-than-AOL dialup WiFi speeds by people trying to download videos.
But still, I’m still happy McDonald’s provides free (even though it is slow) WiFi in all their stores, and the iPad idea is a good one.
If they are smart, they will load the iPad’s full of inexpensive games. One iTunes account will let you load each game you pay for on all your iPads.
In another article MDN was dissing women. Now it’s the “older demographic.” What’s up with that crap?
this just in: Silverhawk is an old woman.
Great. Free iPads at MickeyDooDoo’s. But do they offer free barf bags? Nooooo. 😉