Stanford swaps playbooks for iPads

Apple has slipped itself right into the heart of Stanford’s football team, who have become the first school to trade in old-style paper playbooks for shiny new iPads.

Every player and coach has been given a digital playbook in the form of a specially-programmed iPad instead of the previous spiral-bound paper playbooks.

The Cardinal forked over cash for more than 100 iPads powered by PlayerLync, a Denver-based sports technology company with several NFL clients. The school expects to save money in the long run by not having to continually print off hundreds of playbooks.

And, of course, the iPad playbooks are more environmentally friendly than the old paper ones. Coach David Shaw is excited about the fast new technology and told the Merc:

“Being at the forefront of technology that can help us do our jobs better and help our player learn better, while at the same time being environmentally conscious and cost effective, is part of what Stanford is all about. We can make changes and instantly update everybody’s iPad.”

Coaches can update the iPads with the training camp playbook, weekly game playbooks and daily notes which will immediately synchronize across each player’s device. Coaches can also share documents and videos with the players.

The digital playbooks are as tight as Stanford’s defense. In case they are lost or stolen, the entire iPad can be wiped clean remotely.