Guys,
Please check out this kickstarter project.
This guy behind this is a good friend of mine and an integrator moving on.
These things are awesome and I guarantee regardless of the outcome of this project you will see them out there. I had a chance to play with one and every detail down to the smooth swivel movement is perfect.

Give it a look and show a little love. This guy deserves it. [Link: kickstarter.com]

Cool idea. The only comments I would make are

1. Aren't they limiting their sales by targeting only businesses using Square?
2. Can other card readers fit with the iPad mounted in their stand? (Go Payment instance is a bit larger then Square's reader)
3. While their stand looks like a quality piece, having the reader stick out as it does looks a little, dare I say, ghetto for lack of a better term. What I mean is it looks like an add-on rather then something that was built specifically for this use. If the stand could be built to encompass the reader so only the tip sticks out allowing for the card to be swiped, it would look much better and not like an afterthought.

Just some thoughts I had, but overall looks like a great design and a great idea.

There are a couple of versions and an excellent answer to your question which I would answer but I'm not sure how much info I should or should not put here so I am going to forward this thread to him.

It really is cool.
I think you have to see it to appreciate it.

Oh I am sure it is. My comments were not to take away from what looks like a great idea. It was just me voicing some concerns that I saw that might make it less desirable then I think it can be. I hope they are very successful with it.

Yes, if it's tied to the Square, it's tied to the success or failure of the Square, and it's tied even more closely to the shape and size of the Square.


Some good advice from another trade:
If you're doing a presentation aimed at professionals, get a microphone much closer to the speaker so the sound is not 40% room echo.

Some wisecrack advice from a wag:
And decrease the percentage of helium in that atmosphere!

Thanks for the Support. The Mogul is actually compatible with GoPay and Idynamo. We chose to use the Square centric design to gain Squares user base support. Jack Dorsey (Founder of Square and Twitter) Tweeted about this project this morning. We will see if the gamble pays off. Either way we intend on trying to bring this to market. We may consider a model for commercial AV Control use. It would have a slightly different design. Thanks to Jeff for posting this.. Ideas are always welcome!

You know, if a certain controversial member comes here and complains that this is an advert, I'm going to be sick.

that is really cool, i hope they have a patent on it!

couple questions and i hope your friend sees this thread to make design changes i would think are a necessity before they go to market, especially before they have tooling designed and built.

The card reader needs to be encased IMO, if not it would need to support different readers like intuits Go payment which i personally use as squares rates are to high for me.

will the base have threaded holes so the ipad stand could be bolted to the counter, this would be an absolute necessity in a retail environment.

Those 4 machine screws that hold the ipad in, are they security screws? to keep the petty thief from taking a Philips screw driver to the back if the base is bolted down. If not this seems like it would be an easy change.

All in all that is awesome! if i had a store front i would totally purchase that. Tell them i wish them luck!

I don't think I'm conig up with anything new here -- the way to do that is to provide countersunk holes in the top of the base; flathead screws (no, not screws with straight screwdriver slots; if that's what comes to mind, look up what flathead really means) would hold the base in place; then a cover held in place by double stick or some other kind of removable but sturdy non-screw attachment would go down over the entire top surface.

Or threaded blind holes in the bottom of the base; it would be up to the installer to drill matching holes through the counter and screw in from below. If either of these ideas is used, that is at least a $250 contribution.

Wow

Shouldn't have a problem meeting their funding goal with tweets from Jack Dorsey. Techcrunch will probably post something on it based on that alone. Which is what they need.

I fail to see how $30,000 is going to be enough to get this project going. Manufacturing costs, specifically in this country, should eat that $30k VERY QUICKLY.

+1

Is the idea protected from someone copying it off that site?

Cool idea, btw.

If they're smart it is. I can't fathom they put something up on kickstarter without first getting a patent application in.

I could see us adding one of these to our boatshow displays.  very cool.