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Apple's iPad wants your backpack all to itself. Smartly-built applications let design pros leave their old portfolios at home, but there's plenty more even we schlubs can use them to do.
One advantage of a touchscreen tablet is that it's an easy device for a user to prepare, then put in someone else's hands. There's a learning curve, but it's quickly overcome. All the navigation is done with simple gestures, and happens with images, videos, or other files at full-bleed. It's solid and comfortable in the user's hands; they're in control; and the buttons, filesystem, and even the designer can just get out of the way.
I'm particularly charmed by Simon Heys's Minimal Folio ($2.99):
Minimal Folio is a simple way to present images and video on your iPad. The app is unbranded so your folio can do the talking. www.simonheys.com/minimalfolio/
As you can see, Minimal Folio allows you to curate and organize images and iPad-compatible video files into a simple grid, that then can be navigated vertically, horizontally, or both. You can use rows or columns to group related images, or let the user freely navigate between them.
The 1.0 version is pretty lightweight, but according to Heys, future updates promise support for PDFs, external displays, using an iPhone/iPod touch as a remote, and using Dropbox to add/change a portfolio's contents on the road. (Dropbox integration is one of the handful of advantages the $15 Portfolio for iPad application has over Minimal Folio. Both will also custom-brand the application for companies.)
Add those dimensions, and in addition to the portfolio possibilities, you're talking about a guided, Powerpoint-style presentation app, a book/menu/article/document/comics collection browser, even a vacation scrapbook for photos, home movies, and souvenirs.
You could complain that this is just an elegant way to group and view files that you can already see on the iPad -- but the most valuable iOS apps (Instapaper, Twitter, Flipboard) have proven to be exactly that. Attention and organization command a premium.
Turn Your iPad into a Professional Portfolio [Apartment Therapy Unpluggd]
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