I recently went to a new ice cream shop in our town. Having 4 kids often requires you to visit fun places like this. It also calls for a fairly expensive ice cream visit. The new place was great, the owner was nice and even gave us some free samples. The one thing that caught me was the use of an iPad with Square to take credit cards. They simply had an ipad on the counter and you ran your card like any other square transaction. Then they keyed in the value into the register.
After thinking about this for a bit, I wondered how it could have been done better. My first thought was that they needed a stylus for signatures. A simple 14 dollar investment could take care of that. The other thing I thought of was a stand. A nice iPad stand to display what you are doing vs just picking it up.
Here are a few that I have found and a good article on the topic.
http://gigaom.com/apple/ipad-stands-you-can-use-with-square-register/
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/the-tinkering-monkey-square-register-stand-173729
I see square and other payment systems as the future of commerce. What a great way to take credit cards for a business that is just starting. No monthly cost from a processor, no fees from the bank.