According to a report from Kotaku, humans are not the only ones fascinated with the iPad. Scott Engel, the iPad Enrichment Coordinator at the Milwaukee County Zoo, leads a program that gives orangutans some weekly screen time with the iPad.
Apparently, the red apes love them.
"It was amazing to see how they welcomed this strange device into their area," Engel said. "We'll show the orangutans videos of themselves, videos of wild orangutans, and other animals that reside at the zoo. In fact, I think orangutan MJ has a crush on David Attenborough."
At first, the orangutans were showed the device through the glass where visitors usually stand; Engel would turn on the iPad 2's camera so the device could be used as a kind of mirror. Once the orangutans were used to the iPad, keepers introduced the device in an area where the orangutans could touch the screen through a cage door.
"One of the biggest hurdles we face is that an orangutan can snap an iPad like you or I could rip cardboard," said Richard Zimmerman, executive director of Orangutan Outreach, who is a big fan of the program and hopes to extend it to zoos around the country. "Orangutans are very tactile and their natural curiosity is perfect for a device like an iPad," he said.
Because orangutans are so intelligent, they also get bored easily, and enrichment programs like this are extremely important. Zimmerman believes that "the touchscreen 'games' will be really good for them" and that "orangutans love painting with their fingers as well as brushes, and they seem to take quickly to using their fingers to paint on the touchscreen."
As for the two charter member of the program in Milwaukee, they already have their favorite apps. Apparently, they enjoy finger-painting with DrawFree, watching television shows, and even playing games iFishPond and Flick Kick Football. Also, the interactive book The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore is a big hit.
For more images of orangutans and iPads, check out Kotaku.
(Image courtesy of Scott Engel)
Adrian covers daily news and the weekly "Law & Apple" column for MacLife.com. You can follow him on Twitter, if you want to.
