If you’ve been thinking about starting your own development company, or offering your services on a freelance basis, here’s some food for thought. Restaurant owners are replacing traditional servers with iPads, so customers can view the menu, place orders, pay and even summon a waiter by accessing a customized application. In fact, one local restaurateur spent more than a year and $1 million developing a digital ordering regimen developing a digital ordering regimen. Pardon the pun, but to an aspiring entrepreneur, that’s some serious bread. Restaurants aren’t the only ones replacing people and paper with tablets and applications. Hyundai has replaced the operating manual for its Equus with a tablet and customized app, airlines are replacing flight manuals and charts and even NFL playbooks are on the verge of extinction. Many customized apps are developed by freelancers and start-up firms, because the entrance costs are relatively low and the apps can be developed by just one person. If you don’t want to build apps for the consumer market, start-up ventures that develop business apps are starting to receive funding. So if you’ve dreamed of being your own boss, but thought you’d never have a chance, your time may have come. Image: Easymenu