5 Things We Imagine the iPad Would Be Great At Roundup

Aside from the already marketed "e-Reader of the decade" and incredibly boring (but functional) iWork suite presented by Apple, we've come up with a few clever ways the iPad can actually be of good use in our future homes...

Wouldn't it be great if you could use the iPad as a...

Cookbook. Okay, yeah.. this falls into e-Book category probably, but still! Having a deliciously vibrant screen illuminate the professional shot photos of scrumptious recipes has been a dream of ours for quite some time.
Wacom tablet replacement. If there's one thing the iPad could possibly replace, it would be the huge sketching tablets many of us have eating up room on our desks. Sure, it may not be as accurate and have a few issues interfacing with another computer, but it sure would be nice to have a wireless tablet to sketch on that doubles as a huge touch-pad.
Casual chat client. Well, there's one trend out there we definitely cannot ignore; the ubiquity of text messaging these days. Everyone seems to be texting more and more and in many ways, the act of receiving texts on our phones has tied us to an instant stream of immediate information right into our pockets. Personally, we find this nerve-wracking and would prefer to loosen the knot to my phone by having their messages arrive on an iPad. Plus, we imagine this is where a video camera 3rd-party accessory would kick in for anywhere-video conferencing.
Social board games. We've tried all played board games before. They've been playing them for centuries. But scaling them up to a reasonable resolution (and we don't mean just doubling of pixels on iPhone applications) would allow for a much more vibrant and fun experience for all users. Throw in multi-touch? Now, this could get interesting..
Universal Remote. This one's a no-brainer. With so much screen estate and gesture space, we imagine the iPad would blow the Logitech Harmony® 1100 Advanced Universal Remote completely out of the water as a universal controller for everything in the home. Lights. Home Theater. Action!

Have a clever iPad app idea that you think might work for the home? Let us know in the comments!

Comments (14)

#3 - and you want to type all of that on a touch screen keyboard, that looked kind of like a pain to full out type on while trying to hold it and type?

Plus on the camera, I know they have an add on, but seriously what were they thinking without building a forward facing camera in it.

a wireless Wacom tablet app would be pretty cool - much like Balmuda's NumberKey app for the iPhone. of course you wouldn't be able to use a stylus on it, it would probably take some getting used to.

@jmorey Definitely agreed on the camera. Why the heck wouldn't they add a camera? Makes no sense...

@ jmorey

apparently they were planning to add a camera (there is a camera call in the API) but I guess it got taken out at the last minute for whatever reason.

Who called this the 'ebook reader of the decade'? The screen is too harsh to read books for long periods of time.

A wireless wacom would be excellent, but I refuse to compromise on resolution. Drawing with your finger, no matter how adroit you are is the technological equivalent of finger painting. I'm really quite disappointed with the iPad. It's incredibly basic and seems to solely be in direct competition with the Kindle. They could have made an amazing piece of technology with just a few minor adjustments. And even though the price is "cheap" is it really worth what you are getting? It seems it is more just cheap in comparison to other apple products... if it actually in any way was comparable to the wacom I would say it's a bargain and amazing, but it's really fallen short of the mark for me.

The lack of pressure sensitivity makes it a terrible Wacom replacement IMO.

I was really hoping for augmented reality capabilities in this product, but without a camera I guess I'll have to wait for 2.0.

If there is a way to get it to work with a Slingbox, I'm sold. I can see this as a great device for Sketchup or a similar app as well.

I wish it could work with a stylus--what if I want to handwrite a note to myself? Very disappointed.

The iPad may have potential, but without an IR or RF module built-in and reliance on your home network, a dedicated universal remote will still be faster, more responsive, and able to perform complicated tasks. Besides, for day to day use, a giant remote to channel surf is cumbersome and ridiculous.

Yeah, I'm not buyin it (literally and figuratively). If this had been something more along the lines of the Lenovo laptop from CES 2010, I could have understood it all. Something that acts as a screen for a real computer/OS when docked, but you can detach the screen and use it as a portable media device. It would be able to communicate with the main station wireless, easily transfer files, and so on. But without some standard hardware like USB, camera, HDMI and such, this will require too much dongle action (again, literally and figuratively).

It seems like most people agree that this is a few steps away from a final product, if we learned anything from iPhone-iPhone 3GS is that it's best to wait on these first iterations.

Pressure sensitive capacitive touchscreens aren't too far off. AR interface would have been a good leap, but i think we're coming close to changing the way we do computing, but the iPad, doesn't do anything to get us closer than so many of the other tablets we've seen.

I think there is probably some work to do on how to mount a camera successfully. How would you use a forward facing camera? Hold the entire tablet in front of your face? That isn't very usable. There is no stand for this thing so I am assuming that you need to use the device when it is flat (like a traditional notepad). Extending the analogy though, a notepad is not a 1 page calendar is no a 16-month calendar is not a daily planner. This is a simple appliance for simple things. I wonder where Apple will take it from there?

If its "in direct competition with the Kindle" there is no question that it lost. There is no comparison with the Kindle or Sony or Nook. But for other things, it does have potential. Compared to my expectations, it failed completely, but there are new scenarios I hadn't thought of that make this amazing. A universal remote is not it...I am upset enough when my remote's battery dies after only 6 months....10 hours??? yeah right. Wacom tablet???With no pressure sensitivity or angle recognition. No, not going to work for anything but the most basic tasks.

6: sleek and functional coaster.

It would be great if you could use a stylus on it so I could take notes at school, or jot little additions into a book or cookbook. A swivel camera that could face either direction for video chatting or picture taking. Too bad it's like a novelty iPod Touch, larger and useless.

10 hours playing video, according to Jobs. Do we have battery life figures for reading eBooks? Presumably it would run a lot longer doing that than playing full motion video.

Besides, who spends 10 hours reading in one stretch? I'm lucky to have two or three hours at a time to read.

I think this think will slaughter dedicated eBook readers, especially given that it's not much more expensive. The screen also doesn't strike me as particularly "harsh". I've read for an hour or more at a time on my teeny tiny iPhone without major eyestrain - the iPad is guaranteed to offer a better experience than that.