You’ve been thinking about getting an iPad but have been wondering if it’s worth the cost. This portable tablet computer is a small wonder in the number of things you can do with it; from streaming movies and playing games to social networking.
Here are the top ten best uses for the iPad.
Surf Anywhere there’s Wi-Fi
The most obvious use for the iPad is that you can surf the Internet anywhere you have a Wi-Fi connection. Even at home, you don’t have to run upstairs to the desktop to check your bank balance or update your status on Facebook.
Keep in Touch
The iPad makes it easy to stay connected with your friends on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. You can share photos or websites and, if you like to tweet during TV shows, the iPad makes it easy and convenient.
Play Games
With each new generation of iPad, game playing keeps getter better. Front and back-facing cameras on the iPad 2 make playing augmented reality games possible and the Retina Display on the iPad 3 allows for higher resolution graphics than most game machines. Apple’s recently added graphics engine, called Metal, takes games to the next level.
Read a Book
The iPad is one of the most versatile e-Readers on the market because you can read e-books from Apple’s iBooks, Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook. The iPad is also one of the lightest and thinnest e-readers around making is a great option for reading in bed.
Newsstand on iPad also supports over a hundred magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, TIME and People.
Kitchen Helper
There are plenty of uses for the iPad in the kitchen. Look up recipes on the Internet or try something new using apps like Epicurious and Whole Foods Market. There’s even an app to help if you are sensitive to gluten called Is That Gluten Free?
Family Entertainment
The iPad makes the perfect family entertainment system. Parental controls are found in all their iOS devices and there are thousands of great games and apps available. The iPad is great for entertaining the kids in the backseat of the car on road trips. They can access movies and play games for far cheaper than most portable gaming machines.
Listen to Music
There are plenty of ways to stream music to your iPod, including the ability to create unique radio stations that are customized to your favourite music. The iPad has good speakers and can essentially become your home stereo because it supports Bluetooth. This makes it compatible with wireless headphones and many new television sound bars supporting Bluetooth.
Take Photos and Record Video
The iPad Air 2’s 8 megapixel back-facing camera is surprisingly good and can compete with most smartphone cameras. The beautiful 9.7-inch display makes it especially great because you’ll know you have a great shot line up and you don’t have to miss the action because of a tiny screen.
Connect to Your TV
Besides providing loads of entertainment value, you can also hook the iPad up to your TV so you can watch movies on the big screen. There are several ways to connect your iPad up to your HDTV, including using AirPlay to wirelessly connect the iPad to Apple TV. Most of the ways to connect iPad to your TV work with both video and sound, so you can get the true HD experience.
Say Goodbye to Premium Cable
If you’ve ever wanted to ditch your cable, the iPad gives you the ability to stream Netflix and Hulu Plus directly to your HDTV, which means that you can replace your premium channels without being forced to watch movies on a smaller screen. Considering the amount of television available on services like these, you might even be able to dump cable TV altogether.
Some of the top apps for streaming movies and TV shows are as follows:
- Crackle is owned by Sony Pictures. It’s a free download and doesn’t take a subscription fee for watching premier movies and television.
- Netflix streams great video to you iPad and has a great collection of movies and TV. The streaming-only subscription cost is $7.99 per month.
- Hulu Plus is an app that requires a monthly subscription of $7.99. It has commercials within the video playback, but it is very easy to use.
- You Tube videos play fine from within the website in the Safari browser and the app has a superior interface for browsing through videos.
- Cable Networks/Broadcast TV – Many different TV channels have iPad apps showing video clips and full-length videos. Most of the premium channels, such as Showtime and HBO, have companion apps with a large amount of content that you can access by verifying your cable subscription. Different cable providers have apps that include the ability to watch a select number of channels live.