131 thoughts on “in which the case for buying an iPad is almost made”

1. Some food for thought:
   I’ve heard that a “certain” document under NDA (“certain” documentation) mentions that precise use case — board games. Which is telling me there’ll be a lot of board games for iPad. Heck, even a “certain” me is working on one.
   It also seems to me that iPad, as seen on some videos, might be quite neat to use. Some people purchased PDAs 10 years ago mostly for fun and games; compared to those things, and compared to PC tablets (which were mostly useful for the same purpose as iPad) — iPad’s price isn’t all that horrible or scary.
   Otherwise, I agree with most of your post.

2. CAR WARS!
   Rock. On.
   FWIW, there is already competition for the iPad: http://www.wepad.mobi/en. I believe it will run on the Android OS, or a modified version of it.

3. That was the first thing I thought of – and also – imagine tiling them together to make a bigger playing surface!
   [][][]
   [][][]
   [][][]
   Each [] is an iPad that’s wi-fi connected to its neighbors in a P2P network. You could grow the surface to as big as you had devices.
   Just awesome!
   mxt
   THINK
   think different
   Think Open Source

4. Ooh! How did I miss this? Thanks!

5. I will have to wait to see. I’m still not sold on it. While it sounds nice to be able to play you vs. the computer and carry multiple things in one simple piece of hardware, it just won’t feel the same. Okay and the fact that you won’t have any missing pieces is great too, but I will have to see how it plays.

6. You’ve sold me. If I could play Talisman on an iPad, I’d buy one. Oh my yes.

7. I’m glad you wrote this Wil. The day I saw the iPad announced my wife and I discussed this very possibility, using it as a massive board game repository for the whole family. Hell, you could even use it for card games. And if the games were tied into your iPhone/Toch, like if you are playing Texas Hold Em, and the Pad has the river and the Phone/Touch holds your hand, or if you are playing scrabble and the Phone/Touch has all your letters on it and with the flick of a finger you could place your tiles on the Pad where you want them to go.
   Or think about education…K-6 classrooms, the kids use flashcard based apps to study math, words, reading, etc…Or, as in the case of my daughters school, they use a reading program called A.R. (Accelerated Reading) where the kids read a book, then have to go log into a computer to take a test on that book. How much easier would it be if the book and test were on the same device, the iPad, and right after finishing the book they could take the test.
   So many possibilites. Makes me almost wish I had a greater desire to program.

8. I’m an old school curmudgeon, but even I can appreciate the possibilities for gaming.
   My friend is hoping for a day when a desktop or table exists like the desk in The Island, where games can be played virtually.
   I still like handling the wooden bits of Euros, innuendo intended. I can’t imagine it being more fun to play in that way.
   But, my iPhone apps like Zooloretto, Hive, etc. have been really great, especially for solo play. But I still like clicky-clacky hexes with bees and ants on them… *sigh*

9. At PAX while I was playing on it I was told it was only $15,000 but that the D&D program they had running on it was a tech demo and not licensed in any way so we’d pretty much have to code it ourselves for that.
   I was more responsive than I thought, but for D&D I’m old school. I like to roll my own dice and focus more on the story than what is on the table in front of the players. I’m going to be so sad when my kids rebel by going all digital for their games.

10. I like to think of it as something that works in a complementary way with the actual physical version of the game. For example, if you’re out with friends or at someone else’s home, there’s a great ease in pulling out your iPad to play an impromptu game where you don’t need to be concerned with setup, a suitably-sized flat surface to play on, or having thought ahead to bring the actual game box with you. Don’t finish a game in one sitting? If so, you don’t need to worry about leaving the game set up and losing the table to other uses, being worried about someone bumping the table in between sessions, or taking digital photos to try and recreate the progress in a particularly complex board game later (which, in my experience, has meant that the game just gets abandoned instead of finished later). And when the choice is playing an electronic game vs. the computer or not playing at all, it doesn’t matter as much if things don’t feel quite the same.
    I like the idea of the two formats existing peacefully, and I imagine that’s what will happen. The future seems awesome!

11. Like in the movie ‘Big’ – search for “SCENE 72”: http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/b/big-script-transcript-tom-hanks.html

12. something something something something something CAR WARS ZOMG DEDICATED CAR WARS TOUCHPAD DEVICE I’M SOLD!!!! Finally, I can make these chits into earrings!

13. I didn’t really get it either… but I did watch the keynote and that helped sell me on what it does and why it’s useful. Husband is an early adopter of tech, and he bought one as a toy for himself.
    However, we are constantly looking things up on the internet and leaving this on a station on the coffee table bottom shelf will be handy. For instance, oh, what else was that chick in who’s on this episode of “insert tv show here” and then just pop it up on the ipad, rather than finding the laptop or computer and powering it up. Hey, I need a recipe for guacamole, pull up the AllRecipes app and I’m good to go. Play some Plants vs. Zombies!!!!
    Sometimes the iphone screen is too small to be useful for these things.
    I’m also pretty excited about the e-reader built in. For books I don’t want to physically own I think it will be great – especially on trips to not have to lug around several books. However I’d love some kind of cheaper subscription – like you can do with renting movies – a “buy” it option where you keep the book, and a “rent” it option where you get it for a certain number of days… for less $$$. I’d be even more on board.
    My two cents, anyway.

14. With my insane commute of 2.5-3.5 hours a day, the iPad is very appealing. My iPhone is great, but the screen size is a *bit* too small to manage to play games whilst being jostled around when my vanpool driver takes a turn too fast.
    What I’m truly hoping for is that the iPad will be a Cintiq replacement. Then I could bust out a pen and do digital paintings on a reasonably-sized device without needing a ton of space. When a Cintiq’s roughly $1K and a large Intuos 4 tablet’s $450ish, a $500 iPad becomes totally worth it.
    But I realize that the overlap of Artist and Hellish Commute Venn diagram circles is so small, you’d have to bust out an electron microscope to see it. Except for at Nerd Prom.

15. Dude. It’s a flippin’ tricorder! How can you not have one?

16. I agree. Some of the stuff I’ve seen regarding that is exciting. I think its going to take gaming on the iPod touch to a new level that has some potential to be exciting. I think Wil is absolutely right about the board game idea. That is quite exciting.
    I’m eagerly anticipating what developers will do with this device. I think its hard to sell a compelling argument for the device at this point. We’ve already seen this technology with the iPod, so the tech isn’t going to sell itself. What developers produce for it is going to have to be the selling point.

17. For me, the case to be made is the cheap but powerful musical apps… but I am shocked – SHOCKED and appalled that I didn’t already think boardgames, as I should have. You have done a public service today, Mr. Wheaton.

18. I’ve actually been mulling over the idea (for YEARS, though I haven’t looked very hard) for a simple LCD screen that I could hook up to, say, a laptop or computer, and use it as a replacement for a gaming mat. For D&D.
    Because, quite simply, the slowest, most boring parts of D&D games for me have always been drawing out the maps. Either the map lacks details (and is thus mostly just a featureless plain of blah), or it has details, and takes forever to draw correctly.
    A computer would enable saving maps, drawing them faster (MapTool FTW), and potentially the use of something a bit more advanced than lines.
    I already own a computer, and a $300 monitor would be $200 cheaper than the Extra Big iTouch.

19. Wil did you get to play D&D on the surface at Pax? My dream lottery purchase is the Geekchik Sultan with the D&D surface built in. I can’t even imagine the awesomeness that would ensue.
    Even though I really enjoyed D&D on the surface, it is absolutely not worth the kind of money it would take to purchase it. I guess the market for the device would be a gaming store that hosts a lot of games. I can’t imagine making it a personal purchase. Perhaps if I already want to use it for some other business purposes and I can also use it for D&D it becomes a worthwhile investment. The D&D application has a lot of kinks left to work out for $15,000.

20. I plan on buying an iPad for a couple of reasons, mainly because I spent several hours building my own server and web site for my gaming stuff to be used with my laptop, the iPad will be a great device for accessing it as well (I have several hundred PDF’s from RPGNOW/Paizo). Also, with the 3G (yes, I have pre-ordered the 64GB 3G+WiFi) where I live I can get to my stuff when when I am at one of the places I game that refuses to have a public internet connection. The other primary reason is my parents are gadget hounds and will be buying one at some point so since I provide their tech support it makes sense that I should know the device.
    Oh, and if neither of those were true, there is no way I would EVER consider buying the product.

21. Hmm, yeah. I definitely understand all of that. Now I am a bit more inclined myself to get one. I will still have to test some games out on it before I can even feel slightly comfortable buying one.

22. I just remember those scenes in “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Cowboy Bebop” where Frank Poole is playing chess against Hal and Ed plays against Chessmaster Hex. To do that with any boardgame would be phenomenal. To be able to afford to do it would be even better.

23. That’s a thought… I really hadn’t thought of that as an option, but would absolutely make one tempting as all hell. The thing is, I still wouldn’t want to have to buy those boardgames through iTunes. I basically have a boycott on iTunes – mostly because of the Orwellian control they take over it, but also because it has the worst UI in the universe and they refuse to fix it.

24. Me too. Right now I see a LOT of potential in the device, but until third party developers start making more of those kinds of apps (the Catan iPhone app is a great example), the iPad will just be something I fiddle with when I go into the Apple Store at the mall to look around.

25. I’d just like to take a moment to say how cool it is to hear someone other than me, talk about Car Wars…never should have sold my collection… 🙁

26. Damn you guys, two people mentioned Zooloretto on the iPhone so I had to go check it out. There goes my productivity for the rest of the day as I surreptitiously play it in my cubicle…

27. Playing boardgames (esp. RPGs) was one of the first things I thought of when I heard about the iPad. There are lots of app developers out there trying some neat things with boardgames on the iPhone so I don’t see why the app store model would stifle creativity. There are a lot of great boardgame licenses which could be picked up for a song by digital chocolate et al.
    I agree the UI on the app store sucks, I use appshopper.com to find the apps and then itunes to buy them (make sure you search using price change as you can pick up some real bargains)
    I hear that iPad apps are going to be more expensive than the iPhone, i expect that there will be a bit of a gold rush to begin with but the market will decide what it’s prepared to pay.

28. This inspired a blog post: http://petty.me.uk/wordpress/?p=638
    Imagine a flowchart of comic book storylines! Finally, a way to make sense of the Infinite Crisis.

29. The first exciting use for an iPad I came up with was as an amazing, intuitive, auto-calculating character sheet for RPG’s. I’m someone who has trouble keeping track of everything (especially modifiers and such), and doing the math when I’m using a paper character sheet, so whenever possible I’ve found computer programs to run my characters. Unfortunately most are somewhat clunky to use, and a laptop isn’t ideal on a gaming table. But something the size and shape of an iPad? That’d be perfect on a table, and the touch interface could make using the thing far easier.
    I then realized there could be all sorts of great DM’s tools, or just generally a better way for DM’s to access online resources at the table than a laptop.
    Gaming is definitely what will sell me on the iPad whenever it is that that happens (probably not just yet, especially as my wife and I are considering buying a house so unnecessary $500 purchases aren’t really in the cards for a little while, at least until we figure all of that out). I have no doubt that if it doesn’t turn out to have some heretofore unknown fatal flaw, I’ll eventually get one.
    Plus think of all the neat things that someone could do with a jailbroken iPad!

30. Way ahead of you:
    http://gizmodo.com/5385625/dungeons–dragons-on-the-microsoft-surface
    D&D on the surface! Why go halfway when you can do it on a big ass table?

31. Have you checked out your local libraries? Most of the ones around here have ebooks that you can ‘check out’ for a couple weeks – using your library card, just like checking out a physical book. I don’t know, though, if they have ones that are compatible with iPad.

32. Gah… people keep telling me about these places called “libraries” that have books and all kinds of other amazing things. I keep using the internet and swap sites. I have got to go to one! (No sarcasm toward you, I just have been told like 20 times now to go to a library and my dumb ass keeps forgetting to go!)
    I don’t know if it will be compatible with an ipad, but I have got to try checking books out at a library. I don’t know why I keep forgetting as if they don’t exist!!!

33. The idea of multi-seat games is something I’ve chatted about. I don’t think the price point is quite there yet, but if I can get 3-5 iPads for the price of a desktop computer, connect them together (built-in bluetooth networking), suddenly new interesting possibilities come to mind. The big one is that each player can have hidden knowledge of the world, since they have their own device.
    Sure, you can do this sort of thing on desktop computers — LAN parties are one example. But there’s effort to get everyone’s computers lugged over and to get everything set up. And when you are done, you’ve often got people scattered in different rooms or looking at a big monitor. In contrast, a tablet’s strength is the small form factor. You can carry it with you without making a big deal of it. And if you do get a group together, you can all sit at a kitchen table and play a game, without the computers getting in the way.
    Something else to add: projectors are getting really inexpensive. The iPad supports video out. So buy a cheap projector and use one of the iPads to project the board on a wall.
    The iPad as a big iPhone: Yes, that’s the point entirely. The iPhone has to be portable everywhere to do its job, but the smaller screen limits what you can do with applications. The iPad is less portable (it doesn’t go into a pocket, but otherwise it goes anywhere), and it gives you a lot more screen to display content on. It has been a while since I played with Surface, but the large usable area was definitely important.

34. I also felt “meh” on the initial announcement. And, frankly, hearing Steve jobs spout the usual superlatives started really getting on my nerves.
    But then I began thinking about how I could use it. I don’t have an iPhone or an iPod touch. I DO need a portable device smaller than my MacBook Pro for ebooks, presentations, word processing, videos, etc.
    Board games? I don’t know about that.
    I decided that I probably will get one — but I won’t make my final decision until I get my hands on one and try it out. So you won’t see me on any line this weekend.

35. Don’t forget network play.
    I had the same idea when Surface was announced. The fact taht it is $15k is kind of irrelevant since it isn’t being marketed towards consumers.
    Windows 7 started integrating touch deeply into the OS. I suspect future versions will continue to do so. This scenario isn’t specific to the iPad. As more and more devices implement portable, touch sensitive screens, the incentive to build these gaming applications will increase and it will become a reality.
    (BTW, the surface scenario is actually more compelling to me in some ways. Surface can do recognition of objects on the screen. Theoretically, you could use real miniatures to play D&D on a Surface.)

36. Wil, imagine this: You are sitting in Starbucks with your iPod touch and an iPad. Your friend joins you and you put the iPad on the table between you, challenging your friend to a game of Settlers of Cataan. He pulls out his iPhone and you get your iPod touch with which you both log in to the game. The iPad becomes the playing field, showing the land cards, the towns and resources. Your iPod touch becomes your hand, showing what cards you have to play. Using the hand held devices you are now able to play games that require secrecy (um…poker?), while allowing spectators to see the action without looking over your shoulder and peeking. Imagine a spectator mode where others in the area can log in as view-only and watch the action on their iPhones.
    Would this make that saving throw versus WANT even more difficult or downright impossible?

37. Damned kids… Some of us have our original Metagaming microgame. Cut out counters, no VHS box, just a bag with free tape.. and we like it that way!
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microgame
    (from the ’70’s file… I’m so old)

38. I agree. If they could put games like that on it, I’d be PRETTY tempted to get one. Suddenly, even unwieldy beasts like Descent and Arkham Horror can be played without fear of board tip.
    And Crimson Skies where my Brigands can really spiral out of control when I blow a piloting check? Or Car Wars, when my car flips out of control in a fiery wreck because I made 45 degree bend at 70 miles an hour, forgetting once again that each phase is one TENTH of a second…
    Plus, it’d mean EVERY game is a travel edition…
    Mmmm…. Battletech in the back seat on long road trips…
    Assuming any of that ever happens…

39. The only problem being that Apple and Open Source are on completely different ends of the scale.

40. I have been waiting for the iPad for one reason: Comics. Full screen reading of my favorites on a gorgeous color screen… I’ve been doing this for years on my laptop, but what a colossal pain in the arse it is to wait for it to boot up, and have Windows pop up windows that updates are ready to download, etc. And then horrid navigation using a mouse or trackpad… ugh! The touchscreen of the iPad will afford amazing reading of the comic format.
    Now, $500 for a glorified comic reader? Yeah, that one bites.
    But your idea about boardgames is a no-brainer. Some developers are gonna kill with that one.

41. And now comes the news for those of us interested in reading comics on the iPad: Marvel has a digital comics app

42. “You’d never have to worry about the dog crashing into the table and knocking your vehicles around, you could play against an AI, and you could flip over to another window to go shopping at Uncle Albert’s, all the way back (or, uh, forward) to the fantastic 2037 catalog.”
    The Mobile OSX platform doesn’t allow multitasking like this. I think you’re thinking more of webOS.

43. The HP Slate seems like a good candidate. It’ll be running normal W7 and subsequently be able to run any boardgame programs.
    I’m still waiting to see how Courier will turn out though.

44. Ogre for iPad! Anyone who has EVER played that should be drooling in their beard at the prospect (well, at least I am).. I’m gonna contact SJG right now and just plain beg him to get it organise it!

45. Continuing what I said above, guess what? Remember when Disney bought Pixar, making Steve Jobs Disney’s single biggest shareholder? You remember who else Disney bought recently?
    Marvel Comics. And what’s this? There’s a Marvel Comics app for the iPad now.
    http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/2134294,marvel-ipad-comixology-ihnatko-033110.article
    Nothing mentioned about subscriptions, but I’m going to be optimistic and just assume that there will be some kind of subscription option.

46. Heh. Sounds like a job for SuperWil!
    Wil flies over to Patrick’s place and unwraps all his games…then…
    Feb. 2011 “Entertainment Tonight reports that it’s been 11 months since Patrick Stewart has been seen outside his home. Apparently anyone who phones gets the same message, ‘Can’t talk now – busy playing Settlers,’ back to you, Steve.”

47. Yeah, as long as it can read PDFs and deal with macros there’s already lots of active character sheets out there that would work well with the iPad.
    Hmm… but let’s take it a step further. Might it be just big enough for a scrollable battlemat?
    or er… if you need a bigger one, “link” say four of them together? Place them on the table in a square. With zooming capability as the players enter rooms. They could even touch the “tiles” to map out their movements… as they do, a tile flashes red “Make a relex save… DC 33, dude.”
    The iDungeon?

48. I like it… but from a Marxist perspective. The more that we can remove the “drudgery” from D&D the better our D&D experience will be.
    By “Drudgery” I mean the time it takes to draw/erase/redraw the map; do the math on all the rolls; remember who’s burning/poisoned/shaken/etc. and for how many rounds; what the different movement rates are over different surfaces; where the “hidden” stuff is like traps and invisible NPCs; et cetera.
    Basically it would take care of all the stuff that takes time and effort (often begets even more time consuming arguments/discussions) – so we can just get down to what we’re there for: roleplaying.
    That might well be worth 10-15K.

49. Yup this is what I was thinking for “iDungeon” as I noted above. As long as you had software that would recognize the tiling and react accordingly it might just be a cheaper alternative to the Surface w/D&D app (also mentioned above).

50. Josh said “… if you are playing scrabble and the Phone/Touch has all your letters on it and with the flick of a finger you could place your tiles on the Pad where you want them to go.”
    Which is exactly what someone has done – the iPad scrabble app has a complementary iPhone app that allows you to mess around with your letters in private and then flick them to the iPad (mentioned somewhere on David Pogue’s review in the NYT yesterday, I seem to recall). Got to love the possibilities …

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