Macworld Forums

We're interested to find out what you use your iPad for most.
Is it usually productivity, perhaps for work or education? Or as a gaming platform? Do you watch TV or films on your iPad?

Ashleigh Allsopp,

My iPad (2) has long since been hijacked by my 2 year old son - almost wholly to use iPlayer and 5 On Demand (the latter is awful though). Other than that I use it for the off bit of surfing, some games and video when travelling.

Ashleigh Allsopp,
I currently use mine predominantly for sketching greeting card illustrations in Sketchbook Pro, followed by the creation of the vector line work in iDraw, ready for import into Photoshop on the desktop to create the final artwork.

I'm also finding myself increasingly reliant on the iPad as my sight continues to deteriorate as the screen magnification and screen reading in iOS out of the box is, thus far, simply not seen system wide on any other mobile platform short of lugging a laptop around with me. I'm finding my iPhone is becoming very useful as a magnifying glass when out and about which, to a point the new iPad - when I can upgrade from my 1st gen - will be even more useful for this due to larger screen.

Something else thats becoming really useful - again due to failing eyesight - is the ability to transition from painting to digital painting. On the iPad side this is currently done with ArtRage. These paintings can then be imported into the desktop version of the app which allows me to then recreate the painting, stroke for stroke, at much higher resolutions due to the ability to 'record' you painting as its created on the iPad. It also means that I can zoom in as close as I need to my work which obviously isn't possible when actually painting on a real canvas. Its not quite the same but its certainly better than not being able to paint at all.

Before the iPad came along I was very much facing the end of my time as a painter and illustrator but can now carry on for a few more years. Hopefully by that time the iPad will have developed far enough that it can be used to produce full resolution final artwork thats currently only possible on a desktop or laptop as this would allow me to extend things even further into the future. As an artist the iPad is very interesting and the potential future of the platform is extremely promising.

Then of there's games and Infinity Blade is still taking up a great amount of my spare time...I can't wait to be able to play Infinity Blade 2 once I have an iPad that can actually run it without falling over all the time!