Let's speculate about the future of gaming with the iPad.

[Janx]

something to bear in mind, as a technicality, what we mostly need on an iTouch is simple task-swapping, not actual multi-tasking.

multi-tasking is where the CPU(s) continues processing on the original task, while executing a new one. Background downloading, syncing, playing music in the background while you do something else on the system are examples.

For active applications on a small screen, you can't physically manipulate 2 apps at the same time. Even in Windows, with them side-by-side, the keyboard only types in one window.

What you really mean is task-swapping, the act of flipping back and forth seemlessly, and while you're flipped, the previous task freezes until you return to it.

The current iTouch product line sucks for that. it's why copy/paste is still kind of useless. Because you open on app, copy it, click the home button, open the next app, then paste it, do stuff with it, then click the home button and re-open the original app and hope it is where you left it (depends on the app if it saves state).

The Windows TaskBar is one such handy UI tool to enable task swapping, you can see everything that's running. Very nice.

On BlackBerry, you've got to click a little to actually find the running tasks, so you can close them or return to them. Not so good.

this is why a multi-function app is so useful, if it has the die roller, the char sheet and srd reader packed into it, you never lose state as you flip from each tool (because you aren't leaving the context of the app).

BTW, I lol'd at the image of the over-excited player tossing his magic missiled IPod.

I definitely like the idea of an iPad at the gaming table versus a laptop. The trick is having decent software that supports the game you play.

 

[Aeolius]

I could see the iPad, or a tablet computer, being used in conjunction with augmented-reality devices. See THIS THREAD .

 

[Kzach]

Since you can use the iWork applications pretty much the same as you can on a Mac, any Excel spreadsheets that people use to facilitate game-play at the table can be used in Numbers, the iWork spreadsheet application.

Pages, the iWork word processor (although really, it's more of a desktop publishing application that blurs the line between a word processor and more powerful programs like InDesign and Quark), also has some really neat abilities. You can make a fully customisable and beautifully laid out character sheet program that automates everything in it relatively easily.

Keynote could also be used with a portable mini projector connected to the iPad to display dynamic battlegrounds onto a tabletop with layers to add or subtract various terrain elements or traps.

 

[JDragon]

Great thread, I've already been having thoughts on how to best use an iPad or similar slate device when I get the chance to pick one up.

Hell, I'm half way their already with my tablet PC and Excel based character sheet that's designed to be used in tablet mode. The down side of the tablet PC is the weight and that its a little older so uses a stylus and not your finger like the newer stuff.

Quick Note - as for Multitasking - it will be available on the iPhone when the 4. version of the OS is released this summer and on the iPad in the fall. While not 100% needed it will help.

For some ideas others have had on the iPad and gaming I would check out Gnome Stews 3 part review of the iPad for gaming (focusing on 4e, but applicable to all aspects) it includes 3 videos as well.

Link - A GM’s Guide to the iPad, Part 1 - Gnome Stew, the Game Mastering Blog

My plans...
#1 A live / interactive Character Sheets for the games I play, including but not limited to... Pathfinder, 3.5, Shadowrun, Star Wars Saga, Battletech

#2 PDF reader for electronic versions of books - from what I have seen and heard GoodReader is the app to have right now for the iPad and iPhone.

#3 GM Combat tracking App - this would include Init, Monster/NPC Stats w/live tracking like CS, Adventure Manager (notes, GM maps, place to keep notes)

My hope is that I will be able to do a Steelwind mentioned above and go to a game with my slate, dice and minis and be ready to play. If I was running at home I would still need a laptop to run Photoshop for my projector set up. as I don't expect a slate to be able to do that and wouldn't want to be tethered.


I already have some of this for my tablet, as mentioned before I have an Excel sheet for Characters. Also I have an app a friend programed for me in JavaScript that runs in Firefox to track Init as well as Monster stats using XML based data. I just wish he knew one of the programing languages for the the iPad.

JD

 

[Stormonu]

For me, a tablet PC/iPad that takes up no more space than a single book, yet can replace an armload or bookshelf of books would be great. Ability to roll dice and interactively track/access character sheets would only augment this.

 

[Kzach]

Quick Note - as for Multitasking - it will be available on the iPhone when the 4. version of the OS is released this summer and on the iPad in the fall. While not 100% needed it will help.

It's not true multi-tasking. It's actually a combination of things that simulate multi-tasking. Instant-on (saves the state of a program so that it can very quickly be used again) and background threading of some processing tasks.

 

[Aeolius]

I'd like to see the iPad used to display the "fog of war" area of a much larger virtual map, seems to be the topic of discussion HERE :

 

[OchreJelly]

I'm all for gadgets at the table. I'm Mr. Projector for Christ's sakes. But the reason I LIKE the projector is because it is not intrusive. It is technology which unites the players - it does not divide them.

I agree with this sentiment. As an early adopter of the iPad (you can see some of my DND uses in the other thread), I find it's so far a great DM's tool. For players it could be useful as character sheet apps, but I do sometimes fear that if everyone has gadgets out it will be too distracting.

Years ago, my coworkers and I attempted to run an after-hours campaign at the office. It was pretty disastrous to run, mostly because everyone was too distracted. We all sat at out desks (we didn't have a big conference room), and the players had a tendency to get drawn into their workstations to pick off small work tasks, check email, and such when it wasn't their turn.

Fast forward to today, and I see it happening to a lesser extent with players getting distracted by their smartphones. They're either checking email, texting with SO's etc. when it isn't their turn.

This is possibly separate thread territory -- it's not enough that I want to ban the use of the devices. Many players have kids / wives that they need to stay in touch with and we tend to play a light, beer-and-pretzels style anyway. But I do like the notion that tech should unite, tempered by the caution that it can easily distract players.

 

[Aeolius]

I don't know if someone mentioned this or not, but I found the d20 SRD formatted for the iPad at Power Attack « Ungenius (the iPad version is Power Attack XL)

 

[Umbran]

Aside from what we've already seen- what sorts of things do you imagine people will be able to do with the iPad in gaming?

Given how closed the iPad is (in terms of developing for it - Apple has imposed some pretty strict limitations), I am not sure it is really going to become the Big Thing in gaming.

I think you'd have better luck thinking about tablet computers as a platform, in general.

Tablets are less space consuming than full laptops, but I don't think that really removes the distraction factor commonly reported. I generally prefer my players to be interacting with each other and me, rather than with a device. If my rules are so hefty that we need machines to keep track of them in play, I think I'd prefer to change my rules rather than add machines to the table.