Slug: ipad-as-creators-platform Date: 2010-01-28 Title: iPad As Creator’s Platform layout: post

Tim Bray tweeted today about the iPad as a content delivery platform:

the iPad looks cool. They’ll sell a ton. I might get one. All I said that is it’s a delivery platform not a creator’s platform.

I can see Tim’s point, but I’m also already getting ideas for creative apps that would be awesome on an iPad:

• DJ-ing, ‘natch. The iPad’s large touch surface is ideal for a next-generation DJ app. Anyone remember that music composition app that used physical objects on a projection surface a few years back? Hello, iPad. (Anyone got a link to that I’d love to add it here.)
• Photo montage/composition: Imagine an app that lets you pick images from the Photo app, then montage them, using your fingers to wipe out or blur edges, apply effects, re-order the photos in the overlay.
• Diagramming/mind-mapping: OmniGraffle on the iPad - select shapes from a menu/sidebar, tap to select, pinch to resize, rotate, drag from one to another to connect with arrows.
• The above, but for interior design/space-planning. Bonus: drop perspective-scaled images of products onto pics of the client’s home/space and pinh to rotate/resize to fit. I imagine interior designers falling all over each other for an app like that - easy to carry, show to clients.

These are seriously the result of 2 minutes of thinking. The iPad is going to be HUGE for creators and creative work.