Five Great Uses For The iPad In The Car

Post by Sharat | March 15, 2010 | Apple, Apple Computers, News, Tablet | Comment

Though it remains to be seen whether Apple’s iPad will be the killer hand held device of 2010, it is fairly obvious how useful the device looks as an accessory for cars. There are a number of uses the iPad can be put to when installed in your car and we go through some of them here.

GPS

Perhaps its most obvious use will be that of a GPS navigation system, through the Google Maps application. To be able to use the iPad as a GPS in your car, you will need to buy a 3G GPS iPad and pay your telecom provider a subscription fee for third generation services.

The iPad’s map application works exactly the way it does on the iPhone, except that it is clearly on a much larger screen, and it works a lot faster and comes with a terrain option. The iPad map application also comes with a compass, and offers high definition street view.

Videos

Having an LCD installed in the headrest of a car seat can be quite an expensive affair. The cheaper alternative is buying a few iPad’s. Though the iPad will not play television itself, without third party equipment, they do have decent storage space of between 16 to 64 gigabytes, that can be filled with video’s. If you buy a 3G enabled devices, then watching You Tube in the car becomes a very real possibility.

Tourism

If you find yourself travelling, then using the iPad to find places of interest is a useful application, and a need the maps application doesn’t quite fill. Using the iPad to do this is also the only way you can use Google Latitude on Apple devices.

Food Applications

Food apps that help you find restaurants will be incredibly useful when you are sitting in your car. Apps like Local Picks help you find the best restaurant in the area you are in.

Radio Apps

There are a ton of offerings that allow the user to listen to internet radio, that sound better than even FM radio. What you have to be careful of is that that they are data heavy, so if you don’t have an unlimited data plan, using the services can be quite a drain.

Like we said at the start, its not immediately clear how much of a success a tablet device will be in the hands of users. After all many company have attempted to launch such a device in the past and it has never really quite taken off, but we do think they will be great for use in the car. Perhaps not built into the dashboard, but certainly a must have when you go on a trip, and like the iPhone, have a mounting place inside the car.

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