I am a bit meh about my Ipad present...why do you like yours?

[ggirl]

I am on my laptop atm.

Am slightly underwhelmed by the ipad tbh..but maybe it's because I haven't got any apps to use excite me.

So what's so fab and any good apps I should get?

Hairy letters brill for kids, I play solitaire, DH plays chess, big DD uses iplayer to watch Friday Download and The 4 o'clock club and small DD plays Peppa Pig. Also use it for fbook, emailing and reading the Sun website. We fight over it all the time but I usually win because it is officially mine!

I'm never without mine (tbh have to prise it out of DD's hand sometimes)
For games I'd recommend Tap the Frog and Ice Age Village, DD loves Sonic Racing.
Other Apps, My Fitness Pal, have a few free Yoga apps, cople of newspaper apps, lots of free books through iBooks.
Also BBC iPlayer is brilliant.
I was't sure if I would want any sort of tablet, but tbh I never use our laptop now.

use it for work
social emails
like a kindle
watch catch up tv on it

Do you access the internet on it via your mobile?

I love FlipBoard - all my social media and much more in a magazine format - FB, Twitter,blogs, newsfeeds from websites - my favourite at the moment is Tinywrld, which has time lapse videos from all over the world. It's now got audio feeds as well, though there's not a massive selection of those so far.

I also have the Ancestry app to help me work on the family tree, Guardian Eyewitness for gorgeous photos, Weather Pro is the best weather forecasting app I've found, TrainTimes and train line for journey planning.

If you like spelling bees there are loads of word games - try Deduce, where you have to guess a six letter word in the style of the MasterMind game, or wurdle, which I think is the best of the many Boggle-type games (though I also have the Boggle app itself) or Moxie2

The best card games are probably Eric Snider's (Klondike, FreeCell and Spider) though the Mondo app is great too as it has over 40 games.

was a bit meh about mine and considering taking it back until I got a logitech ultrathin keyboard. My macbook has been very lonely since as I have used the ipad for the majority of surfing and internet since then.

How is it possible to be 'meh' about a gift that cost 500 quid!?

Mine is my 'baby HQ control panel', I use it for email, shopping etc while looking after small baby dd. We also use Skype and FaceTime for talking to overseas relatives. Being able to flip the image round so they can see dd while I talk is great. The camera is good too.

I've always used desktop pcs before but, after dd was born, realised that an iPad would be just the thing while I'm confined to the sofa for hours. It is.

Yep great for Skype. Use it for talking to friends and family overseas regularly. And we can do it when we are out in the back garden or on holiday at the beach!

I also have lots of recipe apps downloaded and prop it up in the kitchen when I cook for the recipes. It also has some great meal planners linked to a recipe/food shopping app, which I find very handy.

My DD uses it tonnes as well. There are lots of spelling, counting, reading, colouring apps that she uses all the time. Was able to learn to write her name quite easily using a finger spelling app on there. Also lots of simple kids books for early reading. Really brilliant for her.

I love love love the ipad and the new ipad's screen resolution (bought after DD dropped and broke the ipad2 ) is beautiful.

I bought ours because I started home educating my DD (age 9) and wanted to use it as an educational tool. It's fantastic for that and there are some brilliant educational apps. If you want to hear about the best apps for that agegroup then I'll post them here for you, but off the top of my head, The Elements is stunning, MathBingo great for mental arithmetic, LearnBot for language games, Stack the Countries for geography, and Book Creator; DD is now on page 75 of her novel.

I use it for surfing the web when I'm in bed (the laptop is too big) or out (although we don't have 3G). I use the Flashcards app for practising my Italian verbs and occasionally play Where's My Water on it (I'm really not a games kind of person though) or watch BBC iplayer. I don't think it would have been worth buying just for me; lovely as it is it's scarily expensive, but it's been fantastic for DD.

Yes and DD uses it to skype family too.

I also use mine to avoid work in that I used to open my work laptop to surf the web and invevitably I would check work emails. Now have no need to drag out laptop, mouse etc and can avoid work totally when at home.

I don't really play games on my iPad but i read the newspaper in bed on it, surf generally, emails, MN,FB, choose recipes, make notes etc. It's always at my sde on the sofa to look up anything that crosses my mind and I barely use the desktop now. Didn't want or need one but would replace it in a jiffy.

Our desktop is very rarely off, so I still use that most of the time instead of the Ipad, I prefer it for general surfing, email etc and definitely for word processing. The Ipad wins on portability (within the house, virtually never take it out), instant boot up, apps for children, so it has it's place, but I definitely don't get as much out of it as some of you.

5yo DS watches Dinosaur train and Thomas via YouTube on DH's IPad.

DS feels sad for me as my IPad does not connect to the Internet.

Which is what I have told him mwahahahaha!

It's threads like this which convince me I don't want an iPad. I never play games - in fact I hate computer based games. The only thing you have mentioned that I would use is the Calender/Diary, but I use that on my iPhone, which is more convenient as it is more easily portable and always with me! Thanks MN for saving me some money, and OP, I'm not surprised you are underwhelmed! Did you ask for it or did someone else decide you needed it?

It keeps DS amused with puzzles or similar when he wakes between 5 and 5.30 every morning and we can get a half an hour doze. I know I know bad parents, but we'd go spare otherwise.

please forgive me if someone has already mentioned this but my iPad was very useful today. I was able to properly watch my daughter's gym competition routine while videoing the whole thing at the same time. i just sat the iPad on my lap, it covered the whole mat area so i knew I'd get it all in without having to keep looking at what i was recording. i could sit back and actually enjoy the display. Photos and videos do seem to be excellent quality.

If you're not interested in games, it's going to take a while longer to show its usefulness to you.

I play a lot of games, but I also do a lot of work on mine, as it's handy to take to meetings rather than my laptop. I can access my dropbox files from it and my work emails. I've got Pages for editing documents, and Notability for recording and taking notes in a meeting.

There's a National Rail app for figuring out your journey, HootSuite if you need to manage multiple twitter accounts (or just plain Twitter if you have just the one!).

My toddler uses lots of apps - Toca do fantastic non-competitive/non-fail games like Toca Robot and Toca Train, something called Phone4Kids looks a bit naff but the paid version has some great apps in it, Elmo Calls makes it seem like Elmo is doing Facetime with you.

It's great for going online when you're watching TV and a laptop is too bulky. Wouldn't be without mine now.

I use it for mumsnetting and i also watch stuff on the Iplayer when dh is watching the boring fecking football on the tv :)

Am not a games person but use Facebook & Twitter and Safari loads. E.mail, FaceTime, DC use games and learning apps,phonics tables & spelling.love BBCi player for catching up on R4while I iron. Also use reminders and calendar to organise myself and family....I love it,in fact weall love it. Also have I phone so two used together with I Cloud. Great for music and photos. Sound quality is good.

I know it seems spoilt to moan but I didn't ask for it..in fact specifically said not to get me an iPad . However I think he was stumped for ideas. Anyway ds is loving it and for kids it's great.
I've found a great app for house decor which is good ,so any others similar would be great.
I read my kindle in bed so don't take it to bed..maybe I should .

Will def use it to help ds at school.

I would have got you a nice piece from Alex Monroe. So there :)

You can read kindle on your iPad in the dark.

I downloaded an app called Magic Plan where you stand in the middle of a room and take "pictures" of the corners. The app then creates a floor plan of the room.

Sounds awesome, I'm going to update mine, always a bit belated in new (relatively) techy stuff. Great apps advice.