Prompted by a question on Twitter, here’s three ideas for making good use of an old iPad, rather than leaving it in a drawer gathering dust.
A Dedicated eBook Reader
Although I’m not an avid reader, I do have a large number of reference books and magazines in both Kindle and PDF formats. As well as the dedicated Kindle app, I’ve also installed GoodReader which allows you to open (and annotate) many different file formats including PDF. Files can be copied directly to the iPad, either wirelessly or using a cable and a free app called GoodReaderUSB. Alternatively, files can be downloaded from cloud-based services such as DropBox.
Edutainment Centre
Watch TV, watch films, listen to music or listen to podcasts. There’s a number of apps that you can install that will turn your iPad into an Edutainment Centre. These include the BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, TuneIn Radio, Stereolizer (love this for the realistic graphics) and Downcast for listening to podcasts.
Use it in a Webinar
Some of the subjects that my Training Show co-host Elaine Giles covers in her webinars are iPad-related, including iBooks Author and the Photoshop Touch apps. Of course this means that she uses the iPad to deliver the webinar. Whilst she’s delivering, my role is to act as Technical Assistant. In addition to keeping my eye on the webinar chat and other technical aspects, prior to the webinar Elaine hands over her iPad 1 to me so that I can monitor her email and Twitter feed without having to log in to her accounts on my own devices.
What about You?
What uses can you think of for your poor old unloved iPad 1? Please let us know.