Apple iPad and Online Gambling
Steve Jobs introduced the new Apple iPad to the world yesterday, and not only does it look like the best gadget we’ve seen since the iPhone and iPod Touch, we also think that it will have a big impact on the world of online gambling. For those of you who have not yet seen the Apple iPad device, we can perhaps best describe it as a large iPod Touch – a machine that Steve Jobs described as being “So much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone.”
The Apple iPod will be available worldwide from the end of March, and the UK price will be around £308 for a basic 16GB Wi-Fi model. The iPad is designed to do certain things better than either smart phones or laptops, and some of those things are sharing pictures, watching video, working with email, reading ebooks and browsing the web. It is the latter function that we believe will get the online gambling industry particularly excited.
Right now, if a person wants to play at an online casino, they must either play on a desktop computer, a laptop, or a mobile phone. The Apple iPod could change all of that, and give players the chance to curl up with their device and – assuming that they have the required Wi-Fi or 3G coverage – play games at instant casinos which use regular web browsers (for example, Virgin Casino) rather than software that must be downloaded.
Taking that idea further, gambling software developers might decide to create games that are specifically designed for the Multi-Touch screen technology at the heart of the Apple iPad. For example, you could slide chips to the relevant area of the blackjack table to place bets, or shoot your own dice when playing craps with a quick sweep of the finger.
We don’t want to get too carried away, but if the Apple iPad proves to be as popular as the iPod Touch and iPhones were then we might even see a resurgence in web-based poker games. This would allow users to play real cash poker games using the Apple iPod web browser as the main interface. There are already a few ‘instant poker’ sites around, but if the iPad is popular with poker players then we may see many more of them in the months and years to come.
It isn’t often that a new device is introduced that has the potential to revolutionise an industry, but we think that the Apple iPad could have a seriously positive impact on the way we play online gambling games in the future. We will obviously have to wait and see if the Apple iPad and online gambling potential translates to reality, but right now we think that online gambling fans who acquire an iPad will have a massive amount to look forward to.
Article Published: 26/05/2010 13:48:58
