iPad: The Remote Control for Everything?

At this year's cable show, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts demonstrated, the iPad as the new remote control for your  for your video experience.   Above is ABC's iPad application.  The device is not only the world's coolest remote control, it allows you to program your cable box and to invite friends to watch with you.  As my friend Dan Bricklin noted, the iPad could become the Remote Control for your entire house.  As heating and cooling systems have more and more connectivity, appliances get smarter, even your relatives become connected to the network through their pacemaker or blood glucose monitor, the iPad, and the devices which will follow it, will finally give us a universal, touchable, facile control device to interact with all these different technologies and systems.  The Apple iStore will provide the ecosystem for innovation, and the customers will vote with their attention.  As Dan Bricklin pointed out in his wonderful blog "When the Long Tail Wags the Dog" -- the potential future value of a general device gets people to adopt it today because, not only do they get what they want now, but they can get even more cool stuff later.

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