After months of imagining all the kitchen possibilities for the iPad, one of the first things we did when our household received its new tablet was head straight for the Epicurious app. Cue the heavenly choirs! To be sure, the iPad is not a necessity, but we must admit we're pretty smitten.
We already use laptops and smartphones in the kitchen, and the iPad combines the best of both worlds. Like the iPhone, it already has cooking-related apps with the potential for many more to come. Like the laptop, it's easier to read, type, and navigate – but without the worry of crumbs and (minor) spills. We don't see the iPad replacing our favorite cookbooks any time soon, but for all the food blog and other online recipes we use, this is just the tool we have been waiting for.
Regarding the Epicurious app, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, we really think it's phenomenal. We already like the app for the iPhone, but the iPad is so much more user-friendly in the kitchen. The app's first selling point is access to the Epicurious recipe database, which is already a much used and respected resource. Navigation is clear and elegant and there are a number of browse and search options, from featured recipes (e.g., Fast Breakfasts, Healthy Lunches, Mother's Day) to searching by category and/or keyword. With the tap of a finger, results can be displayed alphabetically or by relevance, photo, rating, or newness.
The recipe view includes a pop-out ingredients list (so easy to see!) and quick-reference tabs for general information, reviews, and nutrition. The text can be displayed in three sizes. We also like how easy it is to mark recipes as favorites and to email them to yourself or others. In addition, the shopping list feature allows you to add all of the ingredients from a recipe to the list and then check them off (though we'd prefer the ability to selectively add ingredients).
Aside from Epicurious and all the other cooking apps that are sure to come, we think the iPad will be a great tool for viewing food blogs, accessing recipes saved in Google Reader, watching tutorials, and possibly reading electronic food magazines (we know we aren't the only ones dreaming of a Gourmet revival!).
Do you have the iPad, or are you thinking of getting one? How would you use it in the kitchen?
• Get the app: Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List
Apartment Therapy Media makes every effort to test and review products fairly and transparently. The views expressed in this review are the personal views of the reviewer and this particular product review was not sponsored or paid for in any way by the manufacturer or an agent working on their behalf.
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Admittedly it would be kinda neat to see a bigger screen when I look at recipes, but not for $500. If you have that kind of money burning a hole in your pocket, more power to you. For now I'll stick with using my blackberry for recipes.
I just set my laptop on a dining room table :) works great.
I use a cookbook.
I can't wait to see where the iPad goes. I have a feeling its going to be just as successful as the iPhone in the long run. I dont have one yet, but I've played with one. The larger screen really is amazing.
Now if only someone could develop an app that imported blog recipes into it:)
My laptop has a keyboard cover so I don't have to worry about getting food into it if I use it in the kitchen to help... and oh wait IT HAS A KEYBOARD. Sorry, I'm not sold on the ipad by any means.
My fiance and I are both tech nuts and promptly ran out and got an iPad. I've used the epicurious app and have pulled up my trusty Cooks Illustrated on it. So much nicer than the iphone, and somehow more friendly to the kitchen than my laptop. I always worry about getting gunk in the keys and although the footprint isn't really all that different, the laptop seems to be always in the way while the ipod is a much more natural object to reference. That said, while it's quite fun it's hardly essential. But I do love it all the same.
I made Drunken Beans last night for dinner using Epicurious and my new iPad. I loved it! So much easier than using my iPhone, and I especially like the little marker that you can slide up and down beside the recipe so you don't lose your place.
Oh, also, a small but useful feature of the Epicurious app that you overlooked is that the orange arrow pictured in the fourth image is a movable bookmark of sorts. You can slide it up and down the page to mark which step you are on as you go. It's a handy sort of thing.
I second this "cookbook" concept. Some of the "tech nuts" should try one out some day. They might just be the next big craze!
I'm too clumsy in the kitchen to have any sort of laptop (or ipad!) in there - I just print out recipes and bring those into the kitchen. Bonus: then I have them later when I'm trying to remember what I made.
aperocot: I don't think it's an either/or deal necessarily. Our apartment is stacked with cookbooks, and books in general, to the point where finding room is an issue. Having the option to live with less physical "things" can be liberating, especially in or around the kitchen; it's a "craze" which I think we could all do well incorporating, the living with less clutter bit.
For those of us who do use laptops, iPhones, Blackberries and their digital ilk in the kitchen, apps like this are sure to be very welcome. The bigger screen is a blessing, and the eventual incorporation of video how-to's are going to revolutionize publications and resources (imagine Cook's Illustrated).
I'd be all over it if it had a water-proof, burn-proof sleeve!
I'm waiting for the i-Implant(TM) for my brain.
I really want one! I think it would be great in the kitchen.
I love my cookbooks, but really downsized my library for my last move this past winter. It was kinda hard to do, but I'm glad I did. I just kept my all time favorites.
That ipad looks fun and user friendly.
Hahaha, my main motivation for purchasing an iPad was for use in the kitchen!!!
I never felt comfortable leaving my laptop in the kitchen because my apartment is small and I'm a bit messy when I cook / bake. Granted, I was getting more exercise when I was running from the stove to the coffee table to check a recipe, but this is so much more convenient. :)
The Epicurious app is BEYOND beautiful... I highly recommend it! Just an FYI, users can also purchase & download cookbooks via iBooks or the Kindle app too.
any plans for a kitchn app?
My laptop is the most convenient in my kitchen--I'd need a stand to prop up an ipad to make it close to as functional as my laptop. Plus $500 is too much for me to spend for a non-essential kitchen gadget.
It's not for me, but I don't have a cell phone either. At work I sit in front of a computer all day. When I'm at home, the last thing I want to do is sit/stand in front of another computer. So I'd still rather use a cookbook.
I can't wait to get an iPad for the kitchen! Taking my MacBook Pro into the kitchen is an accident waiting to happen, and considering it is my production machine, too, I can't afford to lose it. The iPod touch is great, but too small for recipes. And, yes, I have a selection of cookbooks, but those cookbooks aren't constantly updated with new recipes, unlike blogs and cooking sites.
I certainly do not begrudge anyone's purchase of the iPad. As a person who has solely used Apple computers since the age of 12, I definitely get the brand's appeal. However, I've personally found that I rarely use Epicurious on my laptop (although it does sometimes come in handy) and I've never used my Epicurious app on my iPhone. For shame!
I do look forward to seeing what brands, companies and publishers come up with for the iPad. I was intrigued by Interview's iPad version that was readied in time for the pad's release. However, I still really love the tactile nature of books and magazines. Maybe someday, I always wait past first gen anyhow.
I must be old-fashioned, I still love cookbooks. But I think it looks like an awesome tool for someone who can both afford it and get good use out of it. Have fun!
I love cookbooks myself, but strangely only for reading materials. When it comes to actually going into the kitchen and cooking away at something, I find foodie blogs (and yes, epicurious) far more useful. Besides, I hate having to prop books open.
My husband bought me an iPad as a present for going to school, and I must admit, one of the first apps I downloaded was Epi. The apple-branded cover makes it even easier to use in the kitchen since you can use it to put up the iPad at two different angles.
Sooo yeah, it is not a cookbook replacement. And it's probably not worth it if you just want to replace cookbooks. But if you're looking for a good netbook replacement that can handle your cookbooks, calendar, music, movies, books, comics, silly sketches, weather, etc... then it starts to become more worth it.
Unfortunately, watching videos and tutorials might not work so well as Apple stubbornly refuses to support Adobe flash applications and video. I always feel frustrated when I can't view a video embedded into a food blog. And for a product that claims it's primary use is to surf the net, not supporting Flash is a little lame.
I plan on getting one. I have a really great cookbook holder with a huge shield. I'll use the iPad as an electronic cookbook and will place it in the holder when I need to follow a new recipe. I follow so many recipes from the internet: epicurious, allrecipes, food network, you tube tutorials, google reader, etc. This way I will save on having to print the recipe and I won't risk spilling anything on it. Plus I could watch a few cooking shows on it while I cook!
Five hundred dollars for an ipad, when the only thing I've seen it do that isn't available on my laptop is this app? Sorry, but I don't do kitchen unitaskers, especially at this price point.
@foodrepublik - well put. Apple's whole stance on how flash would "make the ipad unstable" and how the world should just stop using flash because Apple said so is extremely ridiculous. Flash isn't going anywhere for a while, and there are *tonnes* of instructional videos and recipes that are done in flash. I'm a big fan of foodwishes.blogspot.com and all his recipes are flash videos. If I were to buy an ipad to try to view a site like that, I'd have a $500 paperweight that I can get angry at.
I honestly don't get the ipad buzz. I don't think anyone else does either. People have yet to tell me what I can do with an iPad that I can't do with an iPhone (which in turn, nobody has told me what I can do with an iPhone that I couldn't do with my blackberry several years ago). It seems like the same old thing, rehashed and prettied up and put in a commercial so it sells well to joe six-pack. $500 can buy a lot of other things.
I agree that the non-Flash issue is pretty irritating to me, too! Especially since I'm in the process of creating a photography website...Flash is so pretty. :) But I'll probably stick with trusty old html.
I'm sure the iPad would be useful in the kitchen. But so are my magazines and cookbooks. And if a recipe comes from the internet, it's much easier to print something out so I can take notes on it, scratch things out, and generally remember what I did differently. Then I just keep the pages in a binder.
If you already had the iPad for some other reason, I can see that it'd be useful in the kitchen and many other places. But it sure isn't a selling point for me.
I would like flash too, but unfortunately they're not lying when they say Flash is buggy and unsafe as hell too.
Perhaps I'm just cynical because the only virus I've ever had on my machine came through flash, even though I had updated it and everything. If you get unlucky, occasionally you have to completely uninstall and reinstall flash, rather than just using their update. Fortunately I think that issue was fixed, but I lost a lot of trust in Flash then.
I'd love to use an iPad in the kitchen. Currently, I switch between a netbook and my iPhone, depending on what I'm doing. An iPad on a dock would be the perfect combination of both, and for that reason, I'm sure I'll break down & buy one eventually.
I am a huge fan of MacGourmet as a recipe catalog app.
This is a combo Mac and iPhone/iPod Touch app, and they sync together. The Mac app imports directly from many common recipe sites such as Epicurious and Food Network. Can import text directly, which made it very easy to bring in my recipes and to pull recipes from sites that are not auto-imports.
I use the app on my MacBook and my iPod Touch. An iPad version is under development.
http://macgourmet.com/
I love the epicurious iPhone app and can't wait to use the iPad version. I still love cookbooks but I rarely cook from them, the same with food magazines. I love reading them and studying from them but for quickness and ease of use I've been using laptops and smart phones for the last 3 years to get recipes and almost every recipe published is now online.