Even though my own friends would not see me as much the sentimental type, I’ve been in the market for a digital photo frame for quite some time now.  I actually feel quite warm and fuzzy being able to look at photos of my mates, family and past.  There have been a few reasons though why the current market of digital photo frames have not lived up to my requirements however.

Digital Photo Frames Obsolete?

• The screens on photo frames are generally of poor quality
• The screens are relatively small and you pay quite a great deal more for small increments in size
• The navigation on current digital photo frames are absolutely shocking. Hard buttons on the back are used to switch between photos.  Other frames with touch screens and navigation areas on the frame have been introduced with limited success
• The prices for digital photo frames are well over the mark, they have just the one purpose and as you can tell, in my opinion, they do not cater for that purpose all too well. For a decent sized digital photo frame you are looking at a couple of hundred dollars and they are still plagued with the same problems I see on digital photo frames time and time again

The End of Digital Photo Frames

The iPad may not be the perfect replacement for digital photo frames, mainly due to it’s price, but as far as the photo frame experience, the iPad fits the bill beautifully.

• The quality of the crystal clear screen allows for large viewing of photos and plenty of space for easy and effective navigation
• Speaking of navigation. It doesn’t get much better then this. Thumbnails ordered by how you want them whether it be by location, event, person (using face recognition techniques), you name it. Then of course all this is done via the touch screen rather then clunky buttons. To get a good idea of how this works, just take a look at iPhoto, there’s a nice short video here  “get to know iPhoto”.
• There are also specific photo album modes on the iPad so that photos can be displayed in unique photo album styles manners. I haven’t found out much about this feature but saw a snippet of it in a CNET review and it looked pretty neat.
• The optional stand and keyboard seems to support the iPad very nicely like a photo frame
• I’m assuming the iPad will not generate heat like a computer, leaving it safe and cool to touch and reasonable to leave in sleep mode for long periods of time (battery life in sleep mode is 30 days!) with a nice and fast boot up like a photo frame.

The Future of Digital Photo Frames

It does not have to be the end of digital photo frames, in fact, this could be the beginning. The iPad is clearly too expensive to own purely to serve as a photo frame, though the iPhoto software is so cool it’s tempting. But surely, either apple or another company can closely replicate the functions of the iPhoto in a more reasonably priced version of the iPad with a decent sized touch screen with clarity. I await such products to surface. Either that, or for the price of iPads to reduce.