With Apple’s iPad officially going on sale in UK stores today, we can expect a flood of apps and services tailored to the device to appear in the coming weeks. First up: Watch TV on your iPad, courtesy of BBC iPlayer and Sky. But is the iPad really suited to TV viewing?

May 28, 2010 — Anyone who’s already received their preordered iPad, or been lucky enough to grab one of the limited stock of iPads hitting the shelves across the UK today, can now get their first taste of wow factor. In the run-up to the device’s arrival in Britain and the rest of Europe, journalists, reviewers, and bloggers have criticised the iPad for failing to carve out a specific niche. It’s neither ‘just a big iPhone’ nor a fully fledged netbook, leaving many unsure as to whether the device can truly herald a new era in computing.

A new era? Apple’s iPad hits stores today, bringing with it on-demand TV viewing courtesy of Sky and the BBC.

Well, it’s probably safe to assume that the device’s potential hasn’t yet been realised. The first big announcements in the UK seem to confirm this assumption: It’s now possible to take out a monthly subscription to Sky Digital with the intention of watching it solely on your iPad via Sky’s new app. Similarly, BBC’s iPlayer has this week updated its interface in order to make it more suitable for the iPad. It was, of course, already possible to watch iPlayer on an iPhone or netbook, so having access on-the-go is nothing new. But the concept of being able to simply sit on a train and watch high-quality films, news, documentaries — you name it — via an easy-to-use interface is perhaps worthy of the term ‘new era’. It’s the first time on-demand TV has gone portable in a form that you could enjoy watching for any length of time.

But let’s not get carried away. Observers criticised the iPad when it emerged that its screen resolution was a mere 1,024 x 768 pixels (with a 4:3 aspect ratio). This means the screen, far from not being Full HD, isn’t even HD-ready. So what happens when you want to watch a stunning new BBC documentary in widescreen format?

Yes, folks, it’s the return of the dreaded black bars.