The Apple iPad is an exceptionally long-lived device. There’s no reason to upgrade them frequently and in my personal experience these tablets don’t show much battery wear over the years either.
In fact, I now have a five-year upgrade cycle, and my original iPad 2 stayed in use for a decade, as it was passed down from one family member to the next. Which is all a way to say that even if you get a new and shiny iPad, there’s probably something cool or useful you can do with the old one that’s worth more than simply selling it.
Turning it into a smart home controller
Having a central, shared screen anyone can use in the home to control your smart home devices is a genuinely useful thing to have. With an iPad, you can essentially install whatever app is used by your smart home ecosystem, and just leave it open or at least front and center on the home screen for anyone who needs to adjust something.
Sadly, you can no longer use an iPad as an Apple HomeKit hub, but it’s still perfect for HomeKit UI duties, paired with a hub device like an Apple TV or HomePod.
Using it as a digital photo frame
There are plenty of cheap digital photo frames you can buy online or in stores, but why spend $50 or more on a digital photo frame when you can use an old iPad you already own? The screens on iPads are excellent, and there are so many mounting options that you won’t have a hard time making something elegant and attractive.
The only small niggle here is that the built-in tools for photos in iPadOS aren’t really suited for this purpose. You can set up a basic slideshow and get a barebones photo frame experience going, but to do it right you’ll need a third-party app. If you want one free of ads, a paid one is the right way to go. I don’t have any specific recommendation, since there are quite a few options, but Synched Photo Frame has a single once-off fee, and is a good example of the type of app you should be looking for.
One thing to keep in mind is that your old iPad is still more than just a photo frame, so you can have it idle as a frame, but then pick it up any time or hand it to a guest to use for something else like web browsing.
Reworking it into a kitchen assistant
I’ve actually found that my main personal iPad is my most useful cooking and kitchen tool. I have several digital cookbooks on it, I constantly use Siri to set timers and reminders, and, of course, I look up information and videos when I’m in doubt. So dedicating an old iPad to your kitchen for everyone to use isn’t a bad idea at all.
Turning it into a second monitor
I actually use my personal main iPad as a second monitor for my MacBook when I’m working away from my desk, but if you have an old iPad this is a great way to give it a permanent and useful extra life. After all, portable screens aren’t cheap!
If you have a Mac, you can use the built-in SideCar feature to turn it into an extended display. If you have a Windows system, then you’ll have to use a third-party application like Duet Display. Certain USB-C iPads can also act as HDMI monitors, but using a USB-C HDMI capture dongle and a third-party app like Orion.
Repurposing it as a drawing and sketching pad
There are so many great drawing apps for iPad, that it’s the perfect solution as a dedicated drawing pad. The idea is of course to use an Apple Pencil, assuming you have an iPad compatible with one of the Pencil models. However, if you don’t want to spend that much extra, you can get quite far with a “dumb” stylus in apps like ProCreate.
Another intriguing option is to use an app like EasyCanvas to turn your old iPad into a PC-connected drawing tablet, similar to how Wacom’s devices work. Letting you draw directly in software like PhotoShop.
Turning it into a retro or cloud gaming console
Thanks to Apple’s relaxed stance on emulators, I’ve been enjoying using my iPad as a retro gamng machine. Not only is the typical iPad more than powerful enough to emulate most retro systems, the 4:3 aspect ratio that the vast majority of iPads have is perfect for games from the CRT era of console gaming. There’s superlative controller support in iPadOS, and it’s easy to hook it up to external displays (depending on the model) and external audio.
There are also numerous great cloud gaming services, which means playing the latest games via Wi-Fi on your tablet. As long as you temper your expectations, an iPad can be a truly great gaming option.