I just finished converting my Pronto Pro theater control app to an iPad. I used the iRule application which was adequate for the task. Bear in mind that I only communicate with the PC that controls all aspects of the theater over TCP so I had no issues iPad wise with IR or RS232 or missing device codes etc.

I am not planning to abandon my Pronto Pro's. Members of my family asked me if I could build A/V control systems for their iPads, hence my interest

It took me about 10 days from start to finish. Most of the effort was spent getting a reasonable set of graphics and then dealing with the iRule application which is in a very early state of development. Since the iRule/iPad combination does not allow two way communications I had to eliminate one capability in my theater but not a big deal. The iRule learning curve was not too step, and the forum and customer support operations were very good. Not as good as RC (Here) but their formal customer support was excellent even on weekends. Remember they are a new forum we are an old established one. The iRule product is aimed at hobbyists at DIY'ers as much as installers and the formally recognize the DIY base.

The following comments pertain more to the iPad and really have nothing to do with iRule. iRule is analagous to PEP at about a development level of PEP 1

I really missed the hard keys!!! With the Pronto I had the hard keys doing very common things and could always locate them by feel. With the iPad I always had to look at the screen and that was a pain.

The iPad is very bright and it is always on. The screen does not have (AFAIK) a blanking feature with a user controlled timeout. It was very distracting. I ended laying it face down on the couch next to me.

Which brings up the next issue. When I picked it up the iPad always tried to adjust orientation. I only implemented landscape pages so it would show blank pages for the portrait modes. It would be nice if one could tell the iPad not to be so fancy. I did not implement gestures but the sliding gesture was there. Will be implementing the portrait pages but need to redesign the graphics slightly.