Played with a Microsoft Surface last week at the Branded in Boulder conference. A couple years ago this thing would have blown me away, now it just seems like old technology when you carry an iPhone and iPad around all day.

My beef with it? The UX is unresponsive and the draw-rate blows in some instances. Surface uses cameras in the table pointed at the screen to sense touch and items placed on it. Items placed on the table can then be bordered and assigned edges for collision. In some instances if they have Microsoft Tags (facing down, naturally) the table can read them and if connected to the internet bring up information from the tag.

This got me thinking, what if Apple made a GIGANTIC iPad and it used the iOS SDK. Even if it cost in upwards of $10,000, companies could easily have dev-shops make one-off applications since the iOS SDK is old hat by now. Think of all the amazing places these would be popping up. Hell, I’d save up and buy one so I could have the best coffee table ever.