I want to play chess with my grandson on line. I am planning to buy him an iPad3 which is very expensive. My son has suggested a google nexus 7 or similar. Will I be able to play chess, do face time and generally communicate with him thru my ipad 3 if he does not have an iPad 3?
There should be several Chess alternatives that will work cross platform. You will probably have to do some research to pick the right app and host. I see there is a Chess for FaceBook app. I'm guessing Android will have one too.
You will not be able to FaceTime; however Skype will work on both the iPad and Android devices. Like FaceTime, Skype will allow you to video chat.
On the other hand, you can forget you heard that if you want to keep the pressure on for an iPad 3.
P.S. Did a little research after the fact. Chess.com has apps for both Android and iOS phones. While an iPhone app won't look as nice on the iPad, it will probably work. That is probably also true for the Android phone app on the Nexus 7, though not quite as bad since their isn't as big a size difference.
I think that ^^^ just about covers it. But just to add the following (forgive me if you know this) the iPad & any android device such as the Nexus 7 run a completely different OS & FaceTime is specific to Apple devices. AFAIK, Skype works well on iOS, but you would be well advised to check on the Skype website for compatibility with the Nexus as not all android devices are the same. Despite that, there are many different apps that exist on both platforms and any good website offering multiplayer chess games would work on both devices. The two types of devices will also talk to each other for sharing files etc either via Dropbox, email or when connected to the same wifi connection point if the two of you are visiting.
Your other option, I guess, if there is a desire for a smaller screen, might be to wait & see when the iPad mini is released. It should only be a few days to the announcement now.
