Jetstar chief information officer (CIO) Stephen Tame believes Apple's iPad tablet may end airlines providing in-flight movies and television to stave off boredom.
Speaking to ZDNet.com.au, Tame said the tablet "may lead in the future the end of airline in-flight entertainment systems".
"A lot of airline customers do this now with iPods [and] MP3 players; however, the usage take-up was limited by size of the screens," he said.
Tame, who would be waiting for mark II of the tablet before he purchased one for himself, said the new platform would move Apple's App Store "from toys to true functional business and consumer applications".
The larger screen size, when compared to the iPhone, would "significantly change the capability of available applications", he said.
The iPad tablet was unveiled in San Francisco yesterday. There are two models, one of which was confirmed to be available in March by an Australian Apple spokesperson.
Only the Wi-Fi version has been confirmed for Australia. The Wi-Fi and 3G iPad would be available in April in the US and could not be confirmed for down under.
, a Qantas owned Australian low-cost airline, has announced plans to trial Apple  as an in-flight entertainment option. This trial would make Jetstar one of the first airlines in the world to offer the iPad.

Starting later this month, Jetstar plans to begin a two-week trial, during which passengers will have the option to rent iPads for 10 on domestic flights longer than an hour. Thirty iPads would be available on each test plane. These devices would be preloaded with games, e-books, music and video content. Internet access however will be disabled as per Jetstar's policy on internet connected devices, said spokeswoman Andrea Wait. 

The iPads offered by Jetstar, will be specially customized by . Bluebox Avionics, at present, is the only company to offer iPads as part of an in-flight entertainment system. Jetstar will be the first to offer the Bluebox Avionics iPad based systems, though, Bluebox Avionics has said the system will be available to other airlines soon.

Shortly following the initial release of the iPad, Jetstar chief information officer Stephen Tame speculated that the iPad "may lead in the future the end of airline in-flight entertainment systems". Depending on the results of the trial, iPads may replace existing Jetstar in-flight entertainment systems.

Jetstar chief executive Bruce Buchanan said he expected the iPads to be very popular during the trial. If the trial is successful, the airline would “be looking to roll out the devices across our entire domestic and international network later in the year", said Buchanan.