Assuming iPod Touches and iPhones will be able to synch / pair up. Why not 4 handhelds and an iPad? One might then be able to play just about any card game or similar there is.

Basic Principals
iPad acts as the table / the deck ? playing surface.
The handhelds are paired with the iPad.
Handheld displays a player’s hand.
Using buttons or gestures, cards or tiles are transferred to and from iPad (deck) and handhelds.
Could be played as manually or as automated as designer / players want.

Could start with Snap
2 handhelds and 1 iPad
iPad has deck and displays discards
iPad shuffles pack and deals cards to players handheld. Cards are displayed on handheld
Players discard selected cards in turn using gestures and buttons – e.g. tap to select card and tap discard button or flick card out of screen space.
When 2 cards the same the first to tap a button on their handheld wins or each player has an area of the iPad they have to tap. The paired cards appear in an area on the winners side of the iPad.(player’s game space?)
When you discard, the iPad automatically gives you a new card off the deck. This could be animated. Or the player drags the card from the deck to their game space and it appears in the player’s handheld.
At the end of the game the iPad can calculate the score and say “Congratulations Blue player wins with 20 pairings” or something.

Could do this with almost any card/tile game that involves discarding / picking up.

What I really want is to be bale to play a proper game of Mahjong.

IPad is the playing surface where the wall is created, tiles removed, tiles discarded, the discarded tile snapped up by other players (or not). If not either turned over or left character side up (a preference) and moved to the side within the wall.
iPad could allocate the winds and the wind of the round. These would appear on the players handheld.
Ipad would show and sound twittering sparrows, then construct the wall. Wind of the round would be asked to roll the dice (hopefully the dice roller app would be used on the handheld). The iPad would know the result and would split the wall and allocate the titles. Could be done in a flash or animated in some way
Handheld would show the tiels. They can be dragged about and arranged.
IPad would then sort out any flowers starting with the East wind of the round. Messages saying so would display on iPad. Flower title would appear on players end of iPad and animation of replacement tile from the wall would be palyed and tile would appear on handheld. This would repeat until all flowers in hand are replaced. Next wind is then processed (if any).
Preferences would be how fast one wanted to play the game, how automated, how much messages etc, sound. Could have a knowledge system advising players what hands are available with the titles (may even set it to take into account what tiles have been discarded (card counter). Could have it point out when you are one tile away and announce it to all players for you or not. Could have it automatically announce Mahjong.
I don’t know how the betting works, but surely should be able to set something up.
What about versions of the game – Chinese, European, three players.

maybe a little too complicated and expensive for card game and Mahjong .. don't you think so ?

He's on the right track but not clued to the serious money. If you expand that into other gaming forms the cost stars looking more reasonable. Take tactical minatures gaming. Many of those physical model armies can several hundered USD if not a thousand, and that's per army. The trick is to not sell it as a main use for the iPad/phones/pods but as an addtion to other uses... not enthusists because they are the least likely to bite if they haven't already gotten an i device.

I've peged practically priced Virtual Tabletop (VTT) additions or replacements at about 3 years or so out. Unless something unexpected happens that's about when touch handhelds and portable projectors prices combined will start to match phyiscal miniture prices.

Let's take the award winning Settlers of Catan board game. The phyiscal game us 42 (62 for 5-6 players) USD, and 42 (62) per 3 expansions. That's 168 to 248 dollars for the fully expanded game. You just hit iPod prices on one game. The iPod verson of the 42 dollar game is 4.99 on the App store. The one drawback is the resource cards and development cards when your playing hot seat (hot pass).

Take Games Workshop's Warhammer 40k (and Fantasy). A quick army box is 90 USD and you typical need about 3 to field a full tournament legal army. Add a 30 USD army book plus paints(bushes, glue) and your looking at the very least 300 USD for one army. And that could be considered a rather basic army. Considering that it is a two player game... 600 for two people to a play rather basic army setups. Welcome to base model iPad price add a 3rd army and call that an iPad and a projector.

I have not looked at more traditional board game prices in a long time but the key is reaching at equal cost or even a savings over the physical versions for it to be taken seriously. That means you need to offer several different games.

More on topic with card games on the iPad would be collectable card games (Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering) are not quite at that equal pricing quite yet. And honestly the only to strip that rectangular paper from the players hands would be to offer mated projected holographic play... not quite there yet :-/ .

There are non-collectable card games that go beyond a standard 52 card deck. Most of the from Steve Jackson games. Munchkin (plus spin-offs), Ninja Burger, Anima:Shadow of Omega (and expansion), and many more. However again the prices just won't be competive unless you can bring a big catalog for low price.

I think the iPad will definitely be a cool platform for old school type board games and possibly even cards like you mentioned. It's going to be interesting to see how far this goes

Originally Posted by iDoug

I think the iPad will definitely be a cool platform for old school type board games and possibly even cards like you mentioned. It's going to be interesting to see how far this goes

Yeah i can imagine my self play the Monopoly in it

I'd like to see Hold-em On it first

Mmm iPad Risk would be fun too!

For card games one could at least sort out the basic functions: shuffling, dealing, moving cards rom iPad to handhelds and visa versa, discarding, displaying hands on iPad, with preferences for number of cards etc. Then the players play what they like. In an ideal world it would be open source for others to add specific cames on top.

Originally Posted by JohnnyApple

I'd like to see Hold-em On it first

Mmm iPad Risk would be fun too!

I'm with you on the Holdem.

Cya