Dad can stay in touch on the go from the iPad using these social networking apps.

Friendly for Facebook (Free) - The Facebook app for the iPhone is one of the best apps there is, and arguably a better way to work with Facebook than the Facebook Website itself. Unfortunately, Facebook hasn't invested similar effort in an app that takes advantage of the unique platform the iPad represents. Fear not, though. --the "unofficial Facebook iPad app" delivers an enhanced Facebook browsing experience with multi-account support (so the whole family can enjoy), photo uploading, sharing and commenting.

Twitter (Free) - The Twitter app for the iPad is actually better than using the actual Twitter site as well. You can set up and access multiple accounts, and easily bounce between your incoming feed of tweets, to your direct messages, mentions, or lists. is also a great Twitter tool for iPad, but A) it is currently unavailable with a notice stating a new version is "coming soon", and B) , so I would expect the best of both worlds to soon be merged together.

Flipboard (Free) - Oprah loves it and recommends it as one of her "favorite things". Enough said. gives dad a more engaging, interactive magazine-like experience for viewing content from social networks, as well as from other news and media sources.