Topic: Wii U apps?

I don't know about you guys, but I always have my gamepad near my laptop for whenever I want to quickly play a game or try something out, or just to browse the eShop. What would really be cool though, is having small useful apps that we could download. Things like a calculator, dictionary, music player, weather, maybe even a small sketchpad or journal app? It would be even cooler having these apps available on the home menu to use for quick access. I almost like to use my Wii U gamepad as a second monitor, for when I'm doing something on my computer, and I can read instructions or watch a tutorial video on the gamepad right next to it. Having these little apps would definitely be useful to me and it would give the gamepad more of a "tablet" feel. Since I don't have a tablet myself I would be very thrilled to see some tablet-like features on the gamepad.

Good or bad idea? Would it direct attention away from actually gaming too much? While gaming is definitely fun, I think having other features would really add to the experience if utilized correctly

I like the idea of some of the options that you have put forward such as the weather forecast and the journal, these would also help compensate for the Wii apps that got taken down. Maybe the weather forecast could be displayed when you click the home button, if utilized correctly it could be a nice feature. There is art academy coming out for the console so that would take out the need for a drawing app as it is one, a sketching notepad would be useful.

Finally they should really add some more catch up streaming services for the Wii U such as (sorry I live in England) BBC I-player and 4oD.

It's weird that the Wii as the I-player but not the Wii U. I use that so much especially with Luther, Top Gear and Mock the Week out!