Time Warner Cable’s Jeff Simmermon, Director of Digital Communications, took the wraps off an innovative new approach to television on the iPad earlier this week. The prototype is as yet without a name, but what information we’ve been able to attain from their blog and a video they posted on YouTube is that they’re looking to integrate the iPad into the cable-watching experience.

What they have done is taken the iPad’s user-friendly touch-sensitive interface, and essentially turned it into an all-purpose remote control for their cable subscribers. Instead of interrupting the viewing experience on a television by navigating a channel guide on top of the programming being watched, users can browse the shows available on their iPad and change channels on their TV wirelessly from the iPad. They’ve even done one better by giving users the ability to program their DVR from the same interface. It’s a functionality that phones have had for a little while now, but the larger screen of the iPad really seems to lend itself well to this kind of navigation.

While the idea of an iPad as a remote control has a certain novelty to it (just ask Comcast, who showed off a similar prototype earlier this year), their VP of Web Services emphasized in the video that what they’re interested in doing in the future is offering a multi-screen experience, such that a user could start a program on her iPad and finish where she left off in the living room once she gets home. For frequent users of public transportation, one imagines this would be quite the boon.

It’s actually somewhat baffling that television companies haven’t been more urgent in getting their content onto the iPad platform. ABC appears to be the only company taking the iPad seriously with their ABC Player, though they have been tinkering with their ad platform. The iPad is a device that seems purpose-built for portable video, but the best options continue to be Hulu and Netflix.

Rare is the instance when movies and television compete for the same user attention spans, but with Netflix expanding their streaming movie options with the addition of MGM, Lion’s Gate, and Paramount, that is going to be the platform that attracts eyeballs. Time Warner Cable’s offering shows promise, but they seem to insist on using the iPad to augment the existing entertainment experience instead of acknowledging that the iPad is a platform of its own.