Starting simple is smart. But RBrodzinsky's mention of WiThrottle just reminded me that once you get JMRI running on the PC it is only a few clicks to start its built in web server and then you can operate JMRI's screens as pages in a web browser on your iPad. Oh and WiThrottle has a built in browser to easily access those pages.
KISS = "keep it simple, stupid"...I am "stupid", so I will keep it simple to begin with; hopefully, down the road, I will be able to use my iPad to program my decoders. Thanks.