The last 5 years have been marked by an explosion of tablet and smartphone applications designed for young children and several calls to encourage educational researchers to engage in children's app research. This paper presents a novel prospect for educational researchers: to collaboratively research, implement and produce iPad apps for educational purposes. Based on the author's own research as well as that of others, an original framework "Research, Practice and Design framework" (iRPD) for guiding such collaborative efforts is provided, along with five key principles: triple collaboration, shared epistemology, awareness of affordances and interconnected social factors, and child-centred pedagogy. The novel affordances of collaboratively produced iPad apps for educational design-based research are outlined, along with several examples of how such an engagement might enrich educational research and the app landscape.