Just Got the iPad..so What Apps should I get

[Baldrick 1]

Ya musta needed it, to help you wrassle with all those apps that you need for your three favourite categories

 

BTW 3 or 5 categories, dya know the diff, yep, you guessed it, 2, just a wee step for a hint,fud!

[Luto 0]

Not an ipad fan but this is the first app list I've seen (picked off the pistonheads forum):

 

Games

 

* Air Hockey - The classic from the ipod/phone.

* Angry Birds - Skwawk, superb, quack, magnificent

* Asphalt 5 HD - cheaper than other drivers and very good indeed.

* Aurora feint 3 - Interesting puzzle/tetris type game thing

* Blackjack free HD - Nice little blackjack game, with a slightly annoying ad, but it's free, so what do you want? Huh?

* Escape XL - Interesting puzzle game.

* Flight Control HD - Excellent update to the iPhone app - Air Traffic Control gone mad.

* Harbour master - Similar to Flight control, but wetter

* Labrynth 2 HD - Great fun in full ipad width. Almost as big as the real original one!!

* MX Mayhem - Motorcross 2D game. Loved it on iphone - even more playable on pad.

* Plants vs Zombies XL - Best game in the app store. hugely addictive. Also excellent on the iPhone

* Pokerfree HD - Same as Blackjack free, but poker.

* Real Racing - The best driving game on the iPad.

* Solitaire King HD - Excellent card game app. Has about 10 different solitaire games in one with a lovely UI.

* The Pinball - Excellent pinball app. Even has a 3D mode if you have some of the blue/green 3D specs.

* Words with friends HD - Scrabble with players from all over the world.

* X-Plane 9 - Superb flight sim. far more involved that the iPod version

* Zen Bound 2 - Relaxing 'thing' where you wrap rope around things. Sounds odd, but quite cool.

 

 

Utilities

 

* Adobe Ideas - Drawing app designed for sketching, outlining etc.

* Air sharing - Wireless file server. Very good indeed.

* Air Video - Allows video streaming to ipod/iphone/ipad from remote server/computer

* BBC news. Quite decent. Nowhere near the content it could have. Will play video though, which is noce.

* Dictionary - Does exactly what it says on the tin.

 

**Document downloader- allows you to copy, paste, fax and store documents on your iPad. Good app

 

* Evernote - In conjunction with the desktop app, (free), you can store webpages, pictures, and notes, etc, and sync to the cloud, and access it wherever.

* Goodreader - multi purpose reader of pdf's and other formats. Good for transferring files in and out too.

* iDisk - Access to mobileme iDisk storage

* Instapaper - Must have service that allows offline reading of web articles converted to book format.

* MyWi - Not strictly an iPad app but an iPhone app that then allows a WiFi only iPad to use the phones 3G connection, thus circumventing the need for a 3G iPad, can only be installed on Jailbroken phones as understandably apple have been a bit loathed to allow it in the app store!

* Pcalc lite - Free scientific calculator

* iPDF - PDF viewer, and ebook viewer (in pdf stylee). Not really used it yet, so no idea if it's any good.

* Pad info - Gives info regarding memory usage, etc.

* iSSH - SSH / VNC client, useful for sysadmins etc.

* Photobucket HD - Online photo storage app for ipad

* Photopad - Dinky photo editer thingy.

* powerOne Financial Calculator - As it says, and is very powerful

* Server Admin Remote - As it says, for Mac OS X Server boxes. If you have an OS X Server then this app is awesome

* Simplenote - Syncs with the Cloud, bare bones simple note taker.

* Sundry Notes - Seems to be aimed at students, for notes, etc. has studenty type symbol stuff, like calculus, and set theory.

* TV Catchup. - Freeview tv streamed live on to your device. Just loaded it onto my iPad and it works great fullscreen. Open safari and log into www.tvcatchup.com then register and go to the iPhone section. If you bookmark the page once safari has saved your login details,, you can add a desktop logo like a normal app.

* Things - GTD organiser app that syncs with desktop

* VNC Mocha lite - free VNC client that is perfectly sufficient for odds and sods.

* WeatherProHD - Detailed weather application

 

 

Entertainment

 

* abc - For American types, superb app similar to Hulu. Latest episodes online.

* Break - Viral video type thingy

* Draw - Nice little drawing program for simple doodles. Email, and save pics.

* iBooks - Looks nice. Range of books isn;t that great, I don;t think, but the books themselves are very nicely presented.

* IMDB - Internet movie database for the movie geeks out there.

* Kindle - Amazon's Book Reader

* Magic Piano - great fun for the wee ones

* Marvel Comics - Needs USA account to get more comics Supers app though if you're into comics

* Netflix - Awesome...

* Pandora - Online music thingy

* Stumble Upon - Same as the firefox add-on. Takes you to websites you never heard of before

* Substrate - Weird screensaver thing that looks quite funky wne iPad sat in it's stand.

* Virtuoso HD - very nice piano app

 

 

Magazines/news/info

 

* AccuWeather - Attractive weather app

* Bloomberg for iPad - brilliantly done. Financial news / data / etc. If you haven't heard of Bloomberg then you probably don't need it

* Epicurious - For the culinary inclined, a shedload of recipes, etc.

* F1 Timing App - official App, similar to iPhone, but scaled up

* France 24 - very nice news app. Articles, video, etc, and it works in the US, which is nice. Also discovered it has a very good map bundled with it. Can zoom in from an atlas, to street level. very impressive app. Also has live stream of France 24 news chanel

* Go Sky watch - Interactive planetarium, with excellent data on planets, and stars. IUtilises the compass, and accelerometer to allow you to move around the sky, and correlate it with what you are seeing.

* Guardian Eyewitness - Superb photography from around the world, and photo tips too.

* iFooty - Live scores, tables, and footy news, etc.

* Nat Geo HD - World Atlas - Very nice UI. Takes an age to download maps and isn't that fast as zooming but very nice all the same.

* NPR - Nice articles, etc

* Planets - 3D planetarium thingy... very nice indeed.

* Popular Science - Shows what is possible for magazines with this new format

* Reuters news pro - Online news jobby, which looks nice.

* Star Walk - Great info on the night Sky

* USA Today - How online newspaper things should be

* Weatherbug - Info packed weather app

* Wikipanion - Wikipedia app

* Zinio - magazine viewer - Very nicely done indeed. haven't bought a mag yet, but it came with 4 free mags, including car and driver, and macworld. very nice to read mags on.

 

 

Communications

 

* Gowalla - Social Networking Location Service that is all the rage now

* Skype - Still tine at the mo, but works well on ipad with the inbuilt mic

[AllergyDoc 40]

what does it cost to put books on the iPad? less than the Kimble?

[wat44 0]

what product does things as good as an ipad?

 

Im going to get one just for the sonos application - what else comes near it?

 

anyone getting an iped? (ie chinese knock off) - apparently run on intel chip, android and only 20% of the cost of an ipad

 

iped

Edited June 3, 2010 by wat44

[greg_r 83]

Nail gun is better than a hammer Greg

 

seriously though +1 on apple customer service

my graffics card frazeled & some other parts on my mac 6 weeks after warranty & apple still repaired mac for free would of cost £600 . Broke my iPhone twice at work ( I knock nails in for a living Greg I'm a joiner ) they gave me new one both times .

So upmost respect to apple for that .

 

AnywAy I think the thred is loosing focus were supposed to be choosing apps

 

Yup - they replaced a laptop of mine 12 months outside guarantee. They offered before I could even suggest it myself. It's that kinda thing that keeps me buying Apple hardware.

[Luthier 1]

Asustech just announced Eee pad, with Windows 7, and 12" screen, and it beat hell out of iPad.

 

The 10″ model, the EEE Pad EP101TC, will go on sale in the first quarter of next year for $399 to $449 and will be powered by a NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor and run Windows Embedded Compact 7 OS (appears to be a smart, touch-based solution without the standard Windows 7 desktop) which was also debuted this week at Computex.

 

The 12″ model, Eee Pad EP121, will be more powerful and meant to compete with laptops will run Windows 7 Home Premium on an Intel CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) Core 2 Duo processor, but Asustek hasn’t announced a price or launch date for this model as of yet.

 

“The 12-inch model is a full featured slate computer that serves as a multimedia player, e-reader compact PC and Internet device,â€

Both tablets will have touch-sensitive capacitive screen with 1366 x 768 resolution and support 1080p H.264 decode acceleration. The Eee Pad’s come with a two-megapixel video camera with a minimum focus distance of 10cm, each will have internet connectivity with 802.11 b/g/n with optional 3G. Other features include a USB port, a separate keyboard docking station, and Flash support. Asus also claims the Eee Pad delivers 10 hours of battery life. Both versions have aluminum edges and matte back covers and have been reported to be fairly light. The 10-inch EP101TC comes in at a sleek 12.2mm thickness and weighs 675g.

 

Fuck Apple!!!

[greg_r 83]

[Baldrick 1]

@Luthier, that's a very blinkered attitude you have and saying 'fuck Apple' just perpetuates the hostility between both camps, Apple are a good company, committed to customer care and with an excellent portfolio of products, the fact that not all of their products doesn't suit all people is just a reflection of life in general, there are millions of happy Apple pickers out there, there are probably a lot of unhappy Apple customers as well, but the same goes for MS users, I hear lots of whining and moaning from unhappy WinMo users, it's not been problematic for me with my HD2 and HTC have been great any time I've contacted them, just as Greg says his 3G phone has been right for him with the support Apple gives.

 

I'm seriously considering a MacBook to replace my laptops, but I wouldn't consider an IPad or IPhone, 'cos they're not right for me, different strokes for different folks, let's not exacerbate this idiotic rivalry between MS and Apple users, both are great companies that have changed the world we live in.

 

As for the Asus you mention above, once again it's form factor does nothing for me personally, it's too large, crosses over into netbook and laptop territory, if I'm gonna carry a 12" device, I'm as well carrying a laptop or netbook, I'm looking for an in-betweeny, a 7" screen that I can use while travelling, to watch video playback on, touchscreen so I don't need a mouse, 3G with Bluetooth support so I can use it to make calls, built in webcam so I can use Skype, and a bunch of regular apps so that I can convert currencies, look at spreadsheets / word docs etc etc., I don't need apps that open my garage door, tell me when my luggage has wandered out of range at the airport, or give me bio-rythm readings and recipes for cardboard meals that promote healthy eating, none of these are of any use to me.

 

I take the point of the poster above who wants to use his iPad as a Sonos room to room remote control, but that's just not my thing, however if it floats his boat, so be it, I wouldn't want to be floating around my house with a 10"+ remte control in hand, I have clearly defined areas in my house, a dedicated AV room, a kitchen for eating etc etc, I don't necessarily need wall to wall sound throughout my house, but some people do.

 

Don't be an Apple hater, understand who they are, what they offer, their market and their customer base.

[Ska 11]

Greg has hit the nail on the head here.

 

Apple's success is based in the fact that they have truly integrated hardware, software, popular culture, education, fashion and the end-user experience into a single business model. You may not like it but you can't help but be impressed.

 

As a film composer I use Macs for my studio work, which involves very high end applications and demands in both music creation and film editing. Macs are the industry standard globally and do the job far more effectively than a windows or linux machine would due to their inherent stability and Unix based OS. As a result most of the major music software manufacturers write their products exclusively for Mac. Because its very good at this particular job.

 

A similar story can be seen in the high-end graphics world where Mac's are standard for almost the same reason.

 

HOWEVER

 

I also have a high-end windows-based PC which I use for 3D modeling and a little gaming every now and then. For this application especially PC's have the upper hand and very little 3D CAD software is readily available for Macs because PC's do the job incredibly well!

 

Like Greg said, its horses for courses. If you don't like it, don't buy it but don't waste time and energy being a hater. None of these companies no matter how big or shiny are either forcing you to buy their product or somehow duping you into buying something you don't want or need. The truth is that no matter how cheesy you find Steve Gates and Bill Jobs most of the development for these products is borne out of the minds of a few geeks not to dissimilar from us who are just lucky enough to have a cool haircut and a degree from MIT. Some of them probably even love watches. (Although I won't be holding my breath for the iTourbillon!)

 

Products like Android, iPhone, iPad, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 which provide such a staggering array of features, flexibility, entertainment and display excellent design and build quality at incredible volume should all be applauded.

 

In reality despite what most of the haters think, for the technology you get, Apple products in particular are INCREDIBLE value for money given their manufacturing overheads compared to other companies.

 

So rather than hating, how about just loving the fact that we live in a world where young, passionate people in big shiny glorified sheds work very hard to make equally shiny (and progressively smaller) things for you to check facebook on!!

[Brightlight 0]

The corn is as high as an elephant's eye.................

 

Good grief we're back to Oklahoma again, the Apple fanboys and haters should be friends......................................

 

There is a corporate philosophy issue here. Apple's is that they control what you can do, see, use, load, etc, on their hardware/software, witness the constant battle between jailbreakers and Apple on the iphone. You want Flash, sorry, you cannot load it on iphone or ipad so have to put up with a lot of websites not working properly. You want porn on your iphone, sorry Apple will not allow that either. I'm not sure how they get away with this legally, Microsoft tried to insist on only IE being used on Windows by restricting code access to developers of other browsers, and look what happened there.

 

Personally I wouldn't want the restrictions that Apple imposes, though I nearly did buy the iphone when there was no real competition for it. I much prefer open source, and Android is now a fully mature OS, getting better with every version upgrade.

[ebzen02 341]

You guys are hilarious.. Trying to argue something that is just pointless. Like my sister says, "for differing tastes colors were created." I really like how easy it is to use the iPad-- granted I have only used the iPad for about 48 hours now. I have heard from many people how user friendly these products are and at the end of the day I am not trying to play 3-d games or create complicated logarithms. I just like how intuitive they are and their visual design-- it's a very pretty girl that doesn't nag. My wife loves it and as long as she is happy, everybody in the household benefits --thank you Apple for that this week....And! I just got away with buying another watch because of it!!!! Just my 2 cents in this very long argument..

 

+1 to what Skath, Baldrick, and Gregr have said..

[phaedo 0]

Fuck apple. There, I said it. And this is from an iphone user. They are integrated which means less user control, and when they fuck up, you can't get them fixed. The sound on the phone stopped working - would not recognize the headphones were not plugged in. So went into two phone shops and the apple store locally, and told I would then have to go to one of two apple stores in Sydney (population something like 4 million people and 5 hours to get from one side to the other) to book it in to be looked at. And turns out this is a very common problem. Ended up going home again and plugged it in to charge it, and it suddenly started working. After spending an hour earlier trying all sorts of things to fix it at home.

And they use the shittiest reciever in them too I have been told, which is part of the reason I get no signal in suburbia 80% of the time. The other reason is the crappy network here. But am told that is the number one complaint about them, which am also told it can't be fixed. Typical apple integration, build it so it can't be improved (even though it needs it).

Sure, much better phone overall than the old phones, but when in 2010 you can't make calls becuase it doesn't get signal??

[Brightlight 0]

You guys are hilarious.. Trying to argue something that is just pointless. Like my sister says, "for differing tastes colors were created." I really like how easy it is to use the iPad-- granted I have only used the iPad for about 48 hours now. I have heard from many people how user friendly these products are and at the end of the day I am not trying to play 3-d games or create complicated logarithms. I just like how intuitive they are and their visual design-- it's a very pretty girl that doesn't nag. My wife loves it and as long as she is happy, everybody in the household benefits --thank you Apple for that this week....And! I just got away with buying another watch because of it!!!! Just my 2 cents in this very long argument..

 

+1 to what Skath, Baldrick, and Gregr have said..

 

My problem with them is what can't you do with them. You can view photos, listen to music, surf the web (except flash enabled websites, you know how many of them there are?), watch films, email. Now if that is all you need, great, it is a good product with an excellent user interface, perfect for the...ahem...less computer literate among us. My wife does all of those things and the first thing I thought was it would suit her. But she also uses Word and Excel.....

 

What you can't do, and these are things I feel are kinda important, load up a CD, DVD, use a USB stick, use industry standard Word and Excel, type in any meaningful way (without an external keyboard, and then what's the point if you have a laptop), camera, use Skype to see my far flung relatives while I talk to them, run any external software not available as an App on the App Store.

 

My laptop on the other hand (a Dell Studio XPS 13 with solid state hard drive) does all of these things and more, it synchronises with whatever non Apple phone I care to use, I run my business from it with Accounting software, VNC, VPN and RDP to access customer's systems, Visual Studio, MS Office, etc, etc, I watch both online streaming and DVD TV and film, I run music sequencing software and can feed my guitar directly in using an interface box, I store and transfer data on writeable CD, DVD and USB stick, I run a version of Virtual PC so I can run more than one operating sytem and versions of software. It has networking capabilities so I can plug in a cable when I'm in a customer's office where there is no wireless, and have access to their systems. Additionally it has a brilliant screen, is light and easy to carry around and is great to touch type on. The only area where the ipad beats it for me is in battery life, but then why would I want all that battery life if it didn't do what I needed, and of course size and weight. But I work on my laptop all day so the screen size on the ipad would become a real drag.

 

Yes I can see how the ipad would suit some people, the surprise is that there are so many of them, and I wonder if a lot of those new owners are overlooking the downside and simply having it as a fashion accessory, something to impress the other commuters on the train, etc, while needing a laptop or desktop as well.

[ebzen02 341]

This was bought primarily for my wife. She needed something ultra portable for Internet, ebooks, pictures, Facebook, netflix etc. She needed something that was easy and portable. With so many useful apps this seems to take care of her basic com needs and a little more. Great marketing help a little as well.

[Brightlight 0]

This was bought primarily for my wife. She needed something ultra portable for Internet, ebooks, pictures, Facebook, netflix etc. She needed something that was easy and portable. With so many useful apps this seems to take care of her basic com needs and a little more. Great marketing help a little as well.

 

I agree, perfect for your wife's requirements. It's these businessmen you see carrying them around that tickles me.