Top App Picks For Your iPad!

If it’s the last Thursday of the month, then it is time for iPad Mania! The “Maniacs” meet on the last Thursday of every month from 4-6 pm in the Virtual Annex (SUite 1580) at France OffiCenter (Northland Plaza Building). At our March meeting, Dave Meyer from Bizzy Web, had the new iPad to share and compare. There was app talk, demos, margaritas and more! Don’t miss our April 26th meeting.

If you have an iPad and are looking for some essetial apps, may we suggest:

Newspaper ($4.99)

You’re going to want to do a lot of reading on your iPad — and not just book-reading, either! Instapaper is a handy utility for saving articles from WebPages for clean, ad-free viewing on your iPad later. You can save an article from anywhere — your laptop, your iPhone, or your iPad itself — and it saves the text of that article to your Instapaper account for you to access later from your iPad. This is a great way to collect and read interesting writing from the web on your new tablet.

Twitter (FREE)

Twitter’s iPad app features one of the best and most simple interfaces of all the major website apps — an easy, attractive way to sort, read and send out your tweets, write direct messages, sort your lists, and do everything else you would expect to be able to do on Twitter.com.

Facebook (Free)

Facebook came out with its iPad app in October of 2011, and it is the best way to access the world’s largest social network on your iPad. And, if you liked the look of Twitter’s interface, you’ll like that the look of Facebook’s interface, as they are remarkably similar.

Nightstand Central (Free)

Surprise! There’s no alarm clock on the iPad. If you were hoping to use your new tablet as an alarm, you’ll need to snag one from the app store. Nightstand Central is a well-designed, free app with a split-flap clock that gives you the time and the weather in glorious full-screen mode.

Zite (FREE)

Apple’s #1 news app of 2011 was Zite, which is kind of like a Pandora for news reading. You begin by inputting your Google Reader, Twitter, Delicious or Read It Later profiles and then Zite creates your magazine for you in a simple and elegant single screen. You can give a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to any article you read, and Zite’s article recommendations for you grow smarter and more personalized over time.

Kindle (FREE)

Amazon’s Kindle app is the favorite book reader, beating out Apple’s iBooks and Barnes and Noble’s Nook app. It’s especially useful if you already own a Kindle and you’ve just upgraded to an iPad, as the books you’ve already bought on the Kindle can be re-downloaded to your iPad free of charge. Note that you can only actually download books on Amazon.com or on your Kindle, not directly on the Kindle iPad app; you can only do that on iBooks.

The Weather Channel (FREE)

The iPad does not come with a native weather app; The Weather Channel’s iPad app looks great, loads fast and gives you the weather. What more could you want from a weather app, really?

Showyou (FREE)

Your iPad comes pre-loaded with YouTube, yes, but for a more visually-pleasing way to view and find new web videos, check out the excellent Showyou app. It aggregates all the videos in your social media streams (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) into one swipe-able screen. A great user experience made just for the iPad.

Netflix (FREE)

The app is free, and recently redesigned, but you’ll need an $8/month streaming subscription to enjoy Netflix’s library of movies and TV shows on your iPad. But if you’re one of over 20 million who already have that subscription — well, stream away!

Find My iPhone (FREE)

If (God forbid) you were to lose your iPad or have it stolen, you’re going to want to have Find My iPhone running. It’s a free app from Apple that runs through its iCloud service and can pinpoint your device’s location on a map, which you can see any time at iCloud.com. This is an app that takes a couple minutes to install and it could save you several hundred dollars (or hours digging around your home searching for your dang tablet).

Temple Run (FREE)

This “endless runner” is another beautifully simple-yet-unimaginably addictive game that the iPhone specializes in. Most endless runners have players tap to jump across chasms from left to right, but Temple Run throws players behind the runner in 3D. Rather than simply jump, Temple Run expands on a tried-and-true genre, forcing players to turn and slide to avoid deadly obstacles and tilt to grab coins.