A bunch of news apps: SkyGrid, BBC News, AP News, NY Times Editors‘ Choice, NPR, Thomson Reuters News Pro, plus a bookmark on my “Home Screen” to Google Reader (which opens in Safari – I’m not super fond of the Google Reader interface but I’m used to it and I like it better than Bloglines, which I used to use for feeds)
Both iBooks and Amazon Kindle because most books aren’t available in every e-reading app. I like reading books via the kindle app on iPhone/iPad and the iBooks app on iPad — particularly for books I don’t want to own in paper form because I just want to read them, not own the physical book. When standing and riding on public transportation, I can hold on to a pole with one hand, and hold onto iPhone and read a kindle book with the other hand. I can’t do that with the iPad, it’s too big to hold onto and change pages with one hand.
Twitterrific is the only Twitter iPad app that doesn’t completely annoy me. I tried the others and hated them because it feels like they don’t make good use of the space available. I wish there was a way to turn off the chirp in Twitterific. They’ve said they’re working on it. For now the only way to turn the chirp off is to manually mute the whole system volume. I also use Twittelator on iPhone, Twidroid on my Droid, and Twhirl on the Mac.
The WordPress app is okay. I’d give it a C+ because it doesn’t give me access to all the usual tools and controls over my wordpress blog. I can’t, for example, change the content in a widget. I have to go to Safari and login to wordpress.com and then fumble my way through.
WolframAlpha is a fun timesink though it, in general, frustrates me, because it’s hard to find the actual source for any information.
Similarly, The Elements, which takes up a ton of space (almost 2 GB), is a gorgeous way to procrastinate and kill time and remember the beauty of Chemistry (one of my favorite subjects in college).
Numbers and Pages and Keynote have turned out to be super useful for me when I’d like to work on a document on the iPad that I generally keep on a thumbdrive or on one of the computers I use. I use iWork.com to transfer docs back and forth between iPad and any Mac that I use. I usually use Word and Excel for docs, but have started using Pages and Numbers more when I know I’ll want to access the docs from iPad.
GoDocs to more easily manage my Google Docs.
I’ve been thinking that I should try using Dropbox instead of the combination of GoDocs, iWork.com, and a thumbdrive.
Evernote because I adore Evernote and hope it never goes away because I’d lose all the bits of fleeting thoughts and random lists that I hold there. I use the Evernote Mac Client app as well as the web site and the iPhone and iPod and Droid Evernote apps. I love the cloud and hope it doesn’t disappear.
I wish that the Epicurious app on iPad and iPhone would sync with the Epicurious web site and keep track of the recipes I have saved or favorited. Instead, I have saved/favorited recipes on iPhone, iPad, and web site, all in separate lists. There’s no sync’ing in the cloud for Epicurious. This app works well in landscape mode but is a total mess in portrait mode. In landscape mode, the ingredients list and recipe instructions display side by side. In portrait mode, the ingredients list is a dropdown, accessed by tapping on “Ingredients” button, and then the list of ingredients overlays and covers up the instructions, totally frustrating me if I’m trying to follow instructions and refer to ingredients at the same time.
I’ve tried out the BigOven Lite app but, on startup and while searching, it has photos that move slowly in the background and that makes me feel dizzy. I can’t concentrate on typing a search term with a moving photo.
I have WeatherBug installed and use it from time to time, but not very often, on the iPad. I use it daily on my Droid.
Videos for all my iTunes store downloads (plenty!) and Netflix for on-demand viewing. We have Roku in our house and it’s useful to have our Netflix instant queue available on the TV and on the iPad.
For my 5 1/2 year old daughter, who is convinced that the iPad is hers, MagicSketch and TiltHD and Word Magic and Toy Story book and Alice in Wonderland (which she LOVES) and iFOTOFLO (she can type in the word puppy and see endless photos of puppies).
I’ve been trying out Brushes though I’m not even a decent artist or illustrator. One a recent plane flight where I was feeling all sorts of extreme emotions, I used pogo stylus with Brushes to vent all sorts of stuff in drawings. It felt good.
When I feel unbalanced, the iPhone app iHandy Level looks fine at 2x on the iPad and provides nonsensical readjustment.
Similarly, Smule Magic Piano, is great fun – particularly for playing a duet with someone else somewhere else in the world.
I use Digits and Calculator XL for calculating. My daughter likes to play with Digits.
And, finally, there are some apps on my iPad that I haven’t yet used: ABC Player, Shazam, IMDb, and Catan (I’ve been meaning to find time to play this but I rarely have time for games).
