Web Reviews

iPad

Indianapolis, IN - December 28, 2010

“‘What’s next?’ The answer, of course, is one of the half a million applications (“apps”) available in the iTunes Store, many for free. The problem with this answer is that there are half a million of them...”

– Jim Cota

Judging by the action at the local Apple store, I think it’s safe to assume that many of you rang in the new year with your new magical iPads. Congratulations! They truly are amazing, but you may have also experienced that moment after you’ve checked your mail and used the web browser to read the IndyStar where you thought, “What’s next?” The answer, of course, is one of the half a million applications (“apps”) available in the iTunes Store, many for free. The problem with this answer is that there are half a million of them...

To help with this overwhelming abundance, the Rare Bird staff and I have compiled our list of most used and most amazing apps available.

“Most used” is the easiest category. Here they are, in no particular order (excluding the standard Apple apps like Mail, Calendars, Safari and iBooks, all of which are truly outstanding): For news junkies, the best are NewsPro, USAToday, Wall Street Journal, and BBC News. These all work as you’d expect: updated regularly, some include video and written content, most provide entirely free content. The WSJ has both free and paid access.

Two others that deserve a little more attention are NPR and CNBC Realtime. If you’re a fan of NPR, you’ll love this. It provides complete news coverage, in both written and audio form, an easy to understand and use interface, and the ability to share stories across social networks. Aside from news, it allows you to listen to your favorite programs at your convenience, something very handy if you missed the last episode of Car Talk or Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me!

The CNBC Realtime app is simply stunning. It features live real-time quote and business news streaming. It’s like watching CNBC while being able to customize the data to match your needs. And it’s free. Amazing.

Outside of news, the other favorites are Flipboard, which presents all of your social networks in a magazine format; Hulu+ (like the service on your computer, but for the iPad; it’s very good, but needs more content); Instapaper, an aggregator of all the things your mark to read later; CalcBot, a great little app that fills the void left by Apple not including a calculator; Weatherbug; Penultimate (handwriting, note-taking, drawing); Pandora, the same awesome functionality you love on your computer and iPhone available on the iPad; Kindle for iPad, Amazon’s very good ebook app with access to Amazon’s unmatched bookstore; and iTeleport, which allows you to access and work on your main computer from the iPad. (One of our developers says it’s “Worth every penny.”)

For video, there are several great entries outside of Hulu+. Netflix (if you have an account) provides access to their instant-streaming content, which is small but growing; ABC Player lets you watch nearly anything shown on the network; 60 Minutes provides complete video playback of shows, enhanced with additional coverage in “60 Minutes Overtime”.

There are some other general purpose apps that come up time and again: Epicurious provides a vast library of great recipes; Eyewitness shows one photo each day from the news; Windowshop allows you to shop Amazon through an app instead of your web browser; Articles takes the content on Wikipedia and formats it a reader-friendly way; Twitter is, well, Twitter; ESPN ScoreCenterXL is everything sports related from the de facto king of sports, including video highlights, live play-by-play and more; and Quick Voice, which is a surprisingly accurate voice-to-text convertor.

Last, but not least, are the games. There are thousands of them, and many of them aren’t even worth $.99. But there are some real gems out there. WordsHD and Scrabble are both great and allow you to play against your friends; Monopoly allows four different ways to play, including a tabletop mode where the iPad becomes the board; Plants vs. Zombies defies explanation, but I will tell you my Mom played for five hours straight on the way home to North Carolina; Field Runners is a modern version of a tower strategy game; VeggieSamurai requires that you use your fingers like swords to slice and dice; and Angry Birds let’s you shoot birds out of a catapult to knock over the pigs that have taken their eggs (or something like that). I’ve never really tried to explain any of those games before and now that I’ve done it, they all sound very odd...but trust me; they’re all fun.

The last entry is the one app to have for those moments when someone looks at your iPad and asks, “What does it do?” Open Starwalk, show them the screen (which is synced to your location) and then raise it to the sky. Starwalk instantly maps the heavenly bodies that are above you, at any time, wherever you are. Even better, take them outside on a clear night and start naming everything. This is truly amazing, and the best example I’ve found of the magic in Steve Jobs’ “magical” device.

This list has been shortened somewhat due to space constraints. To see the entire list, stop by http://blog.rarebirdinc.com). Do you have a favorite that I’ve missed? Be sure to let me know and I’ll add it.