iPad Apps Recommendations

My iPad

A couple of you have emailed me and asked me what apps I have on my iPad and what do I recommend. Well, here the list of the ones I use the most and why:

The first three are newsreaders:

• Zite This is my favorite app and I can’t live without out it. Really. It’s the easiest way for me to know what is going on in the world. At least what’s important to me. Zite can do that because you can customize it in a big way. You can literally build your own personalized magazine. It’s actually an “intelligent magazine,” and it actually gets smarter as you use it. It notes what type of stories you read, remembers them and then feeds you more. Setting it up is easy. You can choose from predetermined categories, such as: World News, Business, Film etc or you can enter your own category of interest and Zite will search the internet and populate a page with related stories. Say for instance you are interested in Quantum Physics, as I know most of you are. All you do is type it in to the search box and click Done. Now you have a pages of articles that are constantly updated. Some of my categories are: Arts & Culture, Business, Gadgets, Mac, Politics, Science, Technology, Information Literacy, Literature, Reading and World News. I have more, but that kind of gives you an idea of the breadth of a magazine you can create for yourself. The best part is it’s free.
• Flipboard My second favorite app. It’s another “personalized magazine” just as good as Zite, but in a different way. Actually it’s even better in some aspects. First it has a different interface__ look that is. It too searches the Internet for stories that you want to read and it does that in what seems a miraculous way. It’s that Good. (I think this app was picked by Apple as the iPad app of the year). Adding sections to your “smart mag” or “flipboard” as the company calls it is simple. Just click: “Add a Section.” From here you can search a list of topics that interest you and add them to your flipboard.. What makes Flipboard different is that you can have feeds from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Google Reader or whatever other blog that interests you. Maybe like this one.[Hint] Flipboard is also free.
• Pulse Again Pulse does a similar job of gathering news stories from around the web that are of personal interest to you. In Pulse though you can choose “specific sources” to add within broader sections. For example: if you set up a “Tech Section” you can specifically chose what feeds you want to see, such as: CNET, All Things Digital, Fortune Tech, Gizmodo, Techcrunch, MacWorld, Slashgear, Ars Technica, Macrumors, Boing Boing, and Digital Trends. Actually these are the feeds that I read everyday under my Tech Section. I also have sections set up for: Top News, News, and Business. So again you can see you can create a magazine with quite a breadth of sources. And the great part about it is that each section is updated constantly. Again Pulse is also free.

You might ask, why do you read three different news readers? I don’t know. But I’m harmless.

• iBooks and Kindle App I have both, but prefer iBooks. I like the interface better. On the other hand Amazon at this point has many more books. But iBooks is catching up. iBooks is a bit more expensive if you purchase a book, but offers a more generous preview, sometimes as many as 150 “iPad pages.” So far I have read about 20 books since I got my iPad. Most out of copyright books are free and this is good for me because I like to read a lot of old stuff. But I have issues. Some of the electronic books I have read include: The Greater Journey, hope to review this soon, John Adams, iWoz, Life of Johnson, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, The Case for Books, and Stanley:The Impossible Life. iBooks and the Kindle app are free.

This list is getting a bit long so I’ll shorten things up. Sorry.

• The Weather Channel I’m a weather buff and need to know it all the time. This app is still the best for weather, but does have annoying commercials that flash across the top and bottom and different times. Offers customized weather casts and videos. I also have Weather HD, but haven’t had that much time to play with it. The Weather Channel app is free.
• QuakeWatch I need to know where things are shaking. And this is the app. Incredible. Updates constantly every time the earth shakes. It’s amazing. It lists earth quakes by size and location then connects you to the USGS for a detailed report. Also include are tsunami warnings. I’m addicted to this thing. Free.
• Bing for iPad News, maps, movies, trends, finance. It’s all here in a fantastic interface. A Microsoft product that actually works. That’s amazing. Also free.
• Dictionary.com Sometimes I need to look up a word. Free.
• Pages Apple’s word processor for the iPad. Full featured and fantastic. Much better than Word. Perfect for the iPad.
• Economist When I feel like putting on “airs” I read this. Seriously though. It’s the best news magazine out there and the free app gives you a good selection from each weeks magazine. Real good. Free unless you want the whole “enchilada.”
• NASA Perfect app. Well done. Large wealth of information. Love this app also. Plan to review it separately. Free.
• Star Walk I love astronomy and this is the best astronomy app out there for regular people. Makes cool sounds when you push buttons. The information provided about the universe is unbelievable. Will review separately. Costs money. So be willing to pay up.
• Angry Birds Yes I play it. And enjoy it. And I’m not ashamed.

I have many more apps on my iPad, but these are the ones I use the most.