My favourite iPad Apps

Ever since Santa brought my son an iPod Touch, I have got my iPad back. I have posted before about the iPad, and the differences between it and the Kindle so I thought I would do a post about my favourite iPad apps.

Let's leave out Angry Birds because I don't think that any iPad owner does not have that one, and probably Cut the Rope , two games that alone make the iPad a gadget worth having. Angry Birds in particular should come with a government health warning, it is so addictive. 

Browsing the Apple Store in Geneva last week, I discovered the above game, Beyond Ynth. It is a fun game, deceptively simple to begin, but I get the feeling it is going to be tricky. The cute little ladybird, Krible is from the magical Kingdom of Kriblonia, which depended on the rare mystical dazzly diamonds to stay alive. One day four dark spiders of the apocalypse stole the dazzly diamond. The gemstones were flung around the four terrible territories of terror, leaving the Kingdom in darkness. This is where Kribl comes in; sent by the Queen to find and retrieve the diamonds. The journey begins. You can practice your skills first, a tutorial shows how to maneuverer Kribl in big boxes that can be turned around by pushing against the walls. There are all sorts of obstacles to be overcome before you can move on to the next level. The artwork is great, the different levels progressively more difficult and it is pretty addictive.  

The following apps are my  current favourites, as Dermot would say, "In no particular order":

This is Blogshelf. For €3.99 you can gather your favourite blogs in one place, see at a glance which blogger has a new post, flick back and forth just as you would in iBooks app. You can import your blogs from Google reader or browse blogs to find new ones. I like having everything in one place, the app is easy to navigate - swish fingers to move between screens - and you can move the blogs about in the same way that you move apps about. Only slight niggle is that you cannot comment on the blog directly from the app, but you can link to Twitter, with or without comment and publish to Facebook.

TED - ideas worth sharing is a free app which shows the TED talks - riveting talks by remarkable people is the tag line on their website, and I have to agree with that completely. You can download the talks to watch later. Check out the talks by Sir Ken Robinson on creativity, and the "American Mumsnet" parenting website Babble creators on Parenting Taboos, and by Jamie Oliver about teaching children about food. 

Two apps for photography fans are the Guardian Eyewitness and Time both free apps with great photos from around the world. The Guardian has good tips on how to take great photos, the Time has more information and more photos. The iPad lends itself to looking at these stunning images.

The Solar Walk app cost €2.39 and is fun for showing the children the Solar System, they can make the Earth turn around - my son always says that he feels dizzy when he does so.

Once you wrestle your iPad back from your kids, check out the Property Porn website, Right Move for hours of free fun searching for the perfect castle in Scotland, or a sparkling penthouse in London.

I recently succumbed and downloaded the Times Online, and the Sunday Times  mainly for the Sunday Times and Caitlin Moran to be honest. The Sunday Times in incredibly expensive when you live abroad, and now I don't even have to treck into town to the station to buy one. And all the sections are there, even if it does take an age to download. The app is free, but the subscription to the Times Online - which includes both apps and the online Times newspaper - costs £1 for a day pass or £2 a week.

Epicurious a good app for browsing recipes and searching for culinary inspiration. You can enter in the search box the main ingredient, which meal/course, what kind of cuisine, any dietery consideration and the type of dish you wish to cook and you get a list of tried and (often) tested recipes. Many of them are American recipes so you may have to substitute some ingredients. The review section on Epicurious is one of the best things about the website and app, as you can read comments from people who have tried the recipe. The app is free.

In addition to the Weather Pro app which gives a detailed forecast for the coming 10 days, I have Weather HD. The information is not as comprehensive as other weather apps but the stunning videos are very cool and great for showing the iPad off to friends (which is of course part of the fun).

For Facebook, there are a couple of apps. I tried Social first, but found that Friendly easier to use, particularly for viewing photos. Choose between the free version or Friendly Pro for €0,79.  You can download the photo straight from the app to your iPad.

Finally, no iPad is complete without the fantastic Dropbox - a true must for every Apple fan. The all-in-one talent that synchs and backs up your files, photos, documents. Download Dropbox onto your iPhone, iPad and PC or Mac. You can then save photos or documents there, so that they are available wherever and whenever you need them. This is the easiest way to transfer photos from the iPhone to the iPad - much quicker than emailing them. You can drag and drop a whole folder of photos on your PC to your Dropbox. When I was writing this blog post, I took screenshots of the iPad apps, uploaded them onto Dropbox and could insert them straight into this post. Very easy. You can also use it to share photos with others.

So these are my favourite apps at the moment. Look out for a Favourite Children's Apps blog post coming soon - in consultation with my mini testers.

What are your favourites - please leave a comment if you think that I am missing out on  a really good app.