The 75 Best iPad Apps 8

News, Reference, and Information Apps
AP Mobile to Zite

AP Mobile
Free
There are a lot of great news applications for the iPad, but if I had to pick one it would be AP mobile. Not just text stories, but also photos and video, this apps keeps you in the loop. It also supports a local news feed so you can get news that is truly close to home.

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Bing for iPad
 
Free
Bing is a visually rich app that lets you search and browse news, movies, Bing homepage images, local businesses, trending topics, perform vocal searches, and much more.

The 75 Best iPad Apps 7

Creativity Apps
Adobe Color Lava to SketchBook Pro

Adobe Color Lava

$3
Photoshop users can now put their iPad to use as a palette to interactively blend colors as if they were paint and save them to swatches to use in Photoshop. It could be more responsive, but still it's a good companion to the leading digital art software package.

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Algoriddim Djay

The 75 Best iPad Apps 6

Entertainment Apps
ABC Player to Tivo

ABC Player
Free
ABC Player turns your iPad into a TV by delivering full episodes of Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Desperate Housewives, V, and Dancing With the Stars, and many more popular shows. Full-screen video looks sharp and smooth, with only limited commercial interruption. This app is almost good enough to make us forget we can't watch Hulu on the iPad.

The 75 Best iPad Apps 5

Games Apps
Apple iOS Game Center to Smurfs' Village

Apple iOS Game Center

Free
Game Center brings video game achievements, matchmaking, high scores ,and more to iOS devices.

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Angry Birds
$0.99
Consider it the most addictive game to come along in a long, long time. Whether you are a hard core gamer into first person shooters or more of a Solitaire player, Angry Birds is essential downloading. There are walkthroughs of every level on YouTube if you get stuck.

The 75 Best iPad Apps 4

Communication
TextNOW to TextPlus

TextNOW

This capable iPad SMS app is priced right, easy to use, and features the very cool ability to send free, unlimited texts, and embedded photos.

The 75 Best iPad Apps 3

Business and Productivity Apps
AirDisplay to Save2PDF

AirDisplay 1.2 for iPad

$9.99
A second monitor can be a boon to productivity, as you can keep Outlook, Twitter, or other potentially distracting work element on a second screen. That's where Avatron's Air Display comes in: It turns your iPad into a wireless second LCD monitor for your Mac or PC.

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Bento

The 75 Best iPad Apps 2

: Social Networking Apps

AIM for iPad to Yelp

AIM for iPad

Free
AIM for iPad has some social networking issues—namely, you can't retweet or direct message friends when using the built-in Facebook and Twitter clients—but it's a solid app for those with contacts that primarily use AOL's messaging service.

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Friendly

The 75 Best iPad Apps

Considering its impact on the portable computing space, it's amazing to think that the iPad platform has only been around for a little more than a year. Still, in its relatively brief existence, the iPad and iPad 2 have revolutionized the tablet market—not only for its sleek form factor and ease of use, but for the wide variety ofapps that are available for it.

The Apple App Store lets users expand their iPad's abilities with new software that ranges from the business-centric to the highly entertaining. The sheer number of apps, unfortunately, can make it difficult for someone to find the ones worth downloading. Consider this: As of January 2011, there were over 350,000 apps available for download. As a result, it may prove challenging to figure out which iPad apps are the best. So let us provide a helping hand.

In compiling this list of the 75 best iPad and iPad 2 apps, we focused mainly on the ones that aren't just larger versions of iPhone and iPod touch apps, but deliver unique and compelling tablet-based experiences all their own. And to make finding apps even easier, we've broken them down by category: Social networking, Business, Communication, Games, Entertainment, Creativity, and News, Reference, and Information. Unless stated, all of the apps are compatible with the iPad and iPad 2.

Apple iPad (Wi-Fi)

After it was announced back in January, the unfortunately named Apple iPad ($699 direct, 64GB Wi-Fi) seemed like it could be the company's first major clunker in a long time: An expensive niche product that would inhabit a nebulous region between laptops and smartphones, but wouldn't quite eliminate the need for either one. Aside from Apple enthusiasts, many of us wondered who would drop hundreds of dollars for this not-quite-computer. But having used the iPad for some time, I can tell you that the device just makes sense. When you combine basic-but-essential work tools with iWork, an improved browser, e-mail, iPod, and photo applications, a well-executed e-Book platform with iBooks, and throw in thousands of downloadable apps and games, and package it all in a gorgeous, slim slate with a beautiful 9.7-inch touch screen, you have yourself a winner. Is the iPad cheap? No. Is it flawless? Not at all. Omissions including support for multitasking, a built-in camera for video chats, and Flash support in Safari leave room for improvement, but otherwise, the Apple iPad is a very convincing debut. And it will undoubtedly be a driving force in shaping the emerging tablet landscape.

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The Basics, Pricing, and Design
There are two different iPad flavors: Wi-Fi-only and Wi-Fi +3G. (This review will focus on the Wi-Fi-only iPad, see ourApple iPad 3G review for details on the 3G-enabled version.)

Pricing starts at $499 for the 16GB Wi-Fi-only model, and continues like this: $599 (32GB Wi-Fi only); $699 (64GB Wi-Fi-only); $629 (16GB Wi-Fi + 3G); $729 (32GB Wi-Fi + 3G); and $829 (64GB Wi-Fi + 3G). Remember, if you buy the Wi-Fi + 3G model, you'll need to pay AT&T for 3G coverage. (The device is locked to AT&T's network, so you can't use another mobile carrier.) You can opt to pay for coverage on a continual monthly basis ($14.99 per month for 250MB or $29.99 a month for unlimited data). There's no commitment or contract to sign, so you can switch your 3G service on and off whenever you like, and with no service, your 3G iPad will still be able to connect to the Web via Wi-Fi. In the U.S. you can purchase AT&T's 3G service right on your iPad 3G.