iPad Apps: The Best & Worst Apps

Mitch Wagner & Sarah Jacobsson 04 Apr 2010

The iPad is here, and with it an avalanche of new apps to help you get more from your device. Here is a selection of seven apps that look promising for work, reading, productivity, and even making art.

I expect many of these apps to be available when the iPad ships.

Start with iWork, Apple's own office suite for the iPad, which includes the Pages word processor, Numbers spreadsheet, and Keynote presentation software. Based on what we've seen in Apple's iPad Guided Tours video, these are not toy applications, they're a fully-functional office suite. The three apps will be available separately, priced at $9.99 (Rs. 450 approx.) each.

iBooks is the iPad's free e-book reader software, that lets you buy books online, as you do with the Amazon Kindle. The iBooks app looks great.

Instapaper is a great iPhone app for downloading and reading articles from Web newspapers, magazines, and blogs, and Instapaper is coming to the iPad, says developer Marco Arent. Instapaper's advantages over reading in your Web browser: Articles are formatted for easy reading on the device display. Also, Instapaper makes it easy to bookmark articles from the Web when you're in a rush. Just install a bookmarklet in your Web browser, and click it, and the link is stored on the Instapaper server for reading on any device. Pricing information is unavailable, but the developer did say that Instapaper for the iPad will be free to users of Instapaper pro.

Things , an application for managing to-do lists, runs on the Mac and iPhone and synchs between them, and developer Cultured Code plans an iPad version to be available Saturday. They sent me this hand-drawn sketch of the UI:

Apple iPad: 7 Sweet Apps to Try First

1Password manages and secures passwords and automates logins for Web sites, online banking, and other services. Like Things, it has versions for the Mac and iPhone and synchs between them, and it will add iPad support and synching as well. Developer Agile Web Solutions says it's optimistic 1Password for the iPad will be available Saturday, priced at $6.99 (Rs. 315 approx.) for an iPad-only version. The iPad version will be included with the Pro version for the iPhone and iPod Touch, currently priced at $8.99 (Rs. 400 approx.), it will be a free upgrade for current 1Password owners.

OmniGraffle is a tool for drawing charts and diagrams on the Mac, like Microsoft Visio. Developer the Omni Group plans to have OmniGraffle available for the iPad within weeks, along with the OmniFocus to-do-list manager, followed later by the OmniPlan project management software and OmniOutliner outliner.

Brushes is an iPhone app for painting -- fingerpainting, really. The app got famous when artist Jorge Colombo used it to paint a cover of the New Yorker magazine. The iPhone app is great (or so my artistic friends tell me -- I can't even draw a stick figure), the upcoming iPad version of Brushes should be even better.

Finally, a computer is just plain naked nowadays without a Twitter client. Twitepad is a Twitter client native to the iPad, with multi-column views and a built-in Web browser.

These are just my best guesses for some promising-looking iPad apps. I haven't had any hands-on time with them, or with an iPad either, for that matter. I'll have better recommendations after I get my hands on an iPad (if the tension of waiting doesn't kill me first).

... And the 5 Stupidest iPad Apps

Here are five of the stupidest iPad apps I've seen so far:

Articles for iPad

Price: $4.99 (Rs. 225 approx.)

Articles for iPad is a novel app that allows you to search for and read Wikipedia articles on your iPad. The app features a "one-of-a-kind" presentation of said articles, a "Surprise Me!" feature, the capability to rotate an article to see photos in landscape view, the capability to pinch to zoom into a photo, and the capability to pinch to increase and decrease article text size.

There's only one issue. Wikipedia -- the free, self-edited encyclopedia -- is, well, free and edited by anyone with an Internet connection. I can understand paying for reference material that has at least been verified by some sort of credible source -- but Wikipedia? So not only am I dropping five dollars for an app whose "features" include the capability to "pinch to zoom," but also the information I'm getting may have been edited by my 5-year-old cousin or Stephen Colbert? No, thank you.

Plus, there's a free version of this app -- it's called Safari.

Cookie Doodle

Price: 99 cents (Rs. 45 approx.)

If you really like looking at cookies, but hate making them (and eating them), then this is the app for you. Cookie Doodle, designed for both the iPad and the iPhone, allows you to make, cut, frost, and decorate your very own virtual cookies. When you're done, you can even "eat" them (or send them to your friends and family).

While I understand that making cookies -- especially frosted sugar cookies -- is usually more trouble than it's worth (just ask my mother, who used to spend four hours waiting for those cookies to dry before my Girl Scout bake sales) -- am I missing something, or is there just no point to this app? Isn't the point of all the hassle that you eventually have delicious cookies to devour? With this app all you get is a pretty plate of virtual cookies that you can neither touch nor taste.

Here's my suggestion: if you want to torture yourself, just take a cashless trip to your local bakery.

Marquee

Price: $1.99 (Rs. 90 approx.)

Marquee turns your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch into a full-screen banner, so you too can send scrolling messages to all the people around you. The app features 48 different text colors, hi-res emoticons, mirror mode, extra-large text, and different display styles (including scroll, zoom, zoom in, and fade).

Again, I must ask: what's the point? I can't really see the need for a scrolling marquee on your iPad, unless you plan to recreate this scene from Love, Actually (in a modern-day, geeky manner).

Also, the app is billed as "perfect for concerts, parties, romantic evenings, bars, classes, conferences, or in the car." Is it just me, or does an iPad not really belong at a concert, a party, a romantic evening, or a bar?

Mouse Point Pro

Price: $2.99 (Rs. 135 approx.)

Mouse Point Pro allows you to control your computer from your iPad -- it turns your iPad into a giant trackpad or wireless keyboard, and is compatible with both Windows and Mac systems. It features five different themes, and can be used as either a mouse or keyboard (you know, in case your computer doesn't come with either of those).

The biggest issue with this app is that it assumes that you would rather type on the iPad's virtual keyboard (which I thought was supposed to be one of those "disadvantages" that you have to accept when buying a tablet device) than a regular keyboard. And that you actually desperately want a 9.7-inch trackpad.

Of course, it does have the benefit of running over Wi-Fi -- you can control your computer from anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection, even the local Starbucks. It's perfect for people who have memorized exactly where everything is on their desktop.

Nasty Sounds

Price: 99 cents (Rs. 45 approx.)

It was only a matter of time before the farting app craze made its way from the iPhone to the iPad -- okay, so it actually took no time at all. Nasty Sounds is a sound app for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch that allows you to play a symphony of burping, barfing, and farting sounds. You can even record your own "Nasty Sounds" to share with your friends, family, and everyone within earshot.

Needless to say. . . this app is more than a little useless -- unless you're trying to, as the app points out, amuse toddlers. Still, I do have to give them some credit for the extra options -- you can even change the pitches of the sounds (why you would want to do this, I have no idea).

I suppose this just goes to show that "pull my finger" jokes never get old.