Garry's Technology Corner

gI’ve had the iPad now for a number of weeks and as I stated in my last post it has really turned into a great little companion for both business and personal use. Many of the apps that were a big hit on the iPhone and Touch have been ported over to the iPad in order to take advantage of the larger screen and faster processor. As well there have been several new apps built specifically for the iPad. So far my favorite apps can be broken down into 3 categories, business, fun/personal and kids. On the business side, Evernote, ToDo and Adobe Ideas top the list. Fun/Personal include Twitterific, CloudReaders & GoodReader, Sports Tap and Meteor Blitz. Finally, this list would not be complete without adding a couple of apps that my 2yr old can’t stop playing, TicTacToe, I Hear Ewe & MemoryCueHD.

Business

I’ve always had a thing for day planners and note books, I usually have at least one of these in my bag at any given time, I don’t always use them but its always there. The first apps I looked for when I got the iPad were productivity apps.

ToDo ($4.99)

This is a great little ToDo list, I can create a general list of things to do, a project with sub tasks or a checklist.The real power of this program is in the Appigo sync service, if your running Microsoft Outlook or iCal on the Mac all you tasks can by sync’d, really helps in keeping things organized.

EverNote(Free)

This an excellent little app for taking quick notes of whatever’s on your mind. What I really like about this app is the ability to organize and tag notes based on whatever I want. It also has a sync feature that uploads all your notes to the cloud. I haven’t played with this too much, just having the notes on the iPad and the ability to organize them was the real benefit for me.

AdobeIdeas(Free)

Some of the best ideas come from the back of a dinner napkin. Here’s the dinner napkin for the iPad. In a nut shell AdobeIdeas is a tool that can be used for brainstorming, mind mapping, etc. A very powerful Paint program that allows you to pull in images and draw all over them or just create your own image.

Fun/Personal

Twitterific(Free)

No list is complete without mentioning at least one Twitter App. I tried 3-4 apps before I finally stuck to Twitterific. Unlike most I use Twitter to get updates on things like technology, poker and some friends. Right now the WSOP is going on in Las Vegas and many of the top pros and people I know have been using Twitter to post their standings and hands they’ve played. Twitterific has a nice user interface and the thing I like the most is the colour coding of the Tweets, regular are black, mentions are blue, retweets are green etc.

Cloud Readers(Free)/Good Reader($0.99)

I have a tonne of PDF files and ebooks and trying to read them on my laptop was a bit of a pain and being somewhat environmentally conscious I tried not to print them out too often. In my previous post I said that the iPad was awesome for reading and these two apps really close the loop for PDFs. Cloud Readers is free and fairly basic, the menu just lists the files that are currently loaded and a progress bar of the current open file.  Good Reader has more options to keep files organized, preview files and web downloads. All in all if you want to read PDFs either of these apps are a great choice.

Sports Tap(Free)

Just a very simple sports app. It received a bunch of of negative ratings and I think the reason most didn’t like it is for the same reason I like it, it’s simple, just scores, stats,  headlines and pictures. No graphics, videos or other crap to slow it down.

Meteor Blitz($2.99)

This is just a fun game to play, if it moves shoot it…

Kids

My little one is almost as good as I am on this so I figured I’d find something for her to play with before everyone on my twitter list removes me for receiving too many “Qdfaslkrtjuoij” messages.

Baby Memory Cue HD($1.99)

I remember playing memory as a kid with a deck of cards, this is the same game but the cards are animals. My little one just loves it and I like that there are a bunch of levels for her to progress through as she gets better.

I Hear Ewe(Free)

My daughter  loves this app, all there is, is a bunch of tiles with animal and vehicle pictures. Touch the tile and it says “This is the sound a tiger makes….” she loves to mimic the sounds.

TicTacToe(Free)

Need I say more….

I have at least another page of apps that I like and use but these ones listed here are by far my favorites. I’ve noticed that developers have started to realize that people are willing to pay more for applications. When the iPhone came out apps were either free or $0.99 with the iPad most apps run are between $2.99 and up. There are still really good apps for $0.99 but more and more are coming in at a higher price.