Must Have Apps for the New iPad Owner

If you just got an iPad as a holiday gift then you're probably itching to get some cool Apps for it pronto. Here at Best App Site we review the "best" iOS apps regularly and you can certainly check out the site for all the Apps we've reviewed since the iPad came out in April 2010. However, with tens of thousands of iPad Apps out there you probably want to dive right in and grab some of the BEST Apps right now! So here are my picks that I would recommend for any new iPad owner. Many of these are free and the ones that aren't free are worth every penny! In no particular order….

Flipboard

Flipboard is a fantastic visual way of doing social networking. See postings from your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and your favorite RSS feeds visually in this fantastic browser. Once you have your settings in place, just flip through the pages with your finger to see all of the posts visually! Apple chose Fliboard as "App of the Year" for 2010. 

You can get Flipboard for FREE here from the 

Remote

Apple's Remote App has been one of my favorite Apps since day one. Now that it's universal for the iPad/iPhone I love it even more. This App let's you remote control your iTunes library as well as your Apple TV. On the iPad it's even better giving you a very big visual look into your iTunes library with complete gesture based controls for your Apple TV. 

You can get Remote for FREE here from the 

Reeder

I started using Reeder on the iPad as my RSS reader while waiting for ByLine to become native on the iPad. I started liking Reeder so much that I not only continued to use it on my iPad, but I replaced ByLine on my iPhone with Reeder for iPhone too. Reeder allows me to get through the dozens of sites I follow in a matter of a few minutes each day and throughout the day. The interface is clean and it just rocks! If you are a Google Reader user, then Reeder is your App for iPad.

You can get Reeder for iPad for $4.99 here from the 

Accu Weather for iPad

I've gone through a few weather Apps for iPad and I keep coming back to Accu Weather as my favorite. I love the UI and the features of this App. It's clean and visually gives me what I want to know quickly for any destination in the world. 

You can get Accu Weather for iPad for $0.99 here from the 

Adobe Ideas

Adobe Ideas is a great app for sketching, drawing or just doodling on your iPad. You can even bring in a photo and use it as a source to draw on top of. There is an in-app purchase option if you want to work in layers. It's the 21st century bar napkin Otherwise you can simply enjoy this App for FREE. 

You can get Adobe Ideas for Free here from the 

Photoshop Express

Adobe Photoshop is world's leading photo manipulation App. However, on the iPad you probably don't need all of the power of full Photoshop, nor the complexity or expense. Adobe Photoshop Express aims to let you do the most common and basic things you would want to do with your photos for free. It's all gesture based and has sharing capabilities with posting pics on Facebook or Flickr. 

You can get Photoshop Express for Free here from the 

Flixster

As a movie goer I want to know what times the movies are at my favorite theater, the ratings and what's playing? Flixster does a great job of giving me all of this info at a glance:

You can get Flixter for Free here from the 

Pandora Radio

Pandora Radio is more than just internet radio. It learns from your thumbs up and thumbs down and continues to offer you more of the music you like to hear as a result. Best of all now it can play in the background while you continue to do other stuff in the foreground.

You can get Pandora for Free here from the 

Grocery iQ

Grocery iQ is an AWESOME grocery list manager! You can either use it stand alone or share lists with your significant other. If you have an iPhone or 4th gen iPod touch you can even use the built-in camera to scan the barcode of your items to add them to the list automatically. 

You can get Grocery iQ for Free here from the 

Friendly Plus for Facebook

Sadly Facebook doesn't have a native iPad version of their App yet. In the meantime Friendly Plus for Facebook will probably give you everything you need to use the various features of Facebook on your iPad. It does a great job of also allow you to see your friends photos full screen on the iPad.

You can get Friendly Plus for Facebook for Free here from the  UPDATE! Friendly is NOW FREE!

Twitter

It's hard to talk about Facebook without also talking about Twitter. There are several good Twitter Apps for iPad, but I actually find the Free Twitter branded App to be my favorite. I love the UI (user interface) and it works!

You can get Twitter for Free here from the 

Dropbox

Your iPad only has so much available space on it. That's why I depend on Drobox.com to allow me to store stuff in the cloud and access and share it directly on my iPad. You can get a free account with 2GBs of space at Dropbox.com here and then access that space from any of your computers or your iOS devices. Also many of the 3rd party Apps support moving data back and forth between the iPad and Dropbox.

You can get the Dropbox App for Free here from the 

PDF Expert

Although you can view PDFs in Safari on your iPad and even store them in the iBooks App, the built-in PDF support is very basic. If you need to "work" with PDFs including annotating them, storing them, searching them and even filling in PDF forms, then you should check out PDF Expert!

You can get PDF Expert for $9.99 here from the 

Calculator HD

Unlike the iPhone and iPod touch Apple didn't include a built-in calculator and while there are dozens of choices out there, I found Calculator HD to be the most functional (for my needs). It has an optional electronic "paper tape" as well as scientific functions. 

You can get Calculator HD for $0.99 here from the 

Two Apps for Viewing Flash Content

The iPad doesn't support Adobe Flash Player. However, there are a couple of ways to still view Flash content on websites. The 1st way is to use the App Cloud Browse. Cloud Browse is basically a window into a server running the full desktop version of Firefox. Therefore you can view any website containing Flash. I will caution you that it's probably not wise to use this App on sites that you have to log into or use credit card information. Think of it as using a public computer via your iPad. The 2nd App is Skyfire. Skyfire is only aimed at allowing to to watch Flash video via your iPad. Therefore you will not see other animations on the site. If you encounter a site that has a video you want to watch and the video requires Flash Player, you can visit that site using the Skyfire App and there's a good chance you'll be able to view the video on your iPad.

You can get Cloud Browse for $0.99 here from the 

You can get Skyfire Web Browser for iPad for $4.99 here from the 

Angry Birds HD

Angry Birds is hands down the most addictive game I've played on a handheld device. It's also one of the most popular games on the App Store. There are thousands of good games out there, but this is one I would recommend first for any new iPad owner. 

You can get Angry Birds HD for $4.99 here from  

25 Tips for the New iPad User

Back when the iPad came out in April I wrote an eBook called "25 iPad Tips." Although it was written before iOS 4, there are still some good tips there. You can get that eBook for FREE and load it into your iBooks app to check out.

Get it here.

The 100 Best Apps of 2010

See our picks here

I could go on and on and on (and I will in the days and weeks to come), but the list above should get you going on your iPad with some of my favorite iPad Apps. If you want even more be sure to check out some of my previous recommendations here:

8 Must Have iPad Apps for Photographers – here.

10 Must Have iPad Apps – here

Top 10 Universal iPad and iPhone Apps – here.

Terry's Top 10 Favorite iPad Games – here