Must-Have iPad Apps

Every iPad owner has their own list of “must have” apps — any such list is purely individual and none is perfect (except for the list’s creator). But since a few of my friends have new iPads, rather than email my recommended apps, I’ll just list them here:

Reeder
I recently wrote a post on my other blog about iPad RSS readers, and Reeder was my app of choice. The article has links to others I tried (most of them are free) so try a few to find out which works best for you.

Instapaper
Probably the most useful app I have, Instapaper lets you save web pages for offline reading. It’s part of many RSS readers and news aggregators, so it’s simple to create a list of articles to read later.

Twitter
There are a lot of Twitter clients out there, but I’ve found that I like the “official” one best.

Accuweather
Again, there are a lot of weather apps to choose from. I find Accuweather to be one of the better designed ones and find the forecast layout easy to read.

Netflix
Stream movies and TV to your iPad. If you have a Netflix account, you need this app.

TED
Watch TED Talks and save them locally for offline viewing.

MLB AtBat 11
If you’re not a baseball fan, this app is useless. For hardcore fans, it’s indispensable. Live updates and audio makes it easy to follow a game (I don’t have an MLB.com account to watch live games, though the Red Sox games would probably be under blackout rules anyway). But AtBat 11 shows video highlights during the game, and has 20-minute next-day game recaps.

Dropbox
Dropbox lets you put folders on your Mac/PC and it automatically syncs with your iPad (and other mobile devices, as well as other people’s devices if you share with them). Probably the easiest way to deal with files on your iPad.

Remote and Pandora
I don’t sync my music to my iPad, so I use Remote to listen to my MacBook’s iTunes library. Pandora lets you listen to your Pandora stations on your iPad (obviously). If you have an Airport Express or Apple TV, you can wirelessly stream your music to your home theater system.

Games
I’m not a serious gamer; I prefer casual games I can quickly play and stop with little time invested. Some of my favorites are pretty standard popular ones: Angry Birds / Angry Birds Seasons (there are iPad-specific “HD” versions available, but I just use the iPhone versions so I can also have them on my iPod), Scrabble, Tiny Wings, and Plants vs. Zombies HD.

Honorable Mentions
A few that I use less regularly but are nice to have: Epicurious, WordPress, Google Earth, Good Reader, Martha Stewart Cookies (yes, really), NPR, Peterson Field Guide to Backyard Birds, The Onion, and CNN.

Did I miss any major apps or your personal favorite? Know of a decent Facebook app? Add it below…