Real Mom’s Guide to iPad

In celebration of the release of the Apple iPad 2 (in just Five short days), I thought I’d share my favorite iPad apps.

When it comes to apps for my iPad, I’m kind of a snob, I only use the apps that are made specifically for the iPad. The iPhone apps work on the iPad, but they’re not as pretty, they don’t take advantage of all that iPad has to offer. There are some amazing iPhone apps out there, but that’s a post for another day. Today I’ll tell you about my favorite and most used out of the 65,000+ that take advantage of the iPad’s size and ability.

Here is my Real Mom take on my favorite iPad apps.

Social Media

I have simple taste when it comes to my social media apps. I use Twitter’s own app, it’s clean and simple to use, and I don’t need anything more than what it has to offer. The best part, it’s free.

With this app you can view your timeline, mentions, direct messages, lists, and profile. You can search for topics or users. Creating a tweet is simple to do with features that help you quickly add mentions, hashtags, photos or even your location. When a new tweet, mention or message comes in a blue dot will appear next to the heading to let you know. If you want to look a little deeper into a tweet, an other window will appear to the right and all you have to do is swipe it when you’re done with it and it will drop back off. To respect the privacy of my tweeps, I will not show a screen shot of Twitter.

Facebook hasn’t come out with it’s own app for iPad. Sure, there are plenty of apps out there for facebook, most of which are paid apps. Personally I’ve never used any of them though. I kind of made my own app for facebook since I didn’t like what was available to me at the time.

If you want to make a button on your Home Screen for facebook (or any website really), it’s super easy. Just go to the site you want, next to the browser bar you’ll see a box with an arrow pointing to the right, click on that and hit “Add to home screen”, name it and you’re done. You’ve just created a bookmark for your favorite website on your Home Screen. What I like about it is that you don’t have the limitations that come along with some apps.

TV Time

Most of the shows I watch are on ABC, so the ABC player app is amazing. Now more worrying about missing my favorite shows, if I do I can just watch them on my iPad. Most of your favorite Daytime and Evening shows are right there at your fingertips.

Above is a screen shot. All you do is tap the show you want to see and it will show you what episodes are available to watch. In addition to watching your favorite shows, you can also check the schedule to see when shows are on and get brief information about the episode. Oh, did I mention it’s FREE?!?

For those with Comcast, the Xfinity app is a must have. Check your TV listings, set your DVR, find a movie to watch OnDemand, even control your TV. The TV control is kind of fun to mess with hubby. I can change the station he’s watching without even being in the room. The Xfinity app is also free.

Reading

I have used Kindle, Nook, and Boarders e-reader apps, all of which are free, but I still like iBooks the best. While they don’t always have the selection of books that the others have, the interface is clean and easy to use. In the last update they even made you able to arrange your books by collection. I made a collection of all my Twilight Saga books and another one for my Castle books. For people who read a lot of books it cuts the clutter on your bookshelf by giving you an easy way to organize your books and PDFs. Another reason iBooks is my favorite is that I can use my iTunes gift cards to pay for my books.

Cooking

I splurged on my recipe app by spending a whole $2.99. My Recipe Book has been worth every penny! Before the iPad, my recipes were all over the place; in a folder, a binder, a box, in various places on my computer, even stuffed inside actual cook books. All the changed with this app. Not only did it come with recipes of its own, it’s a great place for me to consolidate my mess of paper recipes into one place. Storing recipes is not all it does though. Other fantastic features include, conversion tools (temp. weights and measures), and kitchen timers. There’s a serving size adjuster to easily modify the recipe for the number of servings you want. Sort your recipes by keyword, category, or time to easily find what you’re looking for. Make your grocery list right in the app so you never forget an ingredient. There are more than 10 different websites that you can directly import recipes from right to the app. Once you choose what you’re making for dinner, you can fit your recipe to fill the screen, change the font as needed, or even print it out. My Recipe Book is easy to use whether portrait or landscape view. Here’s a peek at what the recipe screen looks like.

News

My favorite place to get the new from is ABC News, their free app is actually kind of fun to use. If you don’t want to spin the big ball, you can choose the list option. I think the ball is kind of fun…WEEEEEEEEEEE!

USA Today is another great free news app. It actually looks like a real newspaper with the little scalloped edges across the top.

Sports

I found my sports app while I was out of town and the Phillies were in the championship. Yahoo Sportacular (free) is a great way to keep up with your favorite, NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA football, NCAA basketball, or MLB teams. Not only can you see scores, but you can see game facts and stats as well. My favorite is the baseball diamond with the colored bases to show where the players are. Sportacular is a must have for the on the go sport nut, or in my case, the bandwagon jumper.

I could probably keep going with all the apps I love, but I save it for part 2 once I have an iPad 2 in my hot little hands. I’ve all ready put in my request with hubby; white one, 32gig, pink cover.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad