This and That -- Mary Kay's Doings
My Favorite Apps
Now that I'm a seasoned user of Apple's iPod touch and iPad, I thought I'd put together a list of some of my favorite apps. These are ones that may be of general use, with notes on why I like them. Of course, there are also the basic apps, such as Mail, Safari, Maps, and Photos, which are always a pleasure to use.
Books
iBooks (free) - Amazing way to download and read books. From Apple, and I think it should be included when you get an iPhone or iPad! Includes iBookstore to buy books. Adjust font size and brightness, bookmark pages, take notes.
Kindle (free) For books you buy from Amazon.com, that are meant for the Kindle ereader. A particularly nice way to read ebooks on the iPad. You can buy the books from within the app, including many free books.
Nook (free) For books you buy from Barnes and Noble, that are meant for the Nook ereader. Now you can read them on the iPad. Puts more than 2 million eBooks, magazines and newspapers at your fingertips. Sample books for free, and share eBooks with family and friends using LendMe technology.
Overdrive Media Console (free) Download library books directly to your iPad. More than 13,000 libraries. For example, in central New Jersey, the Mercer County Library System is part of eLibraryNJ.com, where you can find your books (both ebooks and audiobooks) and send them to Overdrive.
Entertainment
Watch ABC (free) Some of your favorite ABC shows may be playing on your iPad! Watch full episodes any time you want. Check out what shows are included. "Castle" is my favorite!
Hulu Plus (free) Subscribe to Hulu Plus for $7.99 a month and stream current and classic TV shows. Includes shows from ABC, Fox, and NBC.
Movies by Flixster (free) - Find showtimes, Rotten Tomatoes reviews, trailers, actor information, and photos. A must-have for you movie buffs!
Netflix (free) Watch TV shows and movies streaming from Netflix. Its part of your Netflix unlimited membership. I'm not enough of a movie buff to subscribe to Netflix, but if you do, here's another way to watch your shows and movies!
Pandora Radio (free) Listen to the radio as Pandora streams music to your iPad. Start with the name of one of your favorite artists, songs or classical composers and Pandora will create a "station" that plays their music and more music like it.
PBS for iPad (free) Watch most popular and current PBS programs free and with minimal interruption, any time you want. Do you like Antiques Roadshow or Nova? Masterpiece Theater is my favorite.
TED (free) Presents video talks from some of the world’s most fascinating people: education radicals, tech geniuses, medical mavericks, business gurus and music legends. Even if you're not into TV or movies, I'll bet you'll find some interesting and thought-provoking talks!
Games
Angry Birds HD Free (free) If you want to see what all the hoopla is about Angry Birds, try this free version. Help the angry birds free their friends. You can graduate to paid versions if you get hooked!
Baby's Musical Hands ($0.99) - Babies will be drawn to interacting with the visual and audio feedback. 15 brightly colored squares make drum sounds, piano notes, and guitar notes. Every time your baby touches the screen, colorful stars will burst from their fingers.
Infinity Blade ($5.99) This game has amazing, realistic graphics. Great to impress your young friends and relatives! If you know some young (or young at heart) would-be epic heroes, don't miss this sword fighting action game. Winner of numerous game-of-the-year awards.
Scrabble for iPad (free or $9.99) America's favorite word game. You can try out the free version before buying the full version. Play with 1 to 4 people. Challenge your friends anytime, anywhere -- even remotely. Includes a Scrabble Teacher feature and a party mode. A must for Scrabble lovers!
Platinum Solitaire ($0.99) My favorite iPhone/iPod touch traditional game of solitaire. Realistic, preserves the feel of the game as played with a pack of cards. I even prefer it to an iPad version -- it's just the right size on my iPod touch!
Mondo Top 5 Solitaire for iPad ($2.99) Takes the most popular solitaire card games for this lower price. (The full set is $5.99). Includes Free Cell, Golf Klondike, Pyramid, and Spider.
Big Bad Sudoku Book ($1.99) There are lots of versions of this game, but this is my favorite: thousands of designs, 5 difficulty levels, pencil annotations. Impressive realistic look.
Lifestyle
Epicurious (free) One of the best cooking apps you can get on the iPad. It includes over 28,000 recipes. The interface is beautiful with the recipes neatly organized depending on main ingredient, health restrictions, nationality, what’s new, and more. Includes a shopping list button.
Zillow Real Estate Search (free) Find out home values in your neighborhood. Walk or drive through neighborhoods and the built-in GPS (on 3G iPads) shows you which homes are for sale, the asking price, recently sold houses and their selling price, plus photo tours of many. This is a fun app!
Duolingo (free) Learn Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, and English. "Far and away the best free language-learning app." —The Wall Street Journal.
Waite's Guide to Birds of America (free for 50 species, $29.99 to uclodk all 919 species) A reference app for those who love birdwatching. Designed for the iPad, information is quick to look up and find, the photos are stunning and you can add notes, your own photos and mark favorites.
News
Newsy for iPad (free) Video from multiple sources. Voted best news app of 2011. This is a great app for getting your daily news (in video form) from more than one point of view. It's like watching a news program where you pick the stories, not the TV network!
NPR News (free) -- My Dad's favorite news app. Local and national news. Create playlists of the stories you choose to be read to you over breakfast. Listen to your favorite NPR stations.
USA Today for iPad (free) Read stories from USA TODAY's News, Money, Sports, Life, Tech and Travel sections. All content is still free (unlike some newspaper apps). Includes the popular crossword puzzles. Hint: jump between sections by tapping on the large, colorful square at the app’s upper left corner.
Productivity
DropBox (free) The best way to access your photos, docs, and videos on the go. The service offers about 2GB of free space in their cloud for your files, and automatically syncs your cloud storage space the the folder of your choice on your Mac or PC. It supports many file formats, and is the way I keep my files accessible from all my computers -- even from the web!
Evernote (free) Easy to use app that lets you remember information across all the devices you use. I used to have sticky notes everywhere, but searching them was a pain. Now, I love using Evernote! Lets you take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists, and then organize them all and search them from any of your devices, including your computers.
Pages (free for new devices, $9.99 for older models) - The easiest and most powerful word processing app for any mobile device. Does almost anything that the desktop version can do. Has a lot of useful templates -- they look great with no effort! Creating, placing, sizing and rotating pictures, text, and graphics is so easy!
Penultimate (free) A drawing/sketching app for the iPad. For casual drawing on an iPad, Penultimate is second to none. It's fast, friendly, flexible, and a bargain. If you've ever doodled in a notebook, using the app should be second nature. It's great for handwritten notes.
Reference
Dictionary.com (free) - Trusted reference content from Dicitonary.com and Thesaurus.com. No internet connection is needed to search for words. Nearly 2,000,000 words, definitions, synonyms and antonyms. Includes voice search, which correctly found "hors d'oeuvres" for me -- quite a feat!
Google Translate (free) Translate words and phrases between more than 50 languages. In 15 of those languages you can speak a phrase and hear the translation, instead of typing it.
Travel
FlightBoard ($3.99) Live flight departure and arrival status for over 4000 airports around the world. Updated every 5 minutes. Beautiful interface mimics the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Switch between departures and arrivals. Integrates with FlightTrack, my other favorite travel app.
FlightTrack ($4.99) My favorite travel app for flying. It tracks flights with zoomable maps with real-time departure info, delays, and gate assignments. I particularly like how easy it is to enter, keep, and update flight choices.
Google Earth (free) - Hold the world in the palm of your hand. Fly to far corners of the world with just a swipe of your finger. Explore global satellite and aerial imagery.
Utilities
Ookla Speedtest (free) Find out the speed and quality of your Wi-Fi or 3G internet connectionin under 30 seconds. Tests upload speed, download speed, and latency of your connection.
Weather
The Weather Channel Max for iPad (free) - One of my two favorite weather apps. In-depth weather including local forecasts and video, and innovative maps including animated last 5 hours and next 5 hours. Pinch and flick to zoom in and out and move around the maps.
WeatherBug Elite ($2.99) - My other favorite weather app. Truly live, local weather. Provides access to local professional weather stations of your choice to get information including rain so far today, rain rate, and webcams to see what it looks like where you're headed. (There is a free version with fewer features.)