My 10 Favorite Free iPad Apps

I’m catching up on my reading, and one of the books I couldn’t wait to look through is Peter Meyers’s Best iPad Apps: The Guide for Discriminating Downloaders. The word “discriminating” is appropriate, since Meyers focuses on some of the best and most functional apps for this incredible device. This book provides information about both free and paid apps. In this post, I’d like to present 10 of my favorite and useful free iPad apps.

Barbara’s Top Ten

1. iBooks: This app is my most favorite and useful, as I always can have a book with me at all times to read. I enjoy reading books on the iPad and know that this interface and experience will just keep getting better.
2. Google Search: Although you can open the default Safari iPad browser, I really like Google’s app. If you haven’t tried this, you are in for a very pleasant surprise, as you can use Google Voice Search (no need to type in your search terms) and Google Googles (search using the new camera feature of the iPad). Included in this app are easy ways to access Google Apps and other Google tools.
3. Dropbox: This tools makes saving and accessing files from any computer, anywhere a breeze. Once you add this app to all of your computers, any file you place into your local Dropbox folder will sync across all of your computers. The hard part is simply getting into the habit of putting all of your files in this folder!
4. Dragon Dictation: Need to send a quick email or text message, but don’t like to use the keyboard? Use this speech-to-text app to quickly produce text you can send and share in a variety of ways. I’m thinking this would be extremely handy for non-keyboarders.
5. Echofon: A Twitter aggregator, this simple tool allows you to stay on top of tweets and send tweets from multiple Twitter accounts. While I do not even pretend to stay abreast of the millions of social messages produced per minute, this tool helps you easily view your followers and navigate the complex world of Twitter.
6. Evernote: This tool makes writing, note taking, picture taking, and other types of recording a piece of cake. I use this instead of Google Docs on the iPad for writing because it is just so easy and efficient. This is a college student’s dream app.
7. Google Earth: One of the most amazing, interesting, and mind-boggling apps around. Looking for that condo on the beach? Make sure it’s actually on the beach as advertised by looking it up using Google Earth. Also, try spinning the earth when you open this app. It’s fun!
8. TED: Lots of excellent videos and presentations from all sorts of people. A great way to refresh your thinking and get some new ideas.
9. Pandora: Another way to listen to radio, the music genome project, which selects songs for you based upon an artist, genre, or whatever. Let Pandora do the selecting for you!
10. Bloomberg: This app will keep you updated on your stock picks and also provide financial news, podcasts, and all sorts of information about the market.

I tend to focus on productivity, social networking, and writing apps. However, as you will discover, there are apps for music, picture and video editing, recording, travel, gaming, and just about anything you can think of.

What are your favorite iPad apps and why? Let me know by commenting below. And thanks for reading.