Started this thread here because I inadvertently started one under iPhone. Many apps for the iPad are not available on iPhone or iPod or are a bit different from their cousins.
The iWork for iPad apps are all very well done. Nobody should expect them to be completely on par as their Mac cousins, but in some ways they may be better simply due to the touch UI. For all of the iWork for iPad apps, I would suggest viewing the sample document and then perusing the online help. Both are very useful and well done. Sharing files back to a Mac is OK, but could be better implemented and may come in an update to the Mac apps. I get the impression apple really wants people to use iWork-dot-com. All-in-all, though, the Work for iPad apps are certainly a bargain and will only get better with future updates.
Pages
A pretty solid and productive app. It is a word-processor, and a pretty good one. Though it cannot do everything the Mac version can (the Mac version has page layout, footnotes, and a few other things), if the user knows its abilities and uses a little creativity, the final result can be fantastic. Needs mask with shape. A few menus could be a little clearer, but once you discover things it's easy to navigate: editing text was a little hidden.
Keynote
Very well done app and the final presentations are amazing. Very straightforward UI. Though currently awesome, I would love to be able to record audio into the app and to be able to control it with a remote.
Numbers
Very good implementation and fairly easy to use. I did find a few things a bit funky, but I'm honestly not a pro-user of Numbers on the Mac either.
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SketchBook Pro
Awesome. A very good painting app for the low cost. One problem: exported images drawn in landscape show up in Photos rotated 90° counter-clockwise and cannot be righted unless imported into Pages or some other app. I see this as a weakness in both SBP and Photos.
Before posting some of the apps I like, I think it's worth pointing out some the most obviously missing Apple apps:
iDisk. Sure, the iPhone version works, but come on Apple -- this is a no-brainer.
Clock. None of the third-party clock applications for the iPad (and there are several) can work in the background and set off alarms even when not running, like the original iPhone Clock app. What's up with that?
I agree on some of the missing apps. Clock (and its timer) would be very nice to have once multitasking is available later this year. iDisk, too. The iwork for iPad apps can up and download to iWork-dot-com... why not iDisk which many of us already pay for? Calculator?
As for Weather, I use it for fun on my iPhone, but the forecast for my city is based on the airport which is one hour north and in the mountains, so it was almost never accurate. Weathernews Touch for iPhone is awesome and free, but it only covers Japan (check it out, it's nicely done). Hopefully they will soon release an iPad version. Some of the weather apps for iPad look nice, but I haven't bought any primarily because they usually only do US weather or I run in t the airport problem again.
There are a couple of hurricane trackers for the US on he iPhone. Would love for a typhoon tracker for the Pacific to come out.
Weather is actually only reported and forecasted for a quite limited number of places. A lot of weather apps try to fool you by interpolating or just pretending to provide local reports and forecasts by giving you the one for he nearest official station, which could be many miles away. The Apple weather app does the later, so I always though it was pretty useless. I'm using WeatherBug, which seems to do a fairly credible job of dealing with highly imperfect data. More choices for current conditions stations than I have seen elsewhere. Seems to work for Japan too.
The iPhone/touch Clock app didn't need multitasking to work in the background, but you probably already knew that. If I could find a way to put it on my iPad, I would.
A fun if perhaps not immediately useful free app is Clinometer (might have also been available for the iPhone). It turns your iPad into a 360° bubble level. I actually got to use this on our cruise recently, when the ship got into some rough waters. Turns out the ship was pitching only about 2-3° at worst. Sure seemed like more! So because of my iPad, I had to leave my parrot and peg leg in the suitcase.
Found a couple of iPhone to iPad photo sharing apps (over BT or WiFi), but so far none support video, which would be awesome.
Also, while announcing my Christmas-in-June wish list, I hope Canon will make a printing app that will access the shared files created by other apps (eg, PDF files) and be able to print them directly. They have an iPhone app that accesses the photos and works pretty well, but I'd love to be able to create a full A4 size (or US letter size) PDF and print it with quality.
Found a printing app that works nicely with a WiFi network (haven't got it working directly to my printer yet, but it says it should work...). You can print iWork files by way of a work-around that is simple.
PrintBureau (comes with an iPhone version, too)
The same company makes various printing apps for different needs.
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A simple animation app that is tons of fun, and the developer seems intent on improving it regularly:
Animation Creator (there is an iPhone version, but the iPad's screen size makes it a joy)
If they could make it output to the movies folder and sync back to a Mac...
Comments
Pages
A pretty solid and productive app. It is a word-processor, and a pretty good one. Though it cannot do everything the Mac version can (the Mac version has page layout, footnotes, and a few other things), if the user knows its abilities and uses a little creativity, the final result can be fantastic. Needs mask with shape. A few menus could be a little clearer, but once you discover things it's easy to navigate: editing text was a little hidden.
Keynote
Very well done app and the final presentations are amazing. Very straightforward UI. Though currently awesome, I would love to be able to record audio into the app and to be able to control it with a remote.
Numbers
Very good implementation and fairly easy to use. I did find a few things a bit funky, but I'm honestly not a pro-user of Numbers on the Mac either.
-----
SketchBook Pro
Awesome. A very good painting app for the low cost. One problem: exported images drawn in landscape show up in Photos rotated 90° counter-clockwise and cannot be righted unless imported into Pages or some other app. I see this as a weakness in both SBP and Photos.
iDisk. Sure, the iPhone version works, but come on Apple -- this is a no-brainer.
Clock. None of the third-party clock applications for the iPad (and there are several) can work in the background and set off alarms even when not running, like the original iPhone Clock app. What's up with that?
Also, no: Weather, Stocks or Remote.
As for Weather, I use it for fun on my iPhone, but the forecast for my city is based on the airport which is one hour north and in the mountains, so it was almost never accurate. Weathernews Touch for iPhone is awesome and free, but it only covers Japan (check it out, it's nicely done). Hopefully they will soon release an iPad version. Some of the weather apps for iPad look nice, but I haven't bought any primarily because they usually only do US weather or I run in t the airport problem again.
There are a couple of hurricane trackers for the US on he iPhone. Would love for a typhoon tracker for the Pacific to come out.
The iPhone/touch Clock app didn't need multitasking to work in the background, but you probably already knew that. If I could find a way to put it on my iPad, I would.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bloom...281941097?mt=8
Also, while announcing my Christmas-in-June wish list, I hope Canon will make a printing app that will access the shared files created by other apps (eg, PDF files) and be able to print them directly. They have an iPhone app that accesses the photos and works pretty well, but I'd love to be able to create a full A4 size (or US letter size) PDF and print it with quality.
PrintBureau (comes with an iPhone version, too)
The same company makes various printing apps for different needs.
-----
A simple animation app that is tons of fun, and the developer seems intent on improving it regularly:
Animation Creator (there is an iPhone version, but the iPad's screen size makes it a joy)
If they could make it output to the movies folder and sync back to a Mac...