The iPad has been on the street now for a little over a week, and application developers have been busy creating their latest wares. Here are some of the apps that I have had a chance to play with and find useful and fun.
epicurious
“Epicurious” is an application that connects to a database housing an array of recipes. You can browse recipes by category, event type, ingredients, and ranking.
Feedback is available from folks who have attempted the recipe. Many will provide helpful deviations or hints, and the rating system of “would make again” has been helpful in narrowing down recipes for further experimentation.
The app is free and is available at the
epicurious-recipes-shopping link in the iTunes store.
News Pro by Thompson Reuters
In my opinion, “News Pro” is currently the best news app available for the iPad. It has the interface refinement of an application that has been around for a while, and also presents the news in a format that seems familiar yet incorporates some of the interactivity promised by Apple with the iPad.
Each category is its own row to scroll through and view available stories. The incorporation of videos is also done nicely. To play, just click the thumbnail, and a separate window pops open and the video starts to play.
Stories can be cached for viewing offline–important if you plan to read anything while a network connection is unavailable.
This app is free from the iTunes app store. You can find it at itunes.apple.com/us/app/reuters-news-pro-for-ipad/id363274833?mt=8.
WeatherBug Elite for iPad
WeatherBug Elite is a free weather app. It provides all of the necessary information to stay current on weather conditions. The large radar-image window is a great feature. You can zoom in and out to view the latest radar imagery, either locally or nationally. The radar window can also display gradient maps for temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind speed. I.R. satellite imagery and visible satellite imagery are both available.
An information ribbon along the top of the screen provides most of the necessary weather information. If you want a closer look, just tap the object in the ribbon, and it will pop out into a larger window for better viewing.
As with most weather apps, you can bookmark several different locations for easy reference.
This free app is also in the iTunes store and can be found at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weatherbug-elite-for-ipad/id363235774?mt=8.
