Best apps for your iPad, Part 2

Yup, your iPad is actually a Unix computer.

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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

Best apps for your iPad, Part 2

May 22, 2011

By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2011, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2011, The Post-Standard

Last week I told you about some of my favorite iPad apps. This week I have more.

First, a new book that can help you choose the right apps is “Best iPad Apps” by Peter Meyers (O’Reilly, $21.99). Keep it handy each time you look through the App Store. I found a lot of little gems through the book.

The rest of my list of favorites:

--Bible +1, free. Compare translations of any passage with a single touch. Adjust text size and quickly find verses within chapters.

-- WordBook XL, $2.99. Outstanding dictionary and thesaurus, with links to Wikipedia and Answers.com.

-- AppShopper, free. Easy way to browse descriptive lists of new and undiscovered apps.

-- Amazon Windowshop, free. Search for and buy items at Amazon.com with ease.

-- Catalogs.com, free. Serendipitous browsing of all sorts of shopping catalogs.

-- Wi-Fi Finder, free. Locates wi-fi networks you can join wherever you happen to be. Essential for wi-fi-only iPads.

-- Free HD Compass, free. Uses iPad’s built-in chips to locate directions (true north and magnetic north provided).

-- Clinometer, level and slope finder, $.99. There’s another app with a similar name; look for the full name used here. Measures degrees off perfectly level of anything you place your iPad on.

-- System Manager for iPad, $.99. Reveals running processes of your Unix-based iPad and shows other interesting measurements. (Yup, your iPad is actually a Unix computer!)

-- Hidden - Hide your private notes (also called HHYPN), $1.99. Clever note-taking app that shows normal notes but hides private ones, such as your passwords and credit card numbers, behind a passcode and a secret way of accessing that passcode. No one could suspect there is a private side to the app, and the public note function works great, too.

-- VLC, free, and OPlayer HD, $4.99. These apps show videos the iPad normally can’t handle. VLC might not be available at this point because of a dispute among programmers. If it’s not, try OPlayer HD.

-- Seasonality Go, $4.99. Outstanding weather app. Multiple locations and choices of data. I use it daily.

-- Google Earth, free. Best current example of what technology can do for mapping and location-finding. Your iPad can be flown over any terrain, too. (Try tipping your iPad forward or back while hovering over any area.)

-- Friendly Facebook for iPad, free. Great Facebook interface. Easy to use.

-- Filer, $3.99. Gives the iPad an easy way to download anything.