If you’ve decided to splash the cash on an iPad over the festive season, here are our top apps for 2010 to help you get right down the business.
By Leo Stiles
The massive diversity of apps in the iPad app store is proof if any were needed that the iPad is more than just an oversized iPod, with even the iPad versions of existing apps adding an upgraded experience as developers get to grips with the tablet’s features.
We had just one criteria in choosing our top five and that was that every app had to bring something new to the tablet, something that couldn’t be matched by any other application and that enhanced the user experience. So here you have it; JOE’s top five iPad apps of 2010:
Infinity Blade
There were many quality games released for the iPad during 2010 but only one is really worthy of the top five.
Infinity Blade is not only one of the best games of the year; it is a quantum leap over what was previously thought possible on a mobile platform. No other game on any smartphone or portable device comes even close to matching the graphical fidelity on offer here with environments and characters realized with astonishing depth and detail and with the kind of animation and effects previously were only possible on dedicated home consoles.
Gameplay has not been ignored either with an initially simple set-up giving way to a nuanced and sophisticated battle system and character development tree. Some may be disappointed with the lack of freedom to explore the game environs but that would be to miss the point as Infinity Blade has more to offer than mere spectacle.
Developers Epic Games and Chair have kept the player and the platform in mind right throughout the making of the game which shines through in the intuitive controls and the decision to make the game a universal app that will play across all compatible iOS devices and will be expanded with new content for free in the coming months.
The challenge has been laid down and we can only hope that 2011 will see further games from this talented bunch.
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VLC Player
It’s ironic that a device that seemed perfectly suited to playing movies was hobbled by Apple’s decision to restrict iPad to QuickTime compatible files only. Thankfully the VLC player has changed all that and has quickly transformed the way we watch movies on the move.
The app played just about any files and early problems with playback were quickly solved by the developer; something that we wish a few more app designers would try to emulate.
Best of all is the app’s method for transferring movie files to the tablet, which bypasses most of iTunes syncing restrictions and instead allows you to side-load them into the app itself, all in under a minute.
Now if only there was similar app for music…
Amazon Kindle
It’s not often that you see Apple beaten at their own game but that’s exactly what happened when Amazon aggressively expanded its Kindle software to the iPad.
Originally the iPad was positioned as the e-reader to end them all with the introduction on Apple’s own iBooks app and the promise of a huge library of books and magazines.Six months on from launch and iBooks has done nothing more that offer free classic books, which is admirable in its own way but a far cry from replacing print as your literary medium of choice.
The Kindle app does everything iBooks promised to do and more with Amazon’s massive library of titles and enticingly competitive pricing giving users the latest releases at a fraction of the print price. The app performs very well too with smooth page transition and an ability to store your purchases on Amazon’s servers for retrieval whenever you want. Our favorite feature is the app’s ability to sync your bookmarks across devices, meaning you can start reading a chapter on the iPad and continue on the iPhone or PC without ever losing your page.
Pulse News Reader
News aggregators are nearly as numerous as games in the iPad app store which initially made choosing one quite difficult, especially as most of them were paid apps. Then along came Pulse and washed away every other app of its kind.
Even a cursory glance at Pulse shows you how different it is with news feeds represented with a visual snapshot of each story eliminating the text overkill that is the bane of news aggregators. News feeds can be organized very easily with space for up to 60 feeds and any pictures and videos that are attached to stories are viewable in the app, negating the need to launch Safari.
Try it once and in just a few minutes you won’t want to use anything else.
Pages
In the absence of an official Microsoft Word app we had to make do with Pages, the equivalent application from Apple.
Fortunately the app is a more than worthy replacement, particularly with the ability to upload documents to a WebDAV server and the long overdue ability to print directly from the iPad. The app is also fast and responsive and backs your work up regularly to avoid any loss of work if the iPad battery dies on you. Typing using the virtual keyboard takes a bit of getting used to but when we connected a Bluetooth keyboard we were banging out the words in no time.
Just like the VLC app, Pages is another app that transforms how you use the iPad.
Honorable Mentions
Plants Vs Zombies HD – Hilarious and addictive defense strategy from the ever dependable PopCap Games but it’s a pity they removed the Michael Jackson zombie.
Flipboard – The best use of Twitter feeds that we have ever seen and turns even the most frivolous of tweets into something worth reading.
Air Video – Over the air streaming of your entire video library and the playback of just about any file makes this a real winner for those of you with a fast home network.
Marvel – Get your geek on and give comics a new lease of life with the Marvel app, which makes the panels jump off the screen with smart animated transitions.
Find my iPhone – This is one for those of you who are constantly losing your phone down the back of the couch. It works like a charm, it’s free and it will find your iPad too.
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