Top 10 apps to Kickstart your iPad 2

March 25th 2011

You’ve just picked up your iPad 2, this is your first iPad, and you can’t contain how excited you are. You now have one main focus and nothing else matters than getting home syncing with iTunes, selecting 300,000 thousand apps and clicking buy… Okay, maybe not, so here are 10 really solid apps to start with and impress your friends.

When I first saw the iPad I could not have it soon enough, I got the iPad sent from the States, before they even launched it in Australia and at this stage there were less than 5000 apps in the App store, and now we are looking to see over 100,000 by the end of June 2011, which is awesome. So if you’re new to the iPad, which apps should you download straight away?

These Top 10 apps are based on getting the best experience out of your iPad or iPad 2 from day 1, this list should give you a pretty good feel for what you can do with this baby. These apps are in no particular order – it’s too hard.

Awesome Note (+Todo) – $5.99

To-Do Notes to organize your day, Post-It style Quick Memo to quickly jot down your thoughts, sending notes with photo attachments as email, and synchronization with Google Docs / Evernote, Awesome Note provides some powerful features. Jot down your ideas, thoughts and memos, and create daily diary, travel diary, email box, checklist, shopping list, to-do list, scheduler and anything else you want and sort them into custom categories with Awesome Note.
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Flipboard – Free

Named Apple’s iPad App of the Year and one of TIME’s top 50 innovations of 2010, Flipboard is a fast, beautiful way to flip through the news, photos and updates your friends are sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Flickr and Instagram. See your social media in a magazine layout that is easy to scan and fun to read. Customize your Flipboard with sections created from your favorite news, people, blogs and topics.——————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Friendly Plus For Facebook – $1.19

A beautiful Facebook experience designed for your iPad: – Swipe through Facebook photos full screen – Chat with your online friends – Upload photos from your iPad – Easy switch between multiple Facebook accounts – Secure your Facebook Account with a PIN Code access – Customize colors and fonts to your liking – No ads. Lite Version HERE
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Fruit Ninja HD – $3.99

Fruit Ninja is a juicy action game with squishy, splatty and satisfying fruit carnage! Become the ultimate bringer of sweet, tasty destruction with every slash. Swipe up to EIGHT fingers across the screen to deliciously slash fruit like a true ninja warrior, taking in all of the crisp detailed effects which have been radically improved from the iPhone version. Lite Version HERE
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Garage Band – $5.99

GarageBand turns your iPad into a collection of Touch Instruments and a full-featured recording studio — so you can make music anywhere you go. Use Multi-Touch gestures to play pianos, organs, guitars, drums, and basses on your iPad. They sound and play like their counterparts, but let you do things you could never do on a real instrument.
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iMovie – $5.99

Make beautiful HD movies anywhere with iMovie, the fast and fun moviemaking app for the amazing new iPad 2. Designed for the Multi-Touch screen, iMovie puts everything you need to tell your story at your fingertips. Browse and play projects in the stunning Marquee view. Make a movie in minutes by adding video, photos, music, and sound effects. Add a themes, titles, and transitions. Share your right from iMovie.
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Angry Birds Rio – $3.99

In Angry Birds Rio, the original Angry Birds are kidnapped and taken to the magical city of Rio de Janeiro, where they eventually escape their captors and set out to to save their friends, Blu and Jewel – two rare macaws and the stars of the upcoming Fox motion picture, Rio. Angry Birds Rio will pair the physics-based gameplay of the original game with unique twists based on the film. Lite Version HERE
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Pulse News Reader – Free

Meet Pulse. A beautiful application that makes reading news fun and engaging. Pulse takes your favorite websites and transforms them into a colorful and interactive mosaic. Tap on an article, and you will see a clean and elegant view of the story. Sharing the story via Facebook, Twitter, Email or Instapaper is as easy as two taps.
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Pocket Weather AU HD – $2.49

Weather sourced directly from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) – an Australian Source for Australian Weather! Forecast & observation data for hundreds of areas around Australia. Select it via GPS, Map or list. – National Satellite and Synoptic Chart – All of the BOM rain and wind doppler radars – 2 unique skins to choose from (more to come!)
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iBooks- Free

iBooks is an amazing way to download and read books. iBooks includes the iBookstore, where you can download the latest best-selling books or your favorite classics – day or night. Browse your library on a beautiful bookshelf, tap a book to open it, flip through pages with a swipe or a tap, and bookmark or add notes to your favorite passages.