Great apps and a huge selection of great apps are a big part of what makes the iPad such an amazing device. There are excellent apps for just about any purpose you can think of – from serious productivity to pure entertainment. Better still, there are lots of great free apps for the iPad. Our Best Free iPad App of the Week posts highlight these apps.

This week’s pick is Tornado by American Red Cross. This is, of course, an app focused on helping to prepare for a tornado. Here’s a slice of its App Store description:

Get your family and home ready for a tornado. The American Red Cross tornado app is the complete solution you need to understand and prepare for a tornado and all that comes with it. With interactive quizzes and simple step-by-step advice it’s never been easier to be ready!

The app may not be for everyone, but for those of us who live in areas where tornados are a...

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The Spideo Instant Movie Discovery iPad app was updated this week, to Version 1.3. It’s not a major update, with the one notable new feature being the ability to share movie and TV show playlists via Facebook.

Spideo is a very good app for discovering movies and TV shows based on your moods and some genre based choices. For instance, in the screenshot above I set my Wishes to Suspense and Twisty – and got a set of results featuring the TV shows like 24 and The Shield and movies like The Departed, Shutter Island, and more.

I like the app a lot and featured it as our Best Free iPad App of the Week a couple of months back.

Here’s the full change list for this latest update to the app:

You can now share your playlist of movies and TV shows with your Facebook friends.
It’s easy :
> Enable Facebook within Spideo application in the section called...

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Wow. This contest was a heck of a lot of fun. I asked you guys for damn good reasons why you need these cleaning cloths for your iPads and touchscreen devices and Oh Boy did we get some great reasons and responses.

If I had to pick a single favorite it would be extremely tough. Luckily I don’t have to though – because Mobile Cloth generously let me pick 6 winners. They are:

• Brian Esse
• Lorilei Potvin
• Kevin
• Steven Servantez
• Wendy
• Rob Zombie

OK, if you twist my arm I’ll share just one quick favorite among the many I had – this one from Brian Esse:

I need these because I have 30 3rd grade students using 10 iPads. Thats 60 hands! We did the math.

Winners – please keep an eye on your Inboxes and spam folders – as Mobile Cloth will soon be contacting you to get your shipping details.

Thanks to everybody who took part in the contest and made such great...

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The Saturday Evening Post has recently launched an iPad edition, which is available on Newsstand now. Touted as ‘the trusted voice of American culture’ the magazine has a rich history – and was well-known years ago in part for its Norman Rockwell cover illustrations.

I have to admit I didn’t realize The Saturday Evening Post was still being published until I saw news of its iPad version. I very rarely visit real-life newsstands these days, so that’s my excuse for not realizing this title was still around.

Here’s a bit of the App Store intro for The Saturday Evening Post iPad edition:

The Saturday Evening Post reports on the who, what, and why of today with a nod to the past and an eye on the future. The trusted voice of American culture is now available with bonus content and enhanced features including hot links, audio and video highlights, easy browsing capabilities,...

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Issue 2 of The Loop Magazine is out today, right on schedule. This is an extension of Jim Dalrymple’s The Loop website, described like so in the App Store:

The Loop magazine will serve as an extension of my interests on The Loop
Web site, which includes music, design, technology, games and Apple, among
others. Each issue will feature a number of really great authors that
I’ve come to know and respect over my nearly 20 years writing about Apple.

The Loop Magazine is a similar style to Marco Arment’s The Magazine – with a clean, minimal look and a strong team of writers. Issue 2 features articles from Matt Gemmell, Rene Ritchie and other notable contributors.

It’s published twice monthly, and subscriptions cost $1.99 per month. It’s already a favorite of mine.

Here’s an App Store link for The Loop Magazine.

© patrickj for iPad Insight, 2013. | ...

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The Evernote app for iPad and iPhone has been updated today, to Version 5.3. This update adds Reminders as a new feature which lets you pin notes to the top of your list to help you remember those that are most important.

You can also add due dates and receive notifications in the app and via email, and mark notes as Done when you’ve completed them. Here are the remaining items on the change list for this update:

Enhanced security with XAuth

• View all applications that access your account from Evernote Web Settings
Business: toggle between personal and business tags in the tag view
Numerous bug fixes, including:
• Fix for an issue causing certain large notes to duplicate on sync
• Fix for several offline search issues

For those who use Evernote for task and to-do tracking the new reminders features should prove hugely useful. I rarely use Evernote that way, but I...

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Mailbox, the popular iPhone email app, now has an iPad version – as of today. The app is know for being clean, minimal, and making email management easier. Here’s a slice of its App Store description:

The fast, fun mobile inbox that puts email in its place.
Note: Currently for Gmail only. Other email platforms coming soon.
Mailbox is a completely redesigned inbox that makes email light, fast, and mobile-friendly. Quickly swipe messages to your archive or trash. Scan an entire conversation at once with chat-like organization. Snooze emails until later with the tap of a button — they’ll return to your inbox automatically so you can focus on what’s important now.
Mailbox checks your email from the cloud, then delivers it to your phone securely. You can even get push notifications for new messages. Add all your GMail accounts for speedy access on-the-go.
...

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The Zite app for iPad has been updated today, to Version 2.3. Zite is one of the leading news magazines apps for the iPad and learns from your interactions and tailors the content for you as you go along using it. I’ve seen many apps that claim to do this sort of thing, but Zite is by far the most effective at it.

This latest update is focused on further improving the app’s recommendation engine and tweaking the UI to make it even easier to use and to find the best content more quickly. Here are the new features listed for the 2.3 update:

· We’ve made huge improvements to our recommendation engine to ensure that the stories we deliver are a good match for your interests.
· Articles that you’ve read before will be greyed out (synced across all your devices).
· We’ve enhanced some articles with pull quotes.

You can see an example of the new greyed out...

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The heck with stealing the towels – at this hotel you’re going to want to leave the towels and sneak out with a gold-plated iPad.

As Business Insider recently reported, the Burj Al Arab hotel, touted as one of the world’s most luxurious hotels, is offering gold-plated iPads as a luxury amenity.

When guests check in, they’ll be given their own gold iPads, which will serve as a “virtual concierge” that offers information on everything from the hotel’s restaurant menus and spa treatments to housekeeping and butler services.

The iPads are given to the guests for the duration of their hotel stay. If they grow attached to them they can be bought in the hotel’s boutique. I couldn’t find the price for these gold-plated iPad 3 models at the hotel site or the manufacturer (Gold & Co)’ site. I guess that puts them firmly in the ‘If you have to ask…’...

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If you fancy learning how to maintain and repair your iPad and all your iDevices, there’s an impressive new book out that could serve as a starting point and handy reference guide. The book is ‘The Unauthorized Guide to iPhone, iPad, and iPod Repair’ and is billed as a DIY guide to extending the life of your iDevices.

It’s available in print and also in an Amazon Kindle edition and on the iBookstore.

The book’s author is Timothy L Warner, an Apple Certified Repair Technician and is said to be the only reference / tutorial of its kind that is in full color. Perhaps most impressively, the book has been thoroughly reviewed for technical accuracy and approved by the brilliant folks at iFixit.com.

Here’s a slice of the book’s iBookstore description:

Fix your own iPhone, iPad, or iPod with secret repair knowledge Apple doesn’t want you to have! This groundbreaking,...

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Battle of the Bulge Lite was released on the iPad App Store yesterday. This is the new, free version of the superb Battle of the Bulge strategic wargame for the iPad. This new Lite version of the game offers unlimited play of one of the game’s most interesting scenarios – ‘Race to the Meuse’, with all its features and modes of play.

Here’s a little more on Battle of the Bulge Lite and its notable features, via its App Store page:

Battle of the Bulge is a historical wargame, designed specifically for iPad. It’s a turn-based simulation in the spirit of traditional board wargames. Pieces represent actual military units fighting on the terrain of the famous WWII battle.
• Play three ways: online through Game Center, vs. computer opponents, or Pass & Play
• Unlimited play of “Race to the Meuse,” a short, tense fight in the opening days of the battle
•...

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6 Free Mobile Cloth Combo Packs To Be Won (one large and one small)

Contest Deadline: Friday May 24, 2:00PM US Central

It’s contest time again. This time we’ve got one of the least glamorous but hardest working and most useful iPad accessories up for grabs. If you’ve been following this site for any length of time you know that I’m a big fan of these Mobile Cloth cleaning cloths. If you somehow missed my past mentions of them, check out my post when I first came across them, and asked how excited you’re allowed to be about cleaning cloths.

The short story is these are by far and away the best cleaning cloth for the iPad and all my touchscreen devices. Winners of this contest will receive a combo pack of the big and small Mobile Cloth – with the iPad Insight logo on them, so you’ll never forget which site you need to visit every day. :)

Hit the break to see how easy...

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Here’s a handy tip for newer iPad users. If you don’t like the default font in the iPad’s built-in Notes app, it’s very easy to change it.

You don’t have a broad range of choices, but there are 3 fonts you can choose to use with the iPad Notes app. Here’s how to select the one you want:

– Open the Settings app.

– Tap on the Notes item in the left sidebar, just below the entries for iCloud and Mail, Contacts, Calendars.

– Tap on one of the 3 font names in the Font window – Noteworthy, Helvetica, or Marker Felt.

That’s it. A very basic tip I know, but I see the question of how to change the iPad Notes font come up relatively often in support forums – so I thought I’d share.

Happy font selecting.

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Flickr Studio for iPad is available for free today only (5/21/13) – to celebrate ‘the new Flickr’. That’s down from its standard price of $4.99. Yahoo announced the new Flickr yesterday, including an upgrade on all accounts to 1TB (!) of free storage.

The Flickr Studio app is designed specifically for the iPad and offers a good set of features to work with and manage your own photostream and explore those from your contacts and the Flickr community as a whole. Here are some of the notable features:

YOUR PHOTOS
All your Flickr photos and videos, one smart app. With Flickr studio you can instantly browse your stream, sets, collections, groups, tags or find any photo with the powerful search!
AND EVERYONE ELSE’S TOO!
But Flickr Studio is not just YOUR full photo collection. Use it to view photos from your contacts, or any Flickr user for that matter – Even...

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Pocket and Instapaper are two excellent read-it-later apps / services for the iPad, iOS and beyond. I’ve used both services for years, but for the last year or so I’ve been using Pocket a lot more than Instapaper.

So a tip on how to import Instapaper articles into Pocket, from Whitson Gordon at Lifehacker, caught my eye this morning. Since Pocket is the app I look at regularly, it seems a fine idea to pull my Instapaper saved articles into it. And it’s super easy to do. Here’s a few things to be aware of before starting:

– Instapaper export note: If you have more than 2,000 articles, only the most recent 2,000 will be included.

– Pocket Import Note: Instapaper’s export does not provide a list of what items you have ‘liked’ or ‘favorited’. As a result, your ‘liked’ items have been imported into your Pocket archive but will...

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I’m continually amazed with the incredible art being created on iPads. For years I’ve watched as a growing number of both traditional and ‘digital artists have embraced the Apple tablet as not just one of their tools, but as their primary canvas. I’ll share some great iPad artwork here each weekend, and I hope some of you will become fans of it too, or better still be inspired to create your own art on the iPad.

Today’s selection of amazing iPad art is around the theme of portraits. First up is Halle Berry by Woon Tien David Chong – created using the Procreate app. One of the most beautiful women in the world, and this portrait does her justice I think.

Next is ‘My Angelina’ by Cheeky Raffy – another one that’s a striking as its subject – and also done with the Procreate app.

And finally ‘Adrianna’ by Michael Acosta. As far as I know Adrianna is not a...

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A new free version of the fantastic Battle of the Bulge iPad game is coming soon. Battle of the Bulge Lite was submitted to Apple for approval on May 16 and could hit the iPad App Store any day now.

Battle of the Bulge Lite will feature the ‘Race to the Meuse’ scenario from the full Battle of the Bulge game, with unlimited play in single player and online multiplayer modes. The Race to the Meuse scenario simulates the first three days of the Axis surprise attack in 1944. It can be played online against friends or random online opponents; or versus the game’s excellent AI.

Some of the other features of the new Lite version of Battle of the Bulge include:

• A quick start guide, to get you playing fast

• An interactive tutorial to teach you the game more in depth

• Extensive history notes and photographs about the battle

• Strategy hints and tips

• Full rules to...

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One of the best things about using an iPad is all the great apps that we can run on it. There are excellent apps for just about any purpose you can think of. Better still, there are lots of great free apps for the iPad. Our Best Free iPad App of the Week posts highlight these apps.

This week’s pick is Google+, the iPad app for Google’s social network. It took Google a long time to bring out an iPad version of Google+ but it turned out to be worth the wait – and I’ve ben meaning to feature it as a Best iPad App of the Week here for a long while now.

I was fortunate enough to get an early Google+ invite right around its initial beta launch. I liked it right from the off and it has become my favorite social network. I find myself spending more and more time on Google+, as I enjoy the lively discussions on a wide range of topics that interest me. And the excellent Google+ iPad app...

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The new MLB.com Home Run Derby iPad app is just what the name sounds like – an iPad game that lets you test your long ball hitting prowess, playing as one of the home run hitting stars from the last three MLB All-Star games.

The game lets you choose from any of the 24 sluggers who took part in the last three All-Star Home Run Derby events – though many of them require you either to collect a large number of ‘MLBucks’ as bonuses while you play or to pay up via In-App purchase. The game starts you off with 100 MLBucks, which will allow you to choose from around 9 of the sluggers who cost that much to select. Others range from 300 to 700 – for instance Robinson Cano from the 2012 Derby and Prince Fielder and David Ortiz from 2011 are 700.

Some of the other stars you can play as include Miguel Cabrera, Matt Kemp, Jose Bautista, Andrew McCutchen, and more.

There are single and...

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Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is a wonderful new iPad app celebrating this famous and loved piece of music. I’ve never been a big fan of classical music but something about the look of this app grabbed me and I decided to give it a look.

Wow, I am so glad I did. This is just a fantastic app, even for someone like me who’s not knowledgeable about the music. Here’s a bit of the App Store intro for it:

Beethoven’s 9th Symphony for iPad presents four of Deutsche Grammophon’s legendary recordings of this iconic work, with the amazing ability to switch instantly between each performance at any point in the piece. As you listen, you can watch the synchronized musical score, be guided by expert commentary, follow Beethoven’s 1825 manuscript or immerse yourself in the hypnotic graphical BeatMap of the orchestra, precisely highlighting every note. The app also includes a treasure-trove...

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Apple announced yesterday that the App Store hit the much-anticipated 50 billion app downloads milestone:

Apple® today announced that customers have downloaded over 50 billion apps* from the revolutionary App Store℠. Customers are downloading more than 800 apps per second at a rate of over two billion apps per month on the App Store.

In iTunes on the desktop you can see a listing of the Top 25 All-Time Paid Apps and Free Apps, with separate listings for iPad apps and iPhone apps. There are no huge surprises in the iPad Top 25 list, but here’s a few things I find interesting:

– Skype for iPad is the Number 1 All-Time Free App. I think Skype’s iPad app is great, better than its desktop version – but I’m still a little surprised to see it right at the all-time chart.

– 10 of the Top 25 paid are not games, and 6 out of those 10 are Apple apps – Pages, Keynote,...

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At yesterday’s Google I/O event Google announced the very promising Hangouts app, a sort of unified messaging app / service for iOS, Android and web. And the Hangouts app for the iPad and iPhone was released yesterday too.

The iPad app is a horrible, ugly mess. There a number of very good iPad apps with simple, basic user interfaces. But Hangouts has a drab, clumsy UI that looks very much like it was slapped together with little to no thought or effort.

That’s one of the app’s main screens above. It’s just sad looking right? Hit the break for a couple more screenshots of the app in all its glory.

Here’s a typical Hangouts screen when having a text chat:

What’s going on with all the huge amounts of blank space? And the goofy positioning of the text blocks? It just feels like it’s not meant to be this way. Like somebody started working out this screen design and then...

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The Watchup iPad video news app has been updated this week – adding a number of good new channels.

The update, issued yesterday, takes the app to Version 1.10.1. New channels added for the US include Chicago Tribune, The Motley Fool, KXAN (Yay Austin), Moyers & Company, TechCrunch and more. There are also a great number of new international channels added:

• Latin America: NTN24
• Argentina: C5N, Canal 7
• Brazil: RedeTV!, SBT, TV NBR, Ulbra TV
• Colombia: Canal Capital, Noticias Caracol
• Ecuador: RTU Noticias
• And many other channels for Australia, Canada, the UK, Mexico, Ireland, Hungary, France, Italy, Lithuania, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Venezuela and many others.

Watchup is great, simple app for keeping up with daily news via video from a strong, curated list of sources. It’s a recent pick of ours for ...

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The photo above shows a gorgeous coffee-colored iPad Smart Cover – but it’s not a color you’ll find in the Apple store range. It’s the result of a DIY project involving actual coffee being applied to the Smart Cover.

This is the creation of simeon, one of the developers at twolivesleft – makers of Codea and other apps and games.

Simeon decided he wasn’t seeing quite the aging effect he had hoped for on the tan Smart Cover, so he decided to create his own.

I’m not too careful with my cover. I chose the leather cover thinking the more scuffed and damaged it got, the better. I wanted it to look worn. Unfortunately after only two weeks of use it did start to look worn — on one side only.

As you can see in the above photos the right side of the cover is darkened in the place I usually hold it while reading.

This asymmetry wouldn’t do. I had a wonderful, horrible idea:...

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The ever-excellent 1Password app for iPad and iOS has been updated again this week, to Version 4.2.

This is another big update for 1Password, with a slew of new features and enhancements for its 1Browser inline browser. A big new feature, apparently based on user demand, is sharing. You can now share 1Password items via email and Messages. The search function within the app has also been beefed up – it now searches URLs as well as item titles.

Here’s the full (full!) change list for this latest version:

1Browser
* Added Go and Fill bookmarks in 1Browser on iPad.
* Added the ability to use Strong Password Generator in 1Browser on iPad.
* Added the ability to auto-submit on login filling.
* Added fill animations to make it easy (and fun) to see where fields are filled.
* Added Copy to Clipboard in the Share menu to copy the current URL to the clipboard.
*...

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