A Roundup of Worthy Apps for the New iPads
Tablets have altered the barriers of the computer world, shattering the belief that a personal computer must have a keyboard. And while laptops have become associated with boring Excel documents and the other digital trappings of work, tablets are making computing fun again.
Rockpack shows you interesting new videos from around the Web.
Real Racing 3 has vivid graphics that would be at home on a console player.
A plane-window view of London on the Google Earth app for iPad.
Although Android tablets are getting better all the time, Apple is still leading the tablet charge - and the new iPads the company announced on Tuesday look as if they will keep the company in front. A major reason for that is the number of great iPad apps available.
These recommendations are for apps that showcase tablets, and they all work with the new iPad versions.
Video is something iPads do better than iPhones, thanks to the larger screen. YouTube is well known for viral videos of all sorts, and YouTube has an official iPad app that works a lot like the traditional Web site, with extras like gesture controls. The app is mainly for playing video when you have a network connection, so it won't be useful at all times. Google will soon add the ability to download videos for watching when your iPad is offline. The YouTube app is free and worth trying, but I dislike its menus and find its gesture controls a little flaky - they don't always seem to do what you want.
For a better online video experience, you may prefer Rockpack. The app is easy to use and its design is excellent. Rockpack shows you an array of great videos drawn from across the Web and recommended by your social media friends as well as celebrities. Sharing your own video discoveries with friends on Twitter or Facebook is also a breeze. Rockpack, too, is free.
My favorite iPad video player is VLC. This free app plays video files that you have downloaded on a computer, and its strength is that it can play pretty much any file format you can think of. But it does require an extra step: Before playing the downloaded videos, you must transfer the video files to the app from your computer via Dropbox, iTunes or a Web server system. VLC is handy for catching up on movies during a weekend away or perhaps a long flight. But learning to master its somewhat technical controls can take time.
Game apps also go well with iPads, and there are thousands. Real Racing 3 is one great game that combines amazing graphics and a type of motion-control gameplay that you can really get only on tablets. It's a car racing game that you control by steering your iPad as if it were a car's wheel. The graphics will impress you, as they're what you'd normally expect to see on a game on a console like a PlayStation or Xbox, and the gameplay is entertaining. The segments between races for upgrading your car and selecting tracks can drag on too long, but the game is free, so it's hard to complain.
For a totally different kind of game experience, try zipping way back to 1980 with the official Pac-Man app. It's the classic arcade game lovingly remade for the iPad, with great graphics and sound and a few new tricks. You won't have to feed quarters into the game to keep playing, though it does cost $5. And if you're into fighting games, then Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic is the one for you. It's a role-playing/fighting game with fabulous imagery and all the Star Wars paraphernalia you love. The downsides: it is $10 and it will gobble up a lot of your iPad's storage space.
Talking of planets and space, a completely different app worth trying is Google Earth. Though this looks simply like another version of Google's Web app, the tablet's screen is absolutely the best way to experience Earth. Zooming and diving by swiping the screen to see beautiful satellite imagery of the world and 3-D graphics of famous buildings feels wonderful. The app is free.
Another iPad app that could amaze you is Shazam. This free app, with graphics that make the most of the big display on an iPad, recognizes music that you hear playing, perhaps on the radio or in a coffee shop. It will automatically tell you what the track is called, show you lyrics and even give you the chance to buy it. If you let it, Shazam can also listen all the time - so it will automatically “tag†every song it hears playing near your iPad, perhaps during a movie or TV show, without you having to interact with it. This automatic feature is, for now, something only the iPad app can do.
For learning languages with your iPad, Duolingo is a free app that makes the most of the tablet's screen with a clear interface. And for learning everything a TED talk has to offer, the free and amazing TED videos really are more convenient via the iPad app - because you can watch when you're out and about.
Hopefully by trying these apps you will see that your iPad is much more than a device for browsing the Web or reading documents or books. Have fun!
Quick Calls
Microsoft has released a new app to let you remotely connect your 21st-century iOS or Android device to your old-fashioned PC - it's free, and lets you control what is on the PC screen. ... Dream of Pixels, a successful iOS game, is now on Android too. It's like a backward Tetris, where you unpack a grid of shaped pieces instead of stacking them up. Fun, and free.
A version of this article appears in print on October 24, 2013, on page B7 of the New York edition with the headline: A Roundup of Worthy Apps for the New iPads.
