5 Must Have Free iPad Apps

I think it’s safe to say the iPad is a hit! The fast and smooth browsing, amazing battery life, fantastic rebuilt iPad applications and overall look and feel of the device is catching many by surprise. I have very few negative things to say about the iPad.

While some of you may already have the device in hand, a larger percentage are waiting to see how this generation 1 device performs before dropping the $500 plus. In purchasing the device, accessories and some of the expensive iPad apps, it gets pretty expensive. Not all of the great apps will cost you though. Today, I wanted to highlight my 5 favorite free iPad apps that will let you take full advantage of the iPad.

Netflix (Entertainment) – This iPad application gives you the ability to instantly watch TV shows and movies in your queue, streaming directly from Netflix onto your iPad. You can browse movies, update your queue and even resume watching a show or movie from where you left off on your computer. The ability to manage your queue and stream countless movies as often as you want lets you take full advantage of the beautiful iPad resolution and full screen video player, while easily managing your Netflix queue.

Labyrinth 2 HD Lite (games) – This game lets you navigate ball/s through a maze of barriers, cannons, bumpers, doors, magnets, fans, merry-go-rounds, lasers and other fun challenges. You can create and play your own levels, play with up to 4 player multiplayer via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and more. This is a free lite version of the $7.99 Labyrinth 2 HD. The game is in 3d and shows you the beauty of the high resolution screen as you tilt the iPad to get the ball in the appropriate hole. Hours of fun for this free game.

iBooks (books) – This app will be the primary reason many will make the decision to purchase the iPad. iBooks lets you download and read your favorite eBooks. The bookshelf view provides a simple way to organize and choose which book you want to read. Countless books are free and those you have to pay for offers free previews. You can reorder your books on the bookshelf, adjust your screen brightness, change font size, pick from five type faces, search for words or phrases, bookmark your favorite words or phrases and more. This will change the way you read books.

USA Today (News) – The USA TODAY app gives you access to news, scores, weather and photos. You can browse and read USA TODAY stories, share them via email, Twitter or Facebook, download them to read offline, get live weather, etc. This app takes advantage of the touch and navigation of the iPad, scrolling horizontally for the feature stories and vertically to access all the content on the same page. It also shows you how nice reading a newspaper really is on the iPad.

ABC Player (Entertainment) – The ABC Player for iPad lets you watch full-length episodes of your favorite ABC shows like LOST, Modern Family, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and more. You can pause an episode, view the full schedule of episodes and use this free app to watch some shows you may have missed.