Best of: 25 Most Essential iPad Apps in 2010

With 2010 wrapping up, I wanted to highlight my absolute favorite and most used iPad apps in 2010. Selecting the best was a tough choice, since I currently have more than 100 iPad apps loaded on my iPad ready to use. Over the course of the year, I’ve probably tried out more than 500 or so iPad apps. Here is my take of the best app in 2010.

Browsing

I’ve tried six or seven different iPad browser and stuck with Safari…that was until Terra Web Browser (Free) was launched. Terra is the fastest web browser I’ve found and it has tabs, which save me quite a bit of time and frustration. I also tried SkyFire and it came nowhere close to Terra for me. Another form of browsing I do is app browsing. My favorite app for this is AppAdvice ($1.99), which provides news, app reviews, app lists, app guides and more.

Games

One of my most unexpected uses for the iPad has been gaming. I use the iPad to plays games daily. While I could easily list more than a dozen games I love, I’ll limit it to a few of the best. Infinity Blade ($5.99) uses beautiful 3D-like effects, adrenaline fueled battles and intuitive controls as you progress your character and fight your way to the top. The other two games I chose are ridiculously addictive in Plants vs. Zombies HD ($6.99) and Angry Birds HD ($4.99). PvZ has frustrated me with few updates and no new levels. I’d love to start playing the game again, but I beat it several months ago and have been waiting for an update. On the other hand, Angry Birds have some of the most active developers in gaming. Not only do they release new levels in updates on a regular basis, but they’ve also launched a holiday version of Angry Birds.

Movies & TV

One of the best uses for the iPad is to watch streaming videos. No app is more necessary to have than Netflix (Free), which lets you stream a large collection of instant watch movies and tv shows (Netflix account required). A nice compliment to Netflix is Hulu Plus (Free to download, $7.99 per month subscription). Hulu Plus offers thousands of tv show episodes to stream. I tried it for a month and will fully transition to Hulu Plus once I cut my cable bill.

Music

I use my iPad for music on an almost daily basis. In addition to the built-in iPod app, the apps I use most include Pandora (Free) to stream music based on the artist or song I choose, TuneIn Radio ($0.99) to listen to over 400,000 radio stations and podcasts and Vevo HD (Free) to stream and watch over 25,000 music videos.

Navigation

My app of choice for GPS is MotionX GPS Drive ($2.99). With MotionX, my 3G iPad is a suitable replacement for my TomTom. It provides six different map views, the ability to save current locations and favorites, a cool little iPod MP3 tool to listen to your music while navigating, Facebook Places integration, estimated time of arrival and more. Free updates are included with the app, but live turn-by-turn voice activation is either $2.99 for 30 days or $19.99 for a full year.

Note taking & ToDo

I’ve tried quite a few note taking apps, but always go back to the absolute best, Evernote (Free). With Evernote, you can quickly create text, photo and audio notes and auto sync them with your desktop and mobile phone. I currently have 76 notes in 9 different notebooks, with tags, photos and more. A quick and easy search lets me find the note I need. I also found the ideal Todo app for me. Awesome Note for iPad (Plus todo) ($4.99) syncs and integrates all your Evernote notes, gives you Todo functionality and also has a calendar view. It’s an all-in-one solution to help stay organized.

More Productivity

This list wouldn’t be complete without the mention of DropBox (Free). I use the free version of DropBox (2GB) to sync and share files between my computer, iPad and mobile device. By simply dragging files into my DropBox, they are instantly available from my mobile devices. You can share the folder by sending a link to someone and give them access.

Reading

I consider myself more of a news and magazine reader than a book reader. The iPad hasn’t changed this personal preference. However, iBooks (Free) and Kindle (Free) are brilliant apps that can replace your book collection. To read my news and RSS feeds, my absolute favorite app is Pulse News Reader (Free). Pulse offers a mosaic appearance for all your favorite sites along with the ability to share with Twitter, Facebook, email and Instapaper. With Pulse, my web browsing has significantly been reduced. My other favorite news reader is Flipboard (Free), which lets you flip through your your favorite sites, Facebook feeds, Twitter feeds and more.

Social

It took me quite some time to finally settle for just one Facebook app, but with improvements Friendly Plus ($0.99) got it right. Friendly is attractive in appearance, fully functional and the app that should should be Facebook’s official app. For my Twitter fill, I turn to Twitter (Free). Though I also like Hootsuite (Free) for its all-in-one Facebook, Twitter & Foursquare integration, Twitter is my go-to client.

Texting & Voice

The iPad doesn’t currently have phone capabilities, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create, send and receive text messages or listen, read and manage your voice mails. If you have a Google Voice account, you can grab GV Connect – Call & SMS Client ($2.99) to do just this.

What were your favorite iPad apps of 2010? Let me know what you think of those mentioned above.