Apple : Apple@40: What would the world look like if Apple licensed OS X to PC makers?

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• Apple@40: What would the world look like if Apple licensed OS X to PC makers?
• Apple@40: Apple turns 40 - here are its highs and lows throughout the years
• Updated: 100 best free iPad apps 2016

Apple@40: What would the world look like if Apple licensed OS X to PC makers? Posted: Introduction Apple occupies an odd space in the PC market. The company, which originally started making personal computers in the 1980s, has since become best known as the maker of the iPhone but its Mac lineup. Its laptops and desktops are generally considered some of the best, if most expensive, computers available today. Almost every review of a computer that comes with a bitten piece of fruit on the back is positive, if not glowing. The MacBook Pro, a powerful laptop aimed at on-the-go professionals, is regularly described as the best laptop in the world while the MacBook Air, its less powerful sibling, comes in second. Its record is far from flawless in recent years, however, with the 12-inch MacBook (due to its single USB Type-C port) and the 2014 Mac mini - which is yet to see a refresh - being two bum notes among recent highs. Apple has spent a lot of time, effort, and money on keeping the Mac lines up-to-date, including introducing a new version, simply called MacBook, which is closer to an iPad than a laptop, besides the fact it runs OS X, Apple's operating system. In fact, its OS X that makes Apple's computer lineup so compelling: The operating system is visually striking, fast, and available exclusively on Apple-made computers. The decision to keep OS X all to itself came from Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder and first CEO who put the "personal" into the company's computers as far back as 1984, when the original Macintosh was introduced, according to Walter Isaacson's biography, Jobs decided that the option that yielded the best end-user experience was if Apple made both the software and the hardware for the Mac. While this model is not only fantastically profitable, it does actually work: Apple builds software with specific hardware in mind which means it integrates better. There is a reason that MacBook's have the best trackpads and, often, battery life. It's important to understand how this differs from the "Windows model." Essentially, Microsoft chose the opposite route: Windows is made available—for a fee—to PC makers (referred to as Original Equipment Manufactures, or OEMs) who then made the hardware and bundle Windows. Microsoft has built its entire business off the back of having Windows on as many computers as possible, but it was only through choice that Apple didn't compete in this way. The market share figures tell most of the story: As of today, OS X has around 6% of the total PC market while Windows has over 90%. The total PC market is between 800 and 1 billion PCs, meaning that, well, Microsoft has a much larger footprint than Apple. A different outcome So, what would have happened if Apple decided to take the same tact as Microsoft and open OS X up to third parties? The most likely scenario is that the market share of OS X and Windows would be roughly tied. There is little else to work from—especially as iOS, the operating system that powers the iPhone, is only available on one device—but the two operating systems are fairly evenly matched in terms of features, stability, and speed. (This is especially true of newer versions.) Apple's MacBooks would also have had to compete against cheaper PC alternatives, likely from Dell, HP, ASUS, and so on, just like Microsoft does today with its Surface tablets. This would have had a negative effect on the MacBook's pricing, which is traditionally high, and could have forced Apple to lower it and decrease the margins it makes on its laptops. However, it would mean that Apple's software would now be on around 400 million computers—assuming a 50/50 split with Windows in a market that is today's size—and the revenue from this would have been large. Microsoft's financials are made up, in part, by licenses that get sold to OEMs. In 2015, the company made $10 billion from this arrangement. Apple, however, made around $25 billion from the Mac in the same period. This doesn't tell the whole picture, though, as much of Microsoft remaining revenue, like the $40 billion it made from licensing Windows to businesses, is dependent on Windows and its prevalence in the world. If Apple had made OS X available to OEMs it could be Apple, not Microsoft, that was collecting that revenue from businesses. The enterprise side of Apple's business has recently been bolstered, reaching $25 billion in 2015, but that figure still represents around a third of Microsoft's comparable revenues. The model Apple has settled for is, most likely, that one it will stick with, especially as it has worked so well for the iPhone. The Mac is synonymous with OS X and vice versa and the upside potential isn't worth the perceived drop in quality that Apple's brand would suffer if its operating system shipped on low-quality, low-price hardware. In recent years, the Mac has started to work far more closely with the iPhone, leading some to describe it as an accessory to the phone. This idea is both true and false. Some features, like Launchpad, have been taken from iOS (and Apple isn't afraid to admit it) but others are distinctly made for the Mac, like Final Cut Pro and other high-end tools. The past may have looked different for the Mac and OS X if Apple had chosen to open the operating system up to PC makers, but it still worked out pretty well for everyone.

Apple@40: Apple turns 40 - here are its highs and lows throughout the years Posted: Introduction Apple is the most valuable brand in the world. Its cutesy fruit logo with a cheeky bite taken out of it wouldn't look out of place on a kids toy, but to many it's a symbol of desire, achievement, style... although to others it means something quite the opposite. You don't need to love Apple, and we know there are plenty out there who don't, but there's no doubting the tech landscape would be a very different place today if Apple had never made it out of Jobs' garage (yes, it's a myth, WE KNOW). The Cupertino-based company can be credited with some of the most important and iconic technological breakthroughs in modern times, from the iMac to iPod to the iPhone, but it's also had its fair share disappointments, embarrassments and, let's be honest, failures along the way So come, take our hand. With some help from our buddies at MacFormat (click here to subscribe), we walk you through Apple's highs and lows from the last 40 years. Happy Birthday, Apple. 1. High - iMac with 5K Retina display (2014) Apple had its own Spinal Tap moment with the first Retina iMac - in a good way. Everybody thought the company would turn to 4K, but it actually went one better by unveiling the pixel-packed iMac with 5K Retina display in late 2014. Simply put: it went up to 11. Thin, powerful and stunning to look at, it was the only way to get your hands on a 5K monitor that year, and it remains one of only a handful of options today. Apple had to redesign the computer's 40-gigabit timing controller (or TCON) just to keep all 14.7 million pixels in the display outputting at 60Hz. Apple's decision to move to a flatter design and more colorful palette in OS X 10.10 Yosemite suddenly began to make sense. 2. Low - Apple Maps (2012) When Apple introduced its own Maps app in iOS 6, it "changed the world" but not in a good way… Familiar landmarks warped into surreal shapes, half of Cambridge vanished, various tourist attractions moved miles away, and it refused to locate some towns and cities - instead taking you to tiny villages of the same name. Apple quickly apologized and swung into action to set things right, although even now it's still struggling to claw back the distance between it and the popular Google Maps, despite its use as an in-app service bolstering the number of users. 3. High - iPhone (2007) The iPhone wasn't groundbreaking because it's a phone – there were plenty of mobile phones before it, and it wasn't even the first touchscreen phone – but it has reshaped the smartphone industry because it defines modern mobile connectivity: it combines a cellular phone with mobile data and connectivity anywhere, and its capabilities are expandable via apps. When Steve Jobs introduced it, he had to explain what it was: "An iPod. A phone. An internet communicator. This is one device, and we are calling it iPhone." While this wasn't the invention of the smartphone, but it made it popular. For many, it showed them a new way to go online, to shop and consume entertainment, as well as, dare we say it, keep in touch. 4. Low - Steve Jobs passes away (2011) This one isn't a typical 'low' entry, of course, and obviously not a fault of Apple's. The company has proved that it's more than capable of thriving without its co-founder. It's pretty clear Steve Jobs surrounded himself with great minds and turned Apple into a company-sized version of himself. But that doesn't mean Jobs no longer being around isn't a big loss. He had vision, taste and an understanding of consumer electronics beyond his contemporaries, and we still miss his entertaining keynote presentations. 5. High - Original iMac (1998) In 1998 the original iMac set a worldwide design trend not just for all-in-one computers but for translucent colored plastic and curved shapes. This extended way beyond computers and peripherals, to home appliances, games consoles, steam irons and many other consumer products. The fad has waned a little now, but the look has proved surprisingly perennial. The iMac blazed a trail for reasons beyond aesthetics. In blazing a trail, Apple has sometimes been accused of forcing the pace, and when the iMac landed as the first "legacy-free personal computer", without a floppy disk drive, it sent shockwaves through an industry always anxious about backwards compatibility. But the iMac was a huge hit, and it rewrote the rules. As it did the floppy, Apple has now dropped optical drives from all its range but one model, the spec of which dates from 2012. 6. Low - Apple Music (2015) If Apple Music was a beautiful, but under-used, country spa retreat, it would have been knocked down for an out of town shopping mall by now. The UI of Apple Music is fantastically confusing - we can't be the only ones who'll pick a song and then spend ten minutes trying to work out how to find the rest of the album - and the artist social network Connect is like a ghost town. Music boss Jimmy Iovine's daft, sexist comments about women finding it hard to find music didn't help either. 7. High - App Store (2008) Fortune magazine says: "The so-called 'ecosystem' concept may be one of Steve Jobs' most lasting contributions to global business. The idea is simple: create a closed universe of hardware, software and services that – thanks to tight integration – provide a superior experience for users." The App Store brings the same closed-ecosystem business model as iTunes to iOS and, increasingly, the desktop as well – and everyone else tried to emulate it, with varying degrees of success. 8. Low - iOS8 launch (2014) Here's our new OS! Oops, it's broken! Here's an update! Oops, it's more broken than the broken one it was supposed to fix! Google's Lollipop had release issues too, but it wasn't as much of a snafu as the iOS 8 launch. The only way Apple could have bungled it more would be if it had put a picture of Bungle from Rainbow on every iPhone's lock screen. That wasn't the only issue with iOS 8. There was a kerfuffle over iOS 8 extensions, and Panic's Transmit app was forced to remove iCloud Drive sharing because of confusing and contradictory developer policies. A developer backlash soon took hold. 9. High - iTunes & iPod (2003 and 2001) The iTunes ecosystem revolutionised the way we buy and consume music, particularly after the launch of the iTunes Store in 2003, and hence changed the music industry, forcing the labels to change their business models. The iPod (2001) was not the first portable music player, but when the Store and its pioneering micropayments system also enabled you to find and buy tracks, it delivered the first end-to-end ecosystem incorporating purchase, management and playback of music (and later other media). Don't get us wrong, we're not trying to pretend iTunes is perfect (it's anything but) but the service it offered has been world-changing. 10. Low - U2 album release (2014) Who doesn't like free music? That's probably what was going through the minds of Apple executives, Bono, The Edge and crew when it was decided U2's Songs of Innocence would appear on Apple iPhone and iPods overnight. Whether you liked the global rock giants or not, the album would appear in your iTunes and many criticised the stunt for it pushing it on over half a billion people as they weren't given the choice over whether they wanted it at all. In the end Bono had to issue an apology and the band hasn't released another album since - although there's no reason to think the two are connected. 11. High - MacBook Air and SSDs (2010) Apple's first ultralight notebook, 2008's MacBook Air, incorporated many technologies associated with previous MacBooks (or PowerBooks before them) but its 2010 revision was the first mass-market computer to have a solid-state disk drive as standard instead of a cheaper - but slower - hard disk. As well as helping popularise the ultralight category, "it made solid-state storage make sense," Time Magazine said. 12. Low - EarPods (2012) The achingly hip adverts made iPods seem cool, and they were. But the earbuds they came with, and which subsequently got bundled with the iPhone, were so far below Apple's usual quality they could have won a limbo competition. Apple tried to reboot with the EarPods in 2012, and while this improved things somewhat they still weren't up the premium performance of the handset they were sold with. Apple did eventually step up its game (a little) and even bought Beats, but the damage was done and it might well be that nothing will make people trust Apple's audiophile credentials again. 13. High - UX-based design Beyond just colored casings, Apple rewrote the rules of tech product design. As Steve Jobs expressed the design philosophy, "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." Fortune magazine added: "For Jobs, how a product looked, felt and responded trumped raw technical specifications." This focus on the user experience led not just to minimalist product design but to a division between those who want spec-led products they can customize and those who want products that "just work". 14. Low - Proprietary chargers Apple has never been a fan of following the crowd and anyone who loves their Fruity kit will understand the pain that comes from ever-changing and expensive proprietary cables just to make things work. The rest of the smartphone world has moved to the micro USB format, and Apple is supposed to have followed suit. However, it's got around this by offering an adaptor on sale so you can use your old Samsung charger to power your iPhone... which doesn't really help when you don't want to spend half your salary on replacing a broken cable. 15. High - Apple shopping experience When the first Apple Stores opened in 2001, they were not the first single-maker outlet (Gateway had tried and struggled) but they transformed expectations of the computer shopping experience. They're not just commercially significant, but changed the customer's relationship with the brand, offering direct support and tuition as well as products. More than third-party dealers and repairers, they represented the cool, high-tech ethos of the brand as a physical presence in the high street. They also became a focus for the faithful – where else are there overnight queues for every new product release? (We didn't say these are all changes for the better!) 16. Low - Harman Kardon speakers Harman Kardon speakers. The hipster speakers before hipsters became a thing. Every wannabe Apple-ite who could afford them had them to show off in their tiny home offices, with the clear plexi casing let you see the speaker cones and the wires inside, to tell the world "Look how comfortable with technology and design I am". 17. High - Seamless Networking In the past, AppleTalk, LocalTalk and Ethernet (which Time Magazine called "a startlingly advanced feature for a home computer" on the original iMac) all made it possible to network relatively easily with an inexpensive cable, but Apple has kept going even further. Network administrators dislike Apple's chatty auto-discovery networking, but it means mobile devices, computers and peripherals can all connect easily, without requiring a lot of technical expertise. AirDrop is as simple as peer-to-peer gets, and Handoff attempts to make it possible to do stuff on any Apple platform, anywhere, almost seamlessly. 18. Low - Final Cut Pro X (2011) A software low for Apple was its reimagining of its high-end video software. Although Final Cut Pro was looking a bit long in the tooth, the pro video industry wasn't ready for what Apple replaced it with: a tool seemingly more suited to the semi-pro market. Anyone would think Apple had realised it could sell a multitude more copies at that tier than at a higher level… 19. High - Superbowl commercial (1984) Apple's strength has always been as much in selling as in making good products, says The Independent. "And its first spectacular go at doing so was the '1984' Super Bowl commercial. As well as introducing the Apple Macintosh to the world, it also did much of the work to spawn the very idea of high-budget, film-like Super Bowl commercials, an innovation that would eventually become expected across all TV events that draw big audiences." 20. Low - Turtleneck A man's got to have a style, but Jobs' dedication to turtlenecks was ridiculous for a man with such dedication to design. Through his health ups and downs, the turtleneck remained, a fixed part of Jobs' staple event-wear, adopted in the early 80s, they remained his go-to wardrobe. That Michael Fassbender, who played Apple's founder in the biopic of the same name in 2015, is pictured wearing Jobs' turtleneck in most of the movie's promotional materials says it all. 21. High - Fighting against Flash Apple's iOS devices proved that you don't need Adobe Flash, which dominated streaming video and online animation for almost 20 years but was widely disliked for its glitchy performance and endless security issues. One commentator called it "the world's most hated software" and declared "It's time for it to die." Apple led the way, and now Google has ended AdWords advertising dependence on Flash, and Adobe itself has all but killed the Flash brand. 22. Low - Sapphire (2014) 2014 was going to be the year of sapphire screens, but it didn't work out that way: Apple's manufacturing partner, GT Advanced Technologies, encountered both technical problems - it couldn't make enough usable sapphire at the price Apple wanted to pay - and business ones, with apparent organisational chaos ultimately forcing the company into bankruptcy protection. GT says it's all Apple's fault, Apple says it's all GT's fault, and over at the Gorilla Glass factory Corning executives probably popped open the champagne. 23. High - CDRoms for all (1990s) In the 1990s, Apple was the first manufacturer to include CD-ROM drives in every computer it made. Did it simply foresee the trend? It was certainly in the vanguard. 1993's immersive graphic adventure game Myst, developed on the Mac using HyperCard and QuickTime (see below), was regarded as something of a "killer app" driving the adoption of CD-ROM and surprisingly became the best-selling computer game of all time until 2002. 24. Low - The hump (2015) Are the doom-mongers so desperate that they'll seize on a crappy battery case to prove that Apple is in trouble? Oh yeah - but they have a point. Apple's new Smart Battery Case is part of a wider trend that suggests the brand doesn't always think things through, despite trying to fill a performance hole it had identified. Other examples include the Magic Mouse 2, which has its charging socket on the bottom, so you can't use it while charging. The Apple Pencil sticks out of the iPad Pro to charge quickly on the go (if you haven't got the bundled connector to hand), which looks ugly and precarious. 25. High - Apple I (1976) Not the first microcomputer, but a milestone on the road to personal computing. Almost all its predecessors came in kit form, cost thousands of dollars, or both, but the Apple I was an elegant, ready-assembled motherboard for $666. Plus, you could attach not just switches and lights for input and output but a keyboard and monitor – Steve "Woz" Wozniak eventually secured three patents for display controller technologies. As he later quipped: "I don't want credit for designing the first personal computer; I want credit for designing the first good one." 26. Low - 12-inch MacBook USB-C port (2015) Apple's 12-inch MacBook stunned on the back of its razor-thin design, which came at a cost. Featuring just one USB Type-C port, Apple's latest machine requires you to use an adapter if you want to charge it and use a peripheral - such as an external monitor and a mouse - at the same time. While the trade-off is welcomed by some, the move to a single USB port proved too much of an extreme move for many. 27. High - Apple II (1977) The first ready-to-use, affordable personal computer for consumers, not just hobbyists. It came out-of-the-box with circuit board, switching power supply, sound card, integrated speaker, colour output, etc – and also expansion slots. In production for an astonishing 16 years, it sold millions. Along with the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, which shipped later in the same year, it kickstarted the personal computing revolution. 28. Low - MacBook Air display (2008 - present) As a machine, the MacBook Air is definitely a long-running high for Apple. Which makes it all the more frustrating that the company's best-balanced laptop (in terms of power and portability) is still lacking a high-resolution display after all of these years. Surpassed by a number of Windows machines including the Dell XPS 13, Asus UX305 and Apple's own 12-inch MacBook, the MacBook Air's 1,440 x 900 pixel-resolution panel is stuck firmly in 2008. As always, rumor has it that an updated version of the Air (and MacBook Pro) is on the way, so it's possible Apple's laptop will soon get the Retina display it so badly needs. 29. High - Siri Developed by a spinoff from Stanford Research Institute (SRI, get it?), the original Siri appeared as an iPhone app in 2010, where Apple quickly acquired the company and reworked Siri. We're not saying that it's better than the rivals - although we've yet to use Cortana consistently for any length of time - but the improvements that come with each iOS update are impressive. Siri isn't just about a single search but interpreting a spoken, natural-language interaction and collating responses from multiple sources – having a conversation (although most of the time this descends into trying to find a Siri 'joke' response. Google's doing some exceptional things with Now, but for a tightly integrated voice assistant Siri has gone from being an annoying accidental holding of the home button for too long to the default way to perform simple tasks on your phone. 30. Low - Ping (2010) The social network that isn't social and is trapped inside the lumbering beast that is iTunes, Ping never stood a chance. No-one cared, no-one really knew what it was for, and even its hook-up with Twitter merely turned Ping into a Twitter spamming service, not an essential for social networking nuts. 31. High - Backlit laptop keyboard (2003) In 2003, Apple's 17-inch PowerBook G4 featured the world's first fibre-optic backlit keyboard, along with ambient light sensors that regulated the brightness of the display and of the keyboard backlighting. "This truly integrated display and lighting solution is an industry first," Apple declared, "and will be warmly greeted by professionals who spend long hours in front of computer screens in low light conditions." While it's not the only backlit keyboard anymore by a long distance, it was still a revolutionary moment for anyone trying to live-blog a conference in a pitch black auditorium. 32. Low - Apple TV For a company that releases a new phone every 10 months, it sure took Apple a while to finally upgrade the Apple TV to its latest iteration. There was a three-year timespan in between the latest Apple TV, what we typically refer to as the fourth-generation Apple TV, that came out in 2015 and the third-generation Apple TV that came out in 2012. I'm not saying it wasn't worth the wait - integrating Siri into the remote and opening the App Store to all developers have begun to reshape the streaming landscape - but maybe next time Apple can be a little quicker on the draw. 33. High - Software update As more and more computers (and then mobile devices) became always-connected, Apple realised that software updates and bug fixes could be delivered directly and efficiently over the Internet. In their account of Steve Jobs's career, tech journalists Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli note that the OS X development team "were among the first mainstream operating system developers to take full advantage of this capability, and their approach would change the expectations of hundreds of millions of people, from corporate IT managers all the way down to the individual smartphone user who wants the very latest version of his favourite game. "…This way of maintaining and fixing software would quickly become the industry norm. It also transformed customers' expectations: no longer would they be willing to wait months for their software providers to fix a problem." 34. Low - Mac mini (2014) The Mac mini has proved a popular 'first Apple computer' throughout the years, but the 2014 version left much to be desired. The long-awaited model succeeded the previous version from 2012, arriving with a welcome lower price tag. Unfortunately Apple tuned down the specs to match it, eliminating a quad-core processor option in the process and soldering in the RAM, which was impossible to upgrade. The Firewire port was another casualty. Apple has yet to refresh the Mac mini, leaving fans of the small computer with a bad taste in the mouth that lingers to this day. 35. Mac and 3.5-inch floppy (1984) In 1984 the Mac came with a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive built-in. Sony had invented the format, and HP had shipped an external drive with its HP 9121, but this was the first computer with the drive built-in. The format evolved from single-sided to double, and there were competing, incompatible data formats, but Apple was instrumental in establishing the enduring 3.5-inch floppy disk standard. 36. Low - iCloud wobbles (2011) The cloud is something that Apple's never entirely got, and while iCloud isn't quite the mess MobileMe was, it had plenty of glitches when it launched in 2011. Users have watched, aghast, as iCal appointments vanished, or documents reverted to their 'true' version in the cloud. We're not shocked the WSJ reported Apple's recruiting "senior-level executives with backgrounds in Web-based software". 37. High - Post PC age (2010) The iPhone, and then especially the iPad (2010) have redefined how we do computing now. The iPad wasn't the first tablet computer, but it primarily used touch instead of a stylus and thus, as Steve Jobs put it at the time, created "an entirely new category of devices that will connect users with their apps and content in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before." We'll gloss over the fact that since then the Apple Pencil has brought the stylus back in, but instead of a necessary input device it's a secondary tool for professionals crying out for a touch more control. Gary Marshall sums it up: "Before the iPad, if you wanted to do something on a computer you needed to learn how to use the computer first. With the iPad, you just do what you want to do. Play piano? The iPad's a piano. Write a letter? It's a typewriter. Read a book? It's a book. Fire exploding birds? It's a catapult." 38. Low - Bendgate (2014) What do you get if you combine the laws of physics with hit-hungry websites? Bendgate: the not-overhyped-at-all story that found thin metal things bend if you apply sufficient force. Cue dullards going into Apple Stores to try and break iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets, endless "Apple is doooooomed!" columns and the sound of a molehill being blown up to mountain size. Other handsets were proven to be more bendable than iPhones, but this was a perfect example of Apple creating a frenzy around its 'perfect' products and then having to suffer the backlash when they were found to have a flaw. 39. High - Apple Pay (2014) It's early days, but Apple Pay is a particularly clever implementation of contactless NFC transactions. It offers a smart security system using fingerprint authentication and "tokens" that mean your card or account details are never shared with the retailer, or even stored on your device – and Apple is one of the few companies with the clout to entice banks and retailers worldwide to sign up. In the UK, Barclays is the only major bank that dragged its feet, but now that it's on board Apple Pay is likely to have a major impact in the years ahead. 40. Low - Gizmodo and the iPhone 4 (2010) If you're an Apple employee, leaving your pre-release iPhone 4 in a bar isn't a great idea when there are slightly shifty people lurking. Cue: Gizmodo 'acquiring' the device and amazingly not noticing half the new tech, Apple lawyers getting astonishingly angry, police doing 'policey' things, and a general feeling that Apple had turned into the Big Brother it derided back in 1984.

Updated: 100 best free iPad apps 2016 Posted: Best free iPad apps OK - you've probably noticed on the Apple App Store that iPad apps cost more - sometimes a LOT more - than their iPhone equivalents. But trust us, it's worth the extra cash. Many of the best free iPhone apps cost money in their iPad incarnations, and the quality level of what's still free for the tablet is often ropey. But among the dross lie rare gems – iPad apps that are so good you can't believe they're still free. Of those we unearthed, here's our pick of the best free iPad apps. Note that apps marked 'universal' will run on your iPad and iPhone, optimising themselves accordingly. iPad Air 2 review iPad Mini 4 review iPad Pro review For a mix of free and paid apps, check out our amazing Best iPad apps chart or if you're more into a smaller form-factor or have your eye on the new iPhone 6S check out our list of the best free iPhone apps. New this week: Kitchen Stories As you launch Kitchen Stories, you catch a glimpse of the app's mantra: "Anyone can cook". The problem is, most cooking apps (and indeed, traditional cookery books) make assumptions regarding people's abilities. Faced with a list of steps on a stark white page, it's easy to get halfway through a recipe, look at the stodge in front of you, reason something must have gone terribly wrong, and order a takeaway. Kitchen Stories offers firmer footing. You're first met with a wall of gorgeous photography. More importantly, the photographs don't stop. Every step in a recipe is accompanied by a picture that shows how things should be at that point. Additionally, some recipes provide tutorial videos for potentially tricky skills and techniques. Fancy some Vietnamese pho, but not sure how to peel ginger, prepare a chilli or thinly slice meat? Kitchen Stories has you covered. Beyond this, there's a shopping list, handy essentials guide, and some magazine-style articles to peruse. And while you don't get the sheer range of recipes found in some rival apps, the presentation more than makes up for that — especially on the iPad, which will likely find a new home in your own kitchen soon after Kitchen Stories is installed. AccuWeather (universal) Annoyingly, some free iPad weather apps refuse to believe that the UK has any weather (or that the country exists), so AccuWeather gets props for merely working. Happily, AccuWeather also proves to be a decent – if quirky – weather app. The interface is odd (but fun) and there's a 'lifestyle' page that determines how your current local conditions might affect over 20 activities, including dog-walking and stargazing. Facebook (universal) The social networking giant has gone back-and-forth with its mobile apps, finally settling on this smart, native implementation. Much like the slightly simpler iPhone equivalent, Facebook on iPad is such that you won't want to use the comparatively clunky website again for seeing which of your friends really shouldn't have internet access after midnight. Opera Coast Safari's embedded in iOS to the extent that there's not a great deal of point in using any rival browser by default. But that doesn't mean alternatives shouldn't be considered at all. Opera Coast is a case in point. The browser's bookmarks pages house massive icons, and its search is fast and to the point. With an interface that's helpful and yet stays out of your way, Opera Coast therefore becomes an excellent lean-back browser for key sites you like to spend a lot of time with, leaving Safari for hum-drum day-to-day web browsing. Beatwave (universal) Beatwave is a simplified Tenori-On-style synth which enables you to rapidly build pleasing melodies by prodding a grid. Multiple layers and various instruments provide scope for complex compositions, and you can save sessions or, handily, store and share compositions via email. You can also buy more instruments via in-app purchases. Bloomberg Business for iPad It used to boast an eye-searing white-and-orange-on-black colour scheme that was a little like being repeatedly punched in the eyes, but now Bloomberg has grown up, discovered a palette (a subtler, serious 'things on black', for the most part), and has subsequently become a much more usable business news and stocks app. Electricomics We already have comic readers in this list, but Electricomics is something different. Spearheaded by a wealth of creative talent, including writers Alan and Leah Moore, it's more akin to a collaborative art project that seeks to find new ways of creating and presenting comics. The app itself is (for now) a one-off publication, with a small selection of comics to read, playing with the artform's conventions by way of structure, interaction and navigation. Behind everything lies a self-publishing ecosystem and open source code; if inspired by what you find, add to and improve what's there, or make and publish your own digital comics that dare to think a bit different. Microsoft Excel The iPad's well catered for in spreadsheet terms with Google freebie Sheets and Apple's Numbers, but the reality is the business world mostly relies on Microsoft Excel. Like Microsoft's other iOS fare, Excel is surprisingly powerful, marrying desktop-style features with touchscreen smarts. You can get started with a blank workbook or choose from one of the bundled templates, which include budget planners, schedules, logs, and lists. Wisely, the app has an optional custom keyboard when you're editing cells, filled with symbols, numbers, and virtual cursor keys. This won't make much odds if you're armed with a Bluetooth keyboard, but it speeds things up considerably if you only have your iPad handy. You might be wondering what the catch is, and there aren't many if you own a standard iPad or a mini. Sign in with a free Microsoft account and you're blocked from some aesthetic niceties, but can do pretty much everything else. If you're on an iPad Pro, however, Microsoft demands you have a qualifying Office 365 subscription to create and edit documents, but the app at least still functions as a viewer. Dropbox (universal) Dropbox is a great service for syncing documents across multiple devices. The iPad client works like the iPhone one (hardly surprising, since this is a universal app), enabling you to preview many file types and store those marked as favourites locally. Evernote (universal) Like Dropbox, Evernote (a free online service for saving ideas – text documents, images and web clips – that you can then access from multiple devices) works the same way on the iPad as it does on the iPhone. It benefits from the iPad's larger screen, which enables you to see and navigate your stored snippets more easily. YouTube (universal) When the YouTube app presumably became a victim of the ongoing and increasingly tedious Apple/Google spat, there were concerns Google wouldn't respond. Those turned out to be unfounded, because here's yet another bespoke, nicely designed Google-created app for iOS. The interface is specifically tuned for the iPad, and AirPlay enables you to fire videos at an Apple TV. Elevate (universal) We could all use a bit of brain training from time to time and Elevate is a great way to do it. It aims to improve your writing, reading, speaking, listening and maths skills through a variety of daily challenges, which keep your brain active and test you in entertaining ways. A beautiful interface makes it a joy to use and the core app is free, but extra features can be added with a subscription. iBooks (universal) Going head-to-head with Kindle, iBooks is a decent ebook reader, backed by the iBookstore. As you'd expect from Apple, the interface is polished and usable, with handy cross-device bookmark syncing, highlighting, and various display options. It's also a capable PDF reader, for your digital magazine collection. IM+ (universal) Although the iPad enables a certain amount of basic multi-tasking, anyone who constantly juggles a number of instant messaging services will soon be tired of leaping between apps. IM+ is a good solution, enabling you to run a number of IM services in a single app, and there's also a built-in web browser for checking out links. Kindle (universal) Amazon's Kindle iPad app for reading myriad books available at the Kindle Store is a little workmanlike, and doesn't match the coherence of iBooks (you buy titles in Safari and 'sync' purchases via Kindle). However, Kindle's fine for reading, and you get options to optimise your experience (including the ability to kill the naff page-turn animation and amend the page background to a pleasant sepia tone). Movies by Flixster (universal) One for film buffs, Movies figures out where you are and tells you what's showing in your local cinemas – or you can pick a film and it'll tell you where and when it's on. The app is functionally identical on iPad and iPhone, but again the extra screen space improves the experience. Google Maps You might argue that Google Maps is far better suited to a smartphone, but we reckon the king of mapping apps deserves a place on your iPad, too. Apple's own Maps app has improved, but Google still outsmarts its rival when it comes to public transport, finding local businesses, and virtual tourism by way of Street View. Google's 'OS within an OS' also affords a certain amount of cross-device sync when it comes to searches. We don't, however, recommend you strap your cellular iPad to your steering wheel and use Google Maps as a sat-nav replacement, unless you want to come across as some kind of nutcase. PCalc Lite (universal) PCalc Lite's existence means the lack of a built-in iPad calculator doesn't bother us (in fact, we'd love to replace the iPhone Calculator app with PCalc Lite as well). This app is usable and feature-rich – and if you end up wanting more, in-app purchases enable you to bolt on extras from the full PCalc. Reuters (universal) Spurious anti-competition complaints meant the BBC News app took a while to come to the UK; in the meantime, Reuters offered the next best free news app for iPad. It's a little US-centric, but can be skewed towards UK coverage via the Settings app, and it's worth downloading for a more international take on news coverage than BBC News provides. Airbnb (universal) Airbnb makes travel affordable and social, as rather than staying in a hotel you can stay in someone's house. Options range from crashing on someone's sofa to renting a private island, or if you have a spare room you could even rent your own space out. The iPad app is one of the best ways to browse it too, letting you search and book using an attractive image-heavy interface. Wikipanion for iPad The Wikipedia website works fine in Safari for iPad, but dedicated apps make navigating the site simpler and faster. Wikipanion is an excellent free app, with a sleek iOS 7-style design, an efficient two-pane landscape view, and excellent bookmarking and history access. eBay (universal) It's been a long while since we've wanted to use a PC or Mac for eBay, because browsing for all kinds of tat you don't really need is far more pleasant on a touchscreen. With the iPad's acres, the eBay app is a properly sit-back experience, all about huge images you can swipe, and listings you can effortlessly scroll through. For some reason, the eBay team messes about with the interface approximately every eleven seconds, but the end result's usually for the better. Soundrop (universal) Soundrop is a minimal generative sound toy that offers an endless stream of balls, which make noises when they collide with and bounce off user-drawn lines. The overall result is surprisingly fun and hypnotic. For more advanced features – save, multiple instruments and gravity adjustment – there's an in-app 'pro' purchase option. Kickstarter (universal) After a stint on the iPhone, Kickstarter has now arrived on Apple's slates and it's the perfect fit for it, giving you a big window into thousands of projects which you can back with a tap. Browse by categories and sub-categories, select how to sort projects or just search for a specific one. Just be careful. Last time we launched the app we emerged six hours later and hundreds of pounds poorer. We eagerly await delivery of our smart socks. Google Earth (universal) It's not the smoothest app in the world, and it lacks some elements from the desktop, but Google Earth is nonetheless a joy on the iPad. Touch gestures are an intuitive means of swooping around the planet, and the optional layers enable you to display as much or as little ancillary information as you wish. 25. Flickr (universal) Instagram might be the current online photo-sharing darling, but it's clear veteran Flickr remains up for a fight. On iPad, it's a lovely app, with a refined and minimal UI that makes browsing simple and allows photography to shine. Another smart aspect of Flickr is its extremely generous 1 TB of free storage. You can set videos and photos to automatically upload, and they stay private unless you choose to share them. There are compatibility issues with the most modern Apple toys as Live Photos end up as stills on Flickr. Even so, Flickr makes Apple's free 5 GB of iCloud storage look pathetic by comparison; and even if you use it only as a belt-and-braces back-up for important images, it's worth checking out. SkyView Free (universal) SkyView Free is a stargazing app that very much wants you to get off your behind and outside, or at least hold your iPad aloft to explore the heavens. Unlike TechRadar favourite Sky Guide, there's no means to drag a finger to manually move the sky around - you must always point your iPad's display where you want to look - but there's no price-tag either. And for free, this app does the business. There are minimal ads, a noodly atmospheric soundtrack, an optional augmented reality view (to overlay app graphics on to the actual sky), and a handy search that'll point you in the direction of Mars, Ursa Major, or the International Space Station. BBC News (universal) Although the BBC News website works nicely on the iPad, BBC News is still worth downloading. Rather than trying to provide all of the news, it instead concentrates on the latest stories, with inline video. Categories can be rearranged, stories can be shared and the app's layout adjusts to portrait and landscape orientations. Epicurious (universal) Tens of thousands of recipes at your fingertips (as long as you have a web connection) ensure Epicurious is worth a download for the culinary-inclined. The app even composes a shopping list for recipes; it's just a pity it doesn't include measurements for those of us who use that new-fangled metric system. WordPress (universal) This official WordPress app has a reputation for being a bit clunky, but it's fine for authoring the odd blog post on the go, along with making quick edits to existing content and managing comments. It also offers both text-based and visual approaches to crafting posts, so you're not stuck with HTML. Speed Test SpeedSmart (universal) Truth be told, we're always a touch suspicious of apps that claim to test your connection speed, but Speed Test SpeedSmart seems to do a decent job. It's also handy to have installed for when your broadband goes all flaky and you need to record the figures for a subsequent moan at your ISP. Brushes Redux (universal) The original Brushes app was one of the most important in the iPhone's early days. With Jorge Colombo using it to paint a New Yorker cover, it showcased the potential of the technology, and that an iPhone could be used for production, rather than merely consumption. Brushes eventually stopped being updated, but fortunately went open source beforehand. Brushes Redux is the result. On the iPad, you can take advantage of the much larger screen. But the main benefit of the app is its approachable nature. It's extremely easy to use, but also has plenty of power for those who need it, not least in the layering system and the superb brush designer. Yahoo Weather (universal) With weather apps, you're frequently forced to choose between lashings of data or something that looks lovely. Yahoo Weather combines both, offering a stunning interface that happens to be rich with information. The maps are a touch weak, but other than that, this is an essential weather app, especially considering Apple doesn't provide an iPad equivalent itself. Find my iPhone (universal) Find my iPhone would perhaps be better named 'Find my Apple stuff', because it's not just for figuring out where a missing iPhone is - it can also track iPads, iPods and Macs. The app is simple, elegant and, generally speaking, provides an accurate location for devices. It also enables you to remote-lock or wipe a device. Flipboard (universal) Initially, Flipboard looked like a gimmick, trying desperately to make online content resemble a magazine. But now it can integrate Flickr and other networks, beautifully laying out their articles, Flipboard's muscled into the 'essential' category – and it's still free. Find My Friends (universal) While perhaps less practical than on the iPhone, Find My Friends on the iPad nonetheless works well, enabling you to track any pals that are happy with you digitally stalking them. The iPad's large display improves the app's usability, simultaneously displaying your friend list and a map. IMDB (universal) IMDB might be a wee bit US-focused at times (much like the movie industry), but the app is a great way to browse more movie-related info than you could ever hope to consume in a single lifetime. Settings enable you to define which sites IMDB and Amazon info is taken from, and the show times finder works pretty well. Pocket (universal) Choosing between Pocket and Instapaper for your read-it-later service is a bit like trying to figure out which of your equally lovely kids is the best. Like its rival, Pocket makes it simple to stash web pages for later, stripping them of cruft, leaving only images and text. This content can then be digested in an easy-to-view layout that's not desperately trying to punch adverts into your eyeballs. Instapaper probably has the lead on minimalism and typography, but Pocket's colourful interface is a bit more welcoming, and we prefer it when it comes to saving videos. TED (universal) TED describes itself as "riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world". The app pretty much does as you'd expect – you get quick access to dozens of inspiring videos. However, it goes the extra mile in enabling you to save any talk for offline viewing, and also for providing hints on what to watch next if you've enjoyed a particular talk. Twitter (universal) The official Twitter app might lack some of the features found in certain third-party clients, but it does provide a sleek and simple means of using the service. It also rapidly rolls in new features from the website, such as the Connect and Discover views, along with expandable tweets that contain photos and videos. Pigment (universal) Adult colouring books are all the rage, proponents claiming bringing colour to intricate abstract shapes helps reduce stress - at least until you realise you've got pen on your shirt and ground oil pastels into the sofa. You'd think the process of colouring would be ideal for iPad, but most relevant apps are awful, some even forcing tap-to-fill. That is to colouring what using a motorbike is to running a marathon - a big cheat. Pigment is an exception, marrying a love for colouring with serious digital smarts. On selecting an illustration, there's a range of palettes and tools to explore. You can use pencils and markers, adjusting opacity and brush sizes, and work with subtle gradients. Colouring can be 'freestyle', or you can tap to select an area and ensure you don't go over the lines while furiously scribbling. With a finger, Pigment works well, but it's better with a stylus; with an iPad Pro and a Pencil, you'll lob your real books in the bin. The one niggle: printing and accessing the larger library requires a subscription in-app purchase. It's a pity there's no one-off payment for individual books, but you do get plenty of free illustrations, and so it's hard to grumble. Dolphin Browser Safari for iPad is a great mobile browser, but if you hanker for more features, Dolphin is a decent alternative. The browser has an Opera-like 'speed dial' that provides one-touch access to favourites, and you can create personalised action gestures. There's also a distraction-free full-screen mode for when you really want to get into a website. Skyscanner Flights (universal) Skyscanner's website is pretty good, but the iPad app's another great example of how an app's focus can really help you speed through a task. You use the app to search over a thousand airlines, and it provides straightforward competitive journey lists and comparison graphs. If you're planning a flight, it's an indispensable download. Etsy Every now and again, we get a little bit twitchy at global marketplaces. Certain online stores are getting too big, to the point they'll probably soon attempt to embed a 'buy now' button inside your brain. Etsy feels like little guys fighting back. It's a storefront for handmade, vintage and creative goods. Instead of polished iPad stands fresh from Jony Ive's pencil, you're more likely to find something beautiful made out of driftwood. The app's interface is clean and simple, making browsing a treat; and you can of course flag shops and items as favourites, and receive notifications when an order ships. MeteoEarth for iPad It's not the most efficient weather forecasting app around, but MeteoEarth for iPad is perhaps the most fun to fiddle around with. You can spin and explore the Earth with a fingertip, and add overlays for meteorological data you're interested in, such as temperature, precipitation and wind. Tap-hold anywhere on the map to get the current conditions, or switch to the climate view for averages. Google ads pop up every now and again, periodically obliterating the geekery, but are easily dismissed. Status Board For a free app, Status Board is rather canny. The idea is to use a dormant iPad for displaying interesting and useful information: a clock, weather reports, calendar entries, unread email subjects, Twitter replies, and RSS feeds. These can be arranged by dragging widgets about on a grid. Status Board works in landscape or portrait, and there's an alternate HD layout if you want to output to, for example, a wall-mounted telly. There's also a single expansion pack IAP (£7.99/$9.99), which gives you access to more widgets: graphs, tables, custom HTML, countdowns, text, and photos. The last of those in particular might convince you to open your wallet; but even if you don't, get Status Board to make your iPad actually useful during its downtime. Autodesk SketchBook (universal) We tend to quickly shift children from finger-painting to using much finer tools, but the iPad shows there's plenty of power in your digits — if you're using the right app. Autodesk SketchBook provides all the tools you need for digital sketching, from basic doodles through to intricate and painterly masterpieces; and if you're wanting to share your technique, you can even time-lapse record to save drawing sessions to your camera roll. The core app is free, but it will cost you $3.99 / £2.99 to unlock the pro features. Cove The description for Cove is rather noodly — all about self-expression and creating soundtracks to capture your mood. In reality, it's a somewhat controllable instrument for creating ambient music loops. You start with a mood (which determines the scale), 'base', 'melody' and a filter (effect). You can then play your creation, or save it alongside a kind of diary entry, noting how you feel. Unlike many simple iPad music apps, Cove does enable you to create discordant output, but beyond the hippy vibe, there is the potential here to fashion great beauty. XE Currency (universal) It's as ugly as they come, but XE Currency is the best free currency app you'll find. You define which currencies you want to see, along with the number of decimals to show. Double-tap a currency and you can set it as the base currency by tapping 1.0 in the calculator, or do bespoke conversions by typing any other value. Airport Utility (universal) With apps like Airport Utility, it's increasingly clear Apple now sees the iPad as an independent unit, not merely an accessory to a PC or Mac. The app provides an overview of your Wi-Fi network, and enables you to view and change settings, restore or restart a base station, and get terribly angry at a flashing orange light that denotes your ISP's gone belly up. Skype for iPad In theory, we should be cheerleading for FaceTime, what with it being built into iOS devices, but it's still an Apple-only system. Skype, however, is enjoyed by myriad users who haven't been bitten by the Apple bug, and it works very nicely on the iPad, including over 3G. Jamie Oliver's Recipes (universal) It's strange how iPad cookery apps seem to think they're books, unhelpfully offering a few lines of text and then abandoning you. Jamie Oliver's Recipes is a more appetising prospect. From the off, it makes your eyes pop and stomach rumble with mouth-watering foodie photos. Select a recipe and you'll see steps and ingredients, but tap 'Cook Now' and every step is adorned with a full-screen photo. It feels like the app is helping you along, through showing you how your culinary masterpiece should appear at any given moment. Jamie even (oddly) occasionally pops up with the odd bit of sage advice. Elsewhere, video tips provide insight into cooking basics, and there's a one-tap shopping list for any recipe, which you can email to yourself if you don't fancy lugging an iPad around the supermarket. Naturally, Jamie needs money to buy his vats of olive oil and piles of lemons, and so access to all of the content costs £1.99 per month. But for free, there are always 15 featured taster recipes, which are regularly rotated. Readability (universal) The latest of the major read-it-later systems, Readability brings with it a clean interface and a lovely set of fonts. As with the likes of Instapaper, Readability strips junk from web pages, leaving only the content. As you'd expect, you can also send on anything particularly interesting to Twitter and Facebook. iTunes U (universal) If you're still convinced the iPad is only a device for staring brain-dead at TV shows and not a practical tool for education, check out iTunes U. The app enables you to access many thousands of free lectures and courses taught by universities and colleges, thereby learning far more than what bizarre schemes current soap characters are hatching. All 4 (universal) Despite what we said in the previous entry, the iPad is, of course, a great tool for TV. (After all, once you're done studying, you need some downtime, right?) Channel 4's All 4 enables you to view a selection of recent shows, along with a handful of classic programmes. Google (universal) Google might seem redundant - after all, the iPad's Safari app has a built-in Google search field. However, Google's own offering provides a superior search experience that's been specifically designed for iPad. Highlights include a tactile image carousel, visual search history and Google Goggles integration. TuneIn Radio (universal) Output your iPad's audio to an amp or a set of portable speakers, fire up TuneIn Radio, select a station and you've a set-up to beat any DAB radio. Along with inevitable social sharing, the app also provides an alarm, AirPlay support, pause and rewind, and a 'shake to switch station' feature - handy if the current DJ's annoying and you feel the need to vent. audioBoom (universal) audioBoom is essentially a podcast app, but as well as letting you listen to podcasts and other spoken-word audio you can also record your own clips, follow other users and send messages to friends. So there's creation and social networking in there too, making it more of a podcast community than just a player. But even if you stick to listening there's plenty of content here. Netflix (universal) Netflix has been described by some in the UK as the perfect way to experience everything a DVD bargain bin has to offer. We do agree there's a lack of content compared to the US library, but Netflix is cheap and fine for catching up on older shows. And the iPad app includes AirPlay support and a resume function, so you can pick up where you left off on another device. SoundCloud (universal) SoundCloud is a popular service for sharing sounds, and the iPad app enables you to search and play myriad snippets and music tracks hosted on SoundCloud's servers. If you're a budding musician or oddball loudmouth, you can also record and upload sounds from your iPad, or record to upload later. 30/30 (universal) It's easy enough to ignore a to-do when it's lurking somewhere in the background on your Mac or PC, but on an iPad, 30/30's crystal-clear events (including optional repeating loops for work/break cycles) can't be so easily dismissed. Fortunately, it looks great and the tactile interface makes creating and removing items a joy. Paper (universal) For a long while, Paper was a freemium iPad take on Moleskine sketchbooks. You made little doodles and then flipped virtual pages to browse them. At some point, it went free, but now it's been transformed into something different and better. The original tools remain present and correct, but are joined by the means to add text, checklists, and photos. One other newcomer allows geometric shapes you scribble to be tidied up, but without losing their character. So rather than only being for digital sketches, Paper's now for all kinds of notes and graphs, too. The sketchbooks, however, are gone; in their place are paper stacks that explode into walls of virtual sticky notes. Some old-hands have grumbled, but we love the new Paper. It's smarter, simpler, easier to browse, and makes Apple's own Notes look like a cheap knock-off. Adobe Slate Need to make a newsletter, invitation, or report? Then you need Adobe Slate. The app lets you combine text and images into a visual story that flows like the best digital magazines. It's simple to use, letting you effortlessly create a professional story and it's easy to share too, giving you a link which allows your readers to open it on phones, tablets and computers. LiquidText There are loads of iPad apps for reading and annotating PDFs, but LiquidText is different. Rather than purely aping paper, the developers have thought about the advantages of working with virtual documents. So while you still get a typical page view, you can pinch to collapse passages you're not interested in and also compare those that aren't adjacent. There's a 'focus' view that shows only annotated sections, and you can even select chunks of text and drag them to the sidebar. Tap one of those cut-outs at a later point and its location will instantly be displayed in the main text. Smartly, you can save any document in the app's native format, export it as a PDF with comments, or share just the notes as an RTF. 1Password (universal) Although Apple introduced iCloud Keychain in iOS 7, designed to securely store passwords and payment information, 1Password is a more powerful system. It can also hold identities, secure notes, network information and app licence details. Your stored data can then be accessed on more than just Apple's platforms. The core app is free, but you'll need to pay $9.99 / £7.99 to get access to all its features. Pinterest (universal) Social network Pinterest is one of the very few to challenge the big guns in the industry. It provides a means to find and share inspiration, working as a place to collect and organise the things you love. The iPad app has an elegant interface that pushes inspirational imagery to the fore, just as it should. National Rail Enquiries for iPad For anyone commuting by train, National Rail Enquiries is a handy app to have installed. There's journey planning, timetables and a location-aware 'next train home' option, along with progress tracking, so you can see when a train's likely to show up. Note that you'll need a 3G iPad or Wi-Fi to use the app. Quark DesignPad One for the graphic designers out there, desktop publishing giant Quark's DesignPad is an astonishingly useful app for figuring out layouts on the move, or knocking about ideas in meetings. Plenty of ready-made documents can give you a head-start, and your finished work can be exported as a PNG or emailed for use in a QuarkXPress document. Gmail (universal) Because of its single-app nature and big screen, the iPad's become a tool many people prefer to a PC or Mac for email. However, if you're reliant on Gmail, Apple's own Mail is insufficient, not providing access to your entire archive nor Gmail's features. Google's own app deals with such shortcomings and looks as good as Apple's client. Slack (universal) We're not sure whether Slack is an amazing aid to productivity or some kind of time vampire. Probably a bit of both. What we do know is that the real-time messaging system is excellent in a work environment for chatting with colleagues (publicly and privately), sharing and previewing files, and organising discussions by topic. There's smart integration with online services, and support for both the iPad Pro and the iPad's Split View function. Note that although Slack is clearly designed with businesses in mind, it also works perfectly well as a means of communicating with friends if you don't fancy lobbing all your worldly wisdom into Facebook's maw. SynthMaster Player If you're into electronic music creation you need to get into SynthMaster Player. The core app is free and comes with 100 factory presets plus 100 more once you register. But that's just a starting point, as you can edit the presets to create your own sounds, gradually building electronic soundscapes using the included 2 octave keyboard. If you get really into it there are in-app purchases to unlock even more features, but there's plenty here to be getting started with. Cloze (universal) If you ever have one of those conversations where a friend swears blind they did reply, you say you didn't get the email, and they sheepishly mutter "on Facebook", Cloze is for you. It bungs all your social communications (email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) into a single inbox and also prioritises people who you most often deal with. It's a great time-saver. Haiku Deck (universal) If we're honest, we rather liked the original version of Haiku Deck, which stripped back presentations, only enabling you to add to each slide a single image, a heading and a sub-heading. The minimalism's gone (Haiku Deck now includes charts, graphs, bulleted lists and other 'improvements'), but it's still fun and easy to use, which is the main thing. Tumblr (universal) Tumblr has a perfectly serviceable mobile presence, but the Tumblr iPad app gives you a more tablet-oriented interface for using the site. It's therefore a cinch to manage your blogs, post new entries and reply to messages on your iPad. Additionally, there's also offline support, enabling you to queue posts, likes, replies and reblogs without a web connection. Homestyler (universal) In the professional world, Autodesk is best known for high-end 3D products: Maya, 3ds Max, AutoCAD. On the iPad, the company's been using its 3D smarts to churn out interesting consumer-focussed 3D tools. Homestyler enables you to photograph a room, then paint colours on the walls and add furniture, light fittings and accessories. Overcast (universal) Podcasts are mostly associated with small portable devices - after all, the very name is a mash-up of 'iPod' and 'broadcast'. But that doesn't mean you should ignore your favourite shows when armed with an iPad rather than an iPhone. We're big fans of Overcast on Apple's smaller devices, but the app makes good use of the iPad's extra screen space, with a smart two-column display. On the left, episodes are listed, and the current podcast loads into the larger space on the right. The big plusses with Overcast, though, remain playback and podcast management. It's the one podcast app we've used that retains plenty of clarity when playback is sped up; and there are clever effects for removing dead air and boosting vocals in podcasts with lower production values. Playlists can be straightforward in nature, or quite intricate, automatically boosting favourites to the top of the list, and excluding specific episodes. And if you do mostly use an iPhone for listening, Overcast automatically syncs your podcasts and progress, so you can always pick up where you left off. Calorie Counter and Diet Tracker HD The iPhone version of Calorie Counter is a great way of ensuring you're not eating for several, but the HD iPad release takes things to a whole new level. The extra space enables the interface to breathe, providing plenty of room for charts, calorie breakdowns and interaction with fellow dieters. Google Drive (universal) It's curious to think how rapidly Microsoft made Office irrelevant to so many. Most people just want a simple app for documents and spreadsheets, and that (along with a storage repository) is precisely what Google Drive provides. Like Dropbox, it's also possible to store documents locally, for when you've no web connection. HowStuffWorks (universal) Modern life is full of interesting contraptions but beyond phones and tablets the workings of many of them are a mystery to us. That's where HowStuffWorks comes in, doing exactly what it says on the tin through an attractive interface. As well as explaining how various machines work though it also goes further, with interesting nuggets of history and culture as well as podcasts, videos and quizzes. PlainText 2 (universal) The iPhone incarnation of PlainText 2 is good for the odd bit of note-taking, but on the iPad PlainText 2 is transformed into a minimal but highly usable writing tool with Dropbox sync. The lack of clutter provides a real sense of focus - even the single iAd is hidden from view once the on-screen keyboard appears. Box (universal) There's no traditional file system in iOS, but the likes of Box can act as a close equivalent, along with enabling cross-device/platform sync. Here, you get 10 GB of free storage, albeit less direct integration with iOS apps than rival Dropbox provides. Still, files are easily shared and opened, and there's a photo-upload option from the iOS Camera Roll, handy for getting snaps from your shiny new iPhone 7 (when it launches) to your iPad. Been (universal) Been only really does one thing but it does it well, presenting you with a map of the world and allowing you to shade in the countries you've been to, so you can see at a glance how much of a globetrotter you are, or share the map with friends. You can also go deeper and see what percentage of the world or each continent you've been to, to truly quantify your travels. Amazon Music (universal) It seems every major player in media must have a cloud music service these days, and Amazon's no exception. The Amazon Music app is smartly designed, enabling you to easily switch between content stored on your Amazon account and music stored on your device. You can also download from the former to the latter. Animatic (universal) The prospect of drawing can fill people with terror, and so the idea of animation probably sends such folks fleeing for the hills. Animatic might calm their nerves, being the friendly face of iPad animation. Start a new project and you get a small canvas and a bunch of effective and broadly realistic tools - markers, crayons, pencils, biros - for scribbling with. Once you've composed a frame, Animatic makes use of traditional 'onion skinning' techniques to help you produce smooth motion thereafter: up to three previous frames are shown in translucent fashion behind the one you're currently drawing. Tap 'Next' and you'll see your animation looping. Its speed can be adjusted, and you can export to video or GIF. Beyond Animatic's approachable nature, we're big fans of its flexibility. You simply return to the main 'My Animations' screen to save (which we recommend doing often with lengthy projects, because a crash can take work with it), and can later edit any frame from any animation – nothing's fixed forever. And while, as the bundled examples suggest, you're more likely to end up with Roobarb and Custard than Pixar's finest, Animatic is a superb way to explore making drawings move - entirely for free. Hanx Writer (universal) There's no shortage of word processors available for iOS, but few as unique as Hanx Writer, as it aims to emulate a typewriter and it's surprisingly successful, getting the look and sounds right while adding modern conveniences like a delete key. It's not as full-featured as some word processors, but you can save and share documents and there's just something compelling about writing on a typewriter, even if it is a virtual one. Amazon Instant Video (universal) Much like Netflix, Amazon Instant Video enables you to subscribe and then stream TV shows and movies from the cloud. Quite a lot of them are bargain-bin fodder, but the range continues to grow. Pleasingly, Amazon also enables you to stream whatever you're watching to an Apple TV via AirPlay. Sequential We've elsewhere mentioned Comics, but Sequential has a slightly different take on the medium. It's an altogether more upmarket affair, aimed at graphic novels and collections of sequential art that are supposed to be taken seriously. Therefore, this isn't so much everything but the kitchen sink, but a repository for a carefully curated selection of some of the best comics ever created. Snapseed (universal) Apple's Photos app has editing capabilities, but they're not terribly exciting — especially when compared to Snapseed. Here, you select from a number of effect types and proceed to pinch and swipe your way to a transformed image. It's a fun tool, but there's plenty of control for anyone determined to get their photos just so. Concepts: Smarter Sketching, Design & CAD Anyone can be a digital artist with the help of an iPad, but while there are numerous drawing apps focused on art there isn't such a selection for technical drawings of the type carried out by architects and engineers. But thanks to Concepts there's at least one. With vector brushes, size guides, graph paper, the ability to adjust and fine-tune anything and easily export your finished design there's a lot here and the core app is free. GroupMe (universal) Although it's technically an instant messaging app, GroupMe comes across more like a mini-Facebook, but just for your friends. It has feeds, the means to 'like' posts, and private messaging. It's media-savvy, too, enabling you to post videos and photos, the latter being automatically turned into galleries you can browse from a sidebar. Chunky The majority of comic-book readers on the App Store are tied to online stores, and any emphasis on quality in the actual apps isn't always placed on the reading part. But with many more publishers embracing DRM-free downloads, having a really great reading app is essential if you're into digital comics. Chunky is the best available on iOS. The interface is smart, simple and boasts plenty of settings, including the means to eradicate animation entirely when flipping pages. Rendering is top-notch, even for relatively low-res fare. And you get the option of one- or two-up page views. For free, you can access web storage to upload comics. A single £2.99/$3.99 pro upgrade adds support for shared Mac/PC/NAS drives. Figure (universal) The iPad is the perfect mobile device for composing music, with its fairly large display and powerful innards. This has resulted in a range of involved and impressive music-creation tools, such as Korg Gadget. Sometimes, though, you yearn for something simpler for making some noise. This is where Figure comes in. Within seconds, you can craft thumping dance loops, comprising drum, bass and lead parts. The sounds are great, being based on developer Propellerhead Software's much-loved Reason. They can be manipulated, too, so your exported loops sound truly unique. TunnelBear (universal) VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) are becoming very popular, due to issues people increasingly face when browsing the web. A VPN can be used to circumvent region-blocking/censorship and security issues on public Wi-Fi. Such services can baffle people who aren't technically adept, but TunnelBear is all about the friendlier side of VPNs. With bears. After installing the app and profile, you'll have 500 MB of data per month to play with. Tunnelling to a specific location is simply a case of tapping it on the map and waiting a few seconds for the bear to pop out of the ground. Tweet about the product and you'll get an extra free GB. Alternatively, monthly and annual paid plans exist for heavier data users. JustWatch (universal) The problem with modern telly isn't finding something you want to watch, but figuring out where to watch it. There are so many streaming and download services that keeping track of shows is tough. JustWatch speeds up the process: you tell it where you live and the services you use, and it lists shows and films you might like. Various searches and filters are available, including one for price-cuts, to snag cheapo downloads and rentals. There are bugs and listing errors here and there, but for free this is a great starting point for figuring out where to find a potential new telly favourite. Instapaper (universal) If you delve into browser developer tools, the size of web pages these days is astonishing. Frequently, the actual content isn't weighty, but associated ads and tracking scripts are. Moreover, content is often a tiny letterbox surrounded by a sea of ads, and you might not have time to read anything right now anyway. Instapaper is designed to place content front and centre, and be there whenever you want to read it. You visit a site and send the URL to Instapaper, or share to Instapaper from the likes of a Twitter client. Instapaper then dutifully pulls down text and imagery for later. The main view is stripped-back, clutter-free and very readable, with plentiful options regarding typography. An optional monthly/annual premium subscription adds full text-search, text-to-speech highlights, send-to-Kindle, and more, but the free version should suffice for most users. Duolingo (universal) We're big fans of Duolingo on iPhone. Its bite-size exercises are perfect for quickly dipping into, when you've a spare moment to tackle a bit of language-learning. On iPad, the app is basically the same, and the screen's relative acres make everything feel a touch sparse. However, Duolingo remains the same impressive and approachable app, and the iPad's form-factor lends itself to more extended sessions, which is great for when you want to properly crack the next challenge the app throws your way. As ever, we remain baffled that this app remains entirely free. We've yet to find the catch. Yousician (universal) Learning a musical instrument isn't easy, which is probably why a bunch of people don't bother, instead pretending to be rock stars by way of tiny plastic instruments and their parent videogames. Yousician bridges the divide, flipping a kind of Guitar Hero interface 90 degrees and using its visual and timing devices to get you playing chords and notes. This proves remarkably effective, and your iPad merrily keeps track of your skills (or lack thereof) through its internal mic. The difficulty curve is slight, but the app enables you to skip ahead if you're bored, through periodic 'test' rounds. Most surprisingly, for free you get access to everything, only your daily lesson time is limited. Auxy There are loads of superb music-making apps for iPad, but Auxy is the first we've seen that effortlessly combines the immediacy of something like Novation Launchpad's loop triggers with a piano roll editor. You get four tracks, each of which can have up to ten programmable loops of between one and four bars. During playback, you simply tap a loop to cue it up. Auxy's selection of drums, bass and synth is geared towards electronic music, but MIDI export makes it a great download even for pros who fancy a no-nonsense scratchpad. Replay (universal) Home movies can be evocative and heartwarming. They can also be really tricky to make. If you're not a dab hand at the likes of iMovie, you might struggle to get anywhere beyond a random selection of clips with some dodgy titles. With Replay, everything's so much easier. You tell the app what content to use, and it within seconds spits out a movie based on a selected theme. If you want more control, you can reorder shots and fiddle with settings. For free, you can save watermarked videos. IAPs unlock further themes, and add features like removing watermarks, trimming videos, changing focus points, adding text and music, and adjusting pacing. Khan Academy (universal) Maybe it's just our tech-addled brains, but often we find it a lot easier to focus on an app than a book, which can make learning things the old fashioned way tricky. That's where Khan Academy comes in. This free app contains lessons and guidance on dozens of subjects, from algebra, to cosmology, to computer science and beyond. As it's an app rather than a book it benefits from videos and even a few interactive elements, alongside words and pictures and it contains over 10,000 videos and explanations in all. Everything is broken in to bite-sized chunks, so whether you've got a few minutes to spare or a whole afternoon there's always time to learn something new and if you make an account it will keep track of your progress and award achievements.

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