I would not consider myself as a fan boy, but I happen to have several Apple devices, among them this little thing called an iPad. I’ve discovered several sites that present a list of their favourite iPad apps, so I wanted to give my point of view on this. I have grouped my suggestions based on different categories.

(Updated 20101205: Photography/FlickrStackr)

Games

• Angry Birds HD
  This is probably one of the most mentioned games out there, and it is for a reason. Addictive and fun.
• Civilization Revolutions
  I’m a fan of the old Civilization games, so this is something I can relax with on those long airplane flights.
• Monkey Island 2 (Special Edition)
  This is a new release of an oldie. The game in itself is mostly just funny though, but this is more or less a must have for those of us that played the original game when graphics still was chunky, and most commands where given using a keyboard.

Social software

• Friendly
  I have tested several Facebook applications on my iPad. Using Safari works okay, but the best app so far seems to be Friendly. Another contender is Social, and even though this app has more features, Social does not feel like an app, but more like a skin for Safari.
• Twitter
  Tweetdeck and Twitterific are both OK, but I find myself using the original for reading and replying on twitter. For twittering interesting news check out Flipboard, Feedler and Pulse News.
• WordPress
  If you have one or more WordPress based blogs, this little app makes it wonderfully easy to publish post and manage comments and content on your sites.

News/Magazines

These are the applications I find I use most together with Friendly and Twitter.

• Flipboard
  Flipboard gives you an auto created newspaper way of navigating your Facebook, Twitter and other newsfeeds. It is very easy to comment, twitter and share items on your own Facebook or Twitter feed.
• Pulse News
  Pulse is another way of navigating the same content, it also has easy features for sharing your findings with other people. I am not sure what I prefer of these two, but I use both and have divided my mostly read news-sites between them. Some is listed in Flipboard others in Pulse
• Feeddler Pro
  This is probably my most used reader. It utilizes my Google Reader RSS feeds, and gives me an easy to use GUI for reading, marking, sharing and managing my RSS-feeds. The free version is equally good, but since I use it so much I found that I should give some money back to the author.
• The New York Times
  I do not read the NY Times each day, but during most weekends I have a look at this application.
• StumbleUpon
  During an evening with relaxation I find that I often uses a few minutes on StumbleUpon to see what other people find interesting.
• Maybe
  • Wired
    I might buy magazines online and have bought a few Wired issues. It is an interesting concept and I find myself enjoying this way of reading Wired.
  • Nettavisen
    This is a Norwegian application for one of the many internet news publishers in Norway. I find that the app is a quick way to discover news, but I am not sure about the app yet. I am looking forward for Aftenposten’s alternative to this application.

eBook-readers

• Stanza
  iBook, Kindle and other eBook readers are excellent, but I find myself going back to Stanza and using Calibre for uploading books to Stanza.

Entertainment

• IMDB
  I like to look up actors and directors when I watch a film. This app (and site) is excellent for doing just that.
• VG TVGuide
  I have tried several of the different TV-program apps for Norway, but this is the fastest one, and easiest to use.
• CineXPlayer & VLC
  Both CineXPlayer and VLC are quick and easy to use for viewing films on an iPad. They support slightly different formats though.

Photography

• EyeWitness
  The British newspaper “The Guardian” have created a nice little photo browsing application called EyeWitness. It shows great images, and also includes small tips on how to take similar pictures.
• SimpleDOF
  If you are a photographer like me, this little application is available both on iPhone and iPad and makes it easy to find the optimum settings for your camera when you want to plan your shot.
• Fotopedia Heritage
  This is a collection of images from all the different UN World Heritage sites all over the world. A lot of great images.
• FlickrStackr
  This  application makes it really easy to view your own images, your contacts images and other images on flickr. Nice slideshows, easy uploading, it even displays videos.

Science

• StarWalk
  Have you ever wondered what star or planet you are looking at in the sky? Wonder no more. This little app can tell you. Just hold it up towards the planet or star and it will show the part of the sky that you are looking at.
• Nasa App HD
  All news, videos and images that you ever can think of regarding space exploration and science.

Music

• SoundHound
  I often wonder what artist or song I hear on a radio or on TV. By starting SoundHound and holding it up so it can capture what I am listening too it can often tell very fast. There is an alternative app for this, called Shazam, that also works great, but I have found that SoundHound works faster.

Navigation

• MotionX GPS HD
  There are several great applications for navigation on you iPad. The reason i like MotionX is that it can download maps you probably are going to use for offline usage. That is you do not need to download maps using your 3G connection while travelling. In addition to this it can save tracks that you can share with Google Earth on your PC and Mac.

Other utilities

• 1Password
  A great application for remembering your passwords. It stores your passwords and other secret information in an encrypted and secure format on your iPad or iPhone.
• Pages
  It is part of the iWorks suite on iPad, but so far I have only used Pages. It can even work with Microsoft Word documents.
• Citrix
  This is an early version of the software yet, but it shows great promise. Here you can open up the full version of your software directly on your company’s Citrix server.
• iFiles
  If you ever need to share documents or use your iPad as a disk. iFiles is one of the better alternatives.
• Dropbox
  This is a client app for accessing your Dropbox account and downloading files to your iPad and iPhone. This is a great application for sharing documents, images and other files with friends and family.

Other pages with tips

• NRK-Beta (In Norwegian)
• etherpad – ipad apps (In Norwegian and does not work in iPad)
• Gizmodo
• DigitalTrends