It has not been too long since Apple released its iPad, and since the launch of the iPad app store, the market has been flooded with a huge number of apps, a large percentage of which are available internationally, providing their services in a wide arena of possibilities. Despite of the fact that it has not been too much time since the iPad app store was launched, the prices of these apps are higher than the general economy of the Apple Apps store. But, yes, certainly these impressive apps are worth enough to be paid that much.

10 Best iPad Applications

It seems that you have your Apple iPad in your hands and are thinking hard in deciding which apps to purchase, or which may suit you. If thats the case then you don’t need to worry as I have managed to choose the following Apps that I believe are packed with the essential features, are user friendly, and guarantee their usefulness throughout the globe.

1. iPassword

It is a very useful app, as it stores the passwords in encrypted form ensuring protection. Login category is dedicated for storing the usernames and passwords of web services, and Wallet category for storing credit cards numbers, contact details and identities. For iPad owners, it costs $6.99.

2. Kindle

It is an online book store from Amazon, which lets you purchase and read books on the fly, with the specialty of automatically saving the bookmarks where you left reading the last time. This iPad app features colorful menus, with animated switching, and touch screen feature; amazing content selection, and is packed with a huge library of books.

It also integrates seamlessly with Amazon Kindle.

3. Netflix

This Netflix app for iPad allows the users to watch streaming movies, and TV shows, from a huge collection of 20,000+ movies at an unlimited membership starting from $8.99 per month. It also allows users to maintain their queues as per their preferences. The best feature is that it commits to memory, the place where you stopped watching the movie last time, and resumes, when requested.

4. TweetDeck

This app is stunning for streaming your Facebook, and specially your Twitter accounts. It provides access to @mention, messages, search histories, your Twitter lists and much more. It is popular in iPad users due to its being a free desktop client.

5. ESPN ScoreCenter XI

For sporty iPad owners, this is your perfect match, as this app streams video highlights, live scores, standings, summaries, being collected from hundreds of global leagues, and sport events around the globe, available at the price tag of just $5.

6. IM+

Based on the layout emphasizing and multi-protocol messaging standards, this iPad app allows its users to chat using a single app from accounts of various messengers, and online social networks. It relieves its users from the hassle of managing several messengers. This app costs around $10.

7. iDisplay

For improving productivity, to increase facilitation in terms of screen area, here is another iPad app, which allows user to extend the display of their MAC by keeping it aside of an iPad. The screen of the iPad is then treated as an extra display area for MAC screen which helps in increasing the workspace area for the user.

8. Real Racing HD

As its name justifies, this iPad app is a robust car racing game. The game features, cogent use of accelerator, appealing sounds, high quality graphics, and excellent gameplay.

9. Square

This app is like a gift for businessmen and merchants as it enables them to make payments through credit cards using their iPads. It behaves as a cash register, as it figures out sales tax based on the amount, and produces an email or SMS receipt as per demand. It does this by using the credit card swiper peripheral and, maintains security by taking finger signatures on the touch screen.

10. NYT’s Editor’s Choice

It features latest news, opinions, forecasts, articles, videos, and slide shows covering aspects of current affairs, business, and technology. It also enables downloading of articles and sharing it via email with others.

This was my version of the top ten iPad apps. What is on your mind? Are these your preferences as well? If not then let us know about the apps you think are worth mentioning and share your favorites with others.

For all the iPhone and iPod touch owners out there who love free video and TV streaming services, there’s some good news for you, as one of the most popular Online TV streaming service, justin.tv has launched its iPhone app for easy access to its shows.

Justin.tv is another great service which would bring Online TV to your iPhone. The service is similar to other websites like uStream and qik (which also have their apps on iPhone) but justin.tv is better in terms of quality.

Some of the great uses and features of justin.tv app are:

• Watch every live video
• High quality video over 3G and Wi-Fi
• Fully featured chat allows you to interact with broadcaster and viewers on iPhone and the web
Simple and easy to navigate UI
• View and manage favorites
• Share any channel with friends
• Search
• Create account inside app

Another great feature of Justin.tv iPhone application is that it provides push notification feature to its users, so when any of your favorite channel airs something which you have subscribed to, you’ll be immediately notified.

You can download it from here.

via

Muziic is another free app available for download at iTunes which can be used to browse free music on your iPhone or iPod touch. The app lets you browse all the music audio and videos on youtube. You can also tune into different radio stations and listed to music for free.

This app not only utilizes youtube, but also several other free services. Its basically a service aggregator which allows you to search for your favorite music on websites which are offering this stuff for free (legally). You can even customize your search by filtering it through genres, artisits, songs etc. This app also integrates with your social media, so you can share your favorite tracks with your friends.

Features of Muziic are :

1. Search music and videos
2. Tune in to hundreds of internet radio stations
3. Browse featured videos and albums
4. Quickly and easily create a playlist
5. Twitter functionality allows users to tweet their playback
6. Easily search iTunes for music and videos

You can download this app from here.

via

The Google buzz integrates with Flickr, Picassa, Google Reader, Twitter and with some other services to provide one-click sharing capability to its users. The content from all these websites would be then viewable on a single page, which would be a part of your Gmail account.

Main Features of Google Buzz

• Public and private sharing
• Twitter, Picassa and Flickr Integration
• Auto-following
• Inbox Integration
• Fast and Multi-network sharing
• Comments Follow up
• Custom Photo Viewer
• Group integration support
• Limited API support
• Compatible on Android, iPhone and Symbian OS
• Just the Good Stuff

Features Explained in Detail

• Google Buzz shows thumbnails when linked to photos from sites like Picasa and Flickr. Clicking on an image will blow up the images to almost the entire browser, making them easier to see.
• Google Buzz uses the same keyboard shortcuts as Gmail. This makes sense. Hitting “R” allows you to comment/reply to a buzz post, for example.
• There are public and private settings for different posts
• Google wants to make sure you don’t miss comments, so it has a system to send you an e-mail letting you know about updates. However, the e-mail will actually show you the Buzz you’ve created and all of the comments and images associated with it.
• Comments update in real time
• @replies are supported, just like Twitter. If you @reply someone, it will send a buzz toward an individual’s inbox.
• Google Buzz has a “recommended” feature that will show buzzes from people you don’t follow if your friends are sharing or commenting on that person’s buzz. You can remove it or change this in settings.
• In the mobile interface, you can click “nearby” and see what people are saying nearby. NIFTY, if I say so myself.
• You can layer Google Maps with Buzz. You can also associate pictures with buzz within Google Maps.
• Conversation bubbles will appear on your Google Maps. They are geotagged buzz posts, which lets you see what people are saying nearby.

[via Mashable]

Verizon Wireless of USA has announced that they will be including a new cellphone with their service plan, which would be Motorola Devour, starting from March 2010.

The device would have all the typical capabilities of a smart-phone, but it is rumored that this phone might also support multi-touch interface, as it runs on Android and currently, Google is working on a patch to fix Multi-touch problem on Android devices, but until its done, nothing  can be said for sure!

Key features:

• Touch-sensitive navigation pad
• 3.1” capacitive touch screen
• Pre-loaded applications such as Gmail, Google Talk™, YouTube™, Google Search™ and Google Maps™ with Google Maps Navigation.
• Android Market™ gives users access to more than 20,000 applications.
• Happenings Widget – MOTOBLUR automatically pushes status updates, wall posts and photo updates from popular social networking sites to the Happenings Widget on the home screen. Customers can flick through the latest updates and fire back responses using the slide-out full QWERTY keyboard.
• Universal Inbox – MOTOBLUR gathers texts, social network messages and e-mails into one home screen widget for quick response.
• Back-Up and Security – Contacts, log-in information, home screen customizations, e-mail and social network messages are backed up automatically on the secure MOTOBLUR portal. The portal also allows customers to use the phone’s fully integrated aGPS to help locate the phone if misplaced. Remote wipe easily clears information from a lost device.
• 8 GB microSD™ card pre-installed
• Bluetooth® profiles supported: A2DP, HID, HSP, HFP, AVRCP and GAP

Service plans:

[via Verizon Wireless]

Google has never failed in surprising their customers with their new and innovative ideas. Though their labs have already got magnificent web products, yet they have come up with another one, something which is truly astonishing and is currently meant for mobile platform. Its called Google Goggles.

What does Google Goggles do?

The app performs an image scanning of any picture you take using that app. It uses technologies like OCR (Optical Chracter Recognition) combined with some other pattern and image recognition technologies. How and when to use this app is quite simple. When you know the name of something and want to look up its image, you go to Google Images. If you are looking at something and want to search or find more info about it, you use Google Goggles. It would take a snapshot of the thing (could be any symbol, place or drawing) and would give you some related information which could help you learn more about it. You can search or find out more about your favorite book, DVD or gadget by just taking a simple snapshot using this app.

In the coming years, they might take a step further and revolutionize this technology to an extent where it will be able to search and recognize faces. Imagine if this happens that you take a snapshot of your friend using Google Goggles, it scans it and immediately provides you with a link of their twitter, facebook and other social site acoounts. Wouldn’t that be a cooler way of searching people rather than by their name and Email addresses?

What else it can be used for? Countless stuff. Even if you saw some wild, unknown stuff in your dream last night, you could draw it on a paper and take its snapshot. Goggles might help you out to find more about it

Currently the application is available only on Android platform, but it has been announced that it would be available on iPhone and other platforms too.

Here are some demo videos of Google Goggles.

iPhone Explorer is another new app for iPhone users which allows you to browse and move the content between your PC or Mac to the iPhone and vice versa. The application does this function without enabling the SSH console to prevent your device from any potential threats.

The Description of the product taken from their website is given below:

Want to put your iPhone or iPod Touch in disk mode? Use an iPhone as a flash drive? iPhone Explorer is an iPhone browser for Mac that lets you browse the files and folders on your iPhone as if it were a normal USB flash drive or pen drive. You can use the very easy drag-and-drop methods to add or remove files and folders from the iPhone. Compatible with all iPhones and iPod Touches including the new 3GS and 3.0 firmware. Works with or without jailbreaking.

Features

• 100% Free iPhone browser for Mac and Windows
• 100% Drag-and-drop interface for easily copying files to and from your iPhone
• Create, delete and rename files and folders on your iPhone or iPod Touch
• Works with all iPhones and iPod Touches including the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G
• Allows you to use your iPhone as a flash drive / pen drive or put your iPhone into disk mode
• Tiny download size
• (Optional) If you jailbreak your iPhone you can access the real root of your iPhone and recover your address book, SMS, e-mails and more.

The app is designed to run smoothly on all the versions of iPhone and its available on PC as well as Mac platform.

Screenshots

Nokia X6 Hands-on Video

via

Key features:
• 3.7-inch ultra-brilliant (Wide Video Graphics Array Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) responsive touch screen
• Virtual QWERTY keyboard with Swype technology: input text faster and easier with one continuous finger or stylus motion across the screen keyboard
• Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional, which keeps customers connected with corporate and personal e-mail and synchronization of schedules and contacts
• Microsoft Office Mobile: manage Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents
• Enhanced 3D cube user interface
• Full HTML Web browsing capabilities with Opera 9.5 enhanced browser
• One-touch access to social networking sites via shortcut widgets
• Supports Verizon Wireless services, including V CAST Music with Rhapsody, V CAST Video on Demand, V CAST Song ID, Visual Voice Mail, VZW Tones, VZ NavigatorSM, Mobile IM and Mobile Email

Additional specifications:
• Full messaging suite, including SMS, MMS, Mobile IM, Mobile Email and Corporate Email
• Access to social networking applications, including YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, with Samsung’s TouchWiz 2.0 user interface
• 5-megapixel camera with flash and auto-focus and camcorder and decoder with DNSe technology and on-device editing capabilities
• 802.11b/g Wi-Fi (no N)
• Support for Divx and Xvid movie files
• 8 GB internal memory and expandable memory of up to 16 GB with microSD memory card (card sold separately)
• Bluetooth® profiles supported: headset (mono and stereo), hands-free (car kits), object push for vCard, basic imaging, phonebook access profiles. Also supports serial port, dial-up networking, object push for vCalendar, file transfer, basic printing and human interface device profiles

A Hands-on review video by HD Blog has also been included below:

Snapshots

[via Gizmodo]

BlackFriday

First, there is an official Blackfriday app (iTunes Link) which lists several new deals and items on different stores which have got a bargain price. The app has also got a lot of different functions, you can broaden your search by specifying any particular store, outlet etc.

Though the name of this app is Blackfriday, it doesn’t mean that its limited to Blackfriday only. The app is also useful for hunting other occasional deals like Christmas and Halloween deals, etc.

Amazon

Amazon app (iTunes Link) needs no further description. The store has always got pretty exciting deals round the year, but on BlackFriday eve, they have also come up with various deals and discounts. All items can be browsed directly from your iPhone by using their app. You can use this app to search, shop, compare prices, read reviews, and make purchases on Amazon.com

B&N Book Store

The B&N Bookstore app (iTunes link) allows you to search for books, DVDs and Blu-ray, CDs, Toys and Games, Home and Gift items, video games, and every other item that B&N sells. Locate retail stores and browse additional store features such as cafes, event schedules, children’s storytimes, author appearances, and free Wi-Fi.

The app also utilizes the iPhone’s camera to search for the product. Take a photo of the front cover on a book, DVD, or CD, and the app will find it for you. Once the item has been found you can get information about it from that app.

Best Buy Weekly Deals

The Best Buy Weekly Deals app (iTunes link) brings you the latest hot deals on weekly basis and also allows you to search for other products too which they sell . You can access product ratings, reviews, accessories, and large product images. The app also lets you manage your bestbuy.com shopping cart and complete the purchases on a mobile version of Best Buy’s Web site.

Best Buy – Gamers Club

Gamers Club app (iTunes link) is similar to the Weekly deals app, which was mentioned above, but this app is specifically meant for gamers, as it focuses more on Game titles, Consoles etc

eBay Mobile

eBay Mobile (iTunes link) is another app to search for the BlackFriday deals. The app provides the mobile version of eBay’s website with almost all the functionality which is available on the standard web version. You can easily search for items, bid on them, add it to your watch list, or even pay for it from your iPhone.

Target mobile

Target’s iPhone app (iTunes link) is another similar application for shopping. It lets you browse the items available in their store, and check whether the stock is still available or not. You can also order the item from your iPhone or pick it from the nearest store. The app also features gift suggestions based on gender, age, price, personality or occasion.

Toys “R” Us Big Book Favorites

The Toys “R” Us Big Book of Favorites iPhone app (iTunes link) helps you to find toys by category and also by popularity. You can also make a list of your favorites and share the lists via e-mail. Product details are readily available including images, descriptions, prices, and customer reviews.

Walmart

The Walmart mobile app (iTunes link) allows you to browse their Electronics section for latest deals and prices. You can check and review any item, add it to your wish list or purchase it online. The app unfortunately doesn’t support the feature of searching their enitre inventory for something other then electronics. That feature is yet to come; but you can perform that search on the mobile version of their website using your Safari browser!

This post was created with much help from CNET and Mashable.