Our First Pick of iPad Apps

The iPad would be nothing without the App Store. Apple's tablet may be sleek and stylish, but the real key to its success has got to be the world of possibilities opened up by the thousands of applications you can load it with. In fact, downloadable applications effectively allow users to customise their touch-screen tablet and turn it into whatever they want it to be. So just over a week after the iPad's UK release, we take a look at some of the best iPad applications currently out there.

It's official: a basic, static product is no longer enough to keep today's users satisfied, as products, or their software at least, must now evolve over time in a truly dynamic manner. The whole 'iPhone + App Store' ecosystem has been a real hit with consumers and competing manufacturers are only too aware that app-style services offer a new way of generating both product interest and sales revenues. Just like the battle of the smartphones, then, competition in the tablet market is likely to be representative of a wider 'app war', as the iPad has its own range of specific applications available to download from the App Store.

Although it is possible to use iPhone applications on the iPad, due to the devices' different screen sizes, you'll have to make do with them in native iPhone resolution or blown-up to iPad size with a subsequent loss in quality, as Facebook fans will soon discover... Anyway, the first selection HD iPad applications is now out in the App Store and the list of available titles is growing fast.

We've been using the iPad for a month now, and during that time we've tested all kinds of different applications. Although the choice of apps is increasing day by day, you'll find our pick of the current must-have apps below. Some of these we've chosen because they're genuinely useful, whereas others we tested simply to see if they lived up to expectations, like certain much-hyped newspaper and magazine apps and Apple's iBooks.

Wired Paving the way forward Can the iPad save the written press? Can it breathe a new lease of life into the flagging world of print media? Whereas some publications are happy to sit back and dream of a rosy future, others have taken the bull by the horns and sought to embrace the future. The excellent American science and technology monthly, Wired, already publishes a paper-based magazine that's unrivalled in this field of the specialist press. It's now managed to create an iPad app that's just as cutting-edge. The app truly embraces the iPad's full potential, offering a portable and interactive multimedia version of the magazine. There's text, videos, a soundtrack, demos and more all with a well-designed layout that's incredibly user-friendly. Wired for the iPad has got to be the best example of how the iPad could really take written media forward. To prevent any potential connectivity issues from spoiling your portable Wired experience, almost all of the content is integrated into the application. Each issue of Wired therefore weighs in at over 500 MB. Since its release, the Wired app had sold approximately 24,000 copies, which just goes to show that readers really do appreciate the mag's original and forward-thinking approach. Ironically, Wired's app was actually developed hand in hand with none other than Adobe, the company behind the Flash format that Steve Jobs wants nothing to do with. Adobe apparently offered to help out Wired with alternative solutions for developing their app. Price: £2.99 per edition (monthly) Publisher: Wired

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iBooks Your pocket library One of Apple's big projects for the iPad is the iBooks app. The accompanying iBook Store will basically try to do for books what iTunes has done for music. Strangely enough though, the app isn't already included in the iPad when you get it out of the box. Once installed, it's quite similar to the iTunes Store, and downloading a book is just like downloading a track. Once you've downloaded a book, it sits on a virtual wooden bookshelf until you're ready to read it. Flicking though the book feels incredibly natural too. To turn the page, you just have to drag the corner of the digital page to flip it over. Only one page is displayed in portrait mode, but in landscape mode you can see the left and right pages together just like an open book. This does, however, display fewer words. A size tab allows you to change the size of the text and the type face, and the app also has a handy built-in brightness control and dictionary function. You can even find a word or phrase anywhere in the book using an integrated search feature. The only downside is that if you plan on reading for a while in low-light conditions, your eyes will quickly get tired. Visually, the iPad is less comfortable to read than a dedicated e-book reader. The price of the books available to download does vary, but there are plenty of classic works available completely free. Price: Free for the app, then the price of books varies Publisher: Apple

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Marvel Comics Super Tablet to the rescue! Books aren't the only kind of print fiction being revamped by Apple's tablet, as comic books also stand to gain readers and revenue by jumping on board the iPad. Marvel is the first big comic book publisher to embrace the new format by publishing its own eagerly awaited app. You can find classic comic books, new releases, and exclusive editions in this app. It's mix between a store and an e-reader and it manages to be highly varied without going overboard. A few free comic books are available to whet your appetite, and they're not just minor titles either, as free copies of Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and the Avengers are currently available to download. Otherwise Marvel's i-comics generally cost under £2, which is much less than the paper versions. Reading is a pleasant experience too as the bright colours literally jump off the screen and navigation is smooth and supple. You can zoom in on a frame with no loss in quality and the comics are easy to read in both portrait and landscape mode. However, some of you may prefer the Comics app by ComiXology (also free), which is less jazzy than the Marvel app but which has the same basic navigation system and the same comic download system. Naturally, it offers fewer Marvel titles, but you'll also find comics from DC Comics and independent publishers. Price: Free app then the price of comics varies Publisher: Marvel Entertainment

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DropBox Drop in a file to sync with iPad One of the main drawbacks of the iPad is always having to use Apple tools like iTunes or iPhoto or extra accessories (e.g. the camera kit) to load the tablet with multimedia content. However, DropBox's virtual storage app could provide a solution. The basic version of the application is free and gives you 2 GB of virtual storage space. Two Pro versions are available with 50 GB of storage for $9.99 a month or 100 GB for $19.99 a month. Once the accompanying app is installed on your computer, you can access your account wherever you go by simply entering a password. You can drop loads of different file types (but not all!) into the DropBox on your computer, including photos (.jpg, .tiff, .gif), videos (.mov, .mp4, .m4v), music (.mp3, .m4a, .wav, .aiff), documents and more, and then magically find them in the DropBox app on your iPad thanks to synchronisation via the Wi-Fi or 3G connection. Photos can then be saved in the iPad album. If you have all or part of the iWork software suite, then text files, spreadsheets and even Powerpoint presentations can be thrown in and then opened up on the iPad with Pages, Numbers and Keynotes. It's just a shame you can't import videos and music from an iPod. Plus, accessing certain (and not necessarily big) files, as well as file synchronisation from a computer can be quite slow. Price: Free for 2 GB Publisher: Evenflow, Inc.

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Pages Text and more The Pages app is an iPad version of the Pages application already found in the iWork software package for Mac. Pages brings word processing to the iPad, for a whole new experience that can feel refreshing and slightly unnerving. Anyone who's used to Word can forget everything they've ever learned. Pages, is an intuitive app for creating and editing documents that contain more than just text. Menus aren't full of multiple entries and one simple icon can be used to insert photos (from the iPad album), tables or graphics. Each section also offers plenty of options for editing your documents. As the keyboard can be a bit tricky to use in portrait mode, using the iPad this way round is more useful for getting a better view of the overall page layout or for tweaking graphics. In landscape mode, however, the larger keyboard is much more comfortable to use, although the best option is still the physical Bluetooth keyboard (available separately). Pages may take you a while to get the hang of, as the keyboard shortcuts and general day-to-day use is quite different to Word. You won't need to keep saving your file every two seconds either, as the iPad automatically saves it with each new action you carry out. The resulting file can be exported as a .doc, .pages or PDF via iTunes or e-mail. The application also comes with several handy document templates (CV, recipes, text, presentation etc.) which can help get you started. Price: £5.99 Publisher: Apple

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Air Video Video streaming at home The restricted compatibility of iTunes and iPad with some multimedia file types can be incredibly frustrating. So when an app promises to play absolutely all the videos stored on your computer directly on your iPad in the comfort of your home, then that's worth giving a go... and the good news is that it works! The idea behind Air Video is simple. It basically links the computer of your choice up with your iPad, which can then play videos stored on your computer by streaming them over a network connection. There's therefore a separate app to install on your computer. Then, once you start up the Air Video app on your iPad, it can instantly convert any file into an m4v, the preferred iPad video format. Loading times are very short and, to be honest, we were surprised to see an app that's capable of so much available at such a low price, especially when it's providing a service that everyone is hankering after. Note that for security reasons, you'll have to enter a pin code to access the video stream. The interface isn't the sexiest, but the only real downside of Air Video is the fact that it doesn't work the other way round, i.e. you can't stream videos stored on the iPad on your computer. Price: £1.79 Publisher: Matej Knopp