It’s feast or famine in the iTunes App Store, and this week was a feast. I had a hard time narrowing down my favorites, but here are six of my top choices, plus some other apps you should check out.
Midnight Mysteries: Salem Witch Trials ($9.99)
Get a visit from the ghost of Nathaniel Hawthorne in the hidden-object adventure iPad game Midnight Mysteries: Salem Witch Trials. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous and it’s more challenging and engaging than many hidden-object games I’ve played.
Chore Pad ($2.99)
Chore Pad lets you use a point system to reward your kids for doing their chores. You can easily add users and chores, customize time intervals (daily, weekly) and repeat chores (weekly, monthly, never). Add custom rewards for which your child can redeem his or her accumulated points.
Loopseque ($4.99)
I lost a few hours of my life playing with Loopseque, but it was worth it. It’s a music-creation app that can be played with either one person or several people. Create beats, add bass and choose the intervals. It’s endless, and simple enough for a young child or someone with no musical abilities, like myself.
Slide Reader ($4.99)
In my never-ending quest for the perfect feed reader on my iPad, I’ve found Slide Reader to be very nice. Add feeds directly to the app, choose from their feed library, and/or choose from your Google Reader feeds. The iPad app has a slick interface that takes advantage of our desire to swipe and tap all over our iPad screens. You can share via Facebook, Twitter or email, or a variety of other services. It took me some time playing with it to really get the hang of all its features.
Sling Note ($2.99)
Anyone who uses the Internet for research purposes is going to love Sling Note. You can drag URLs from the browser to the notepad, and grab quotes or photos by tapping “Capture,” cutting around the area you need and dragging it to the notepad. It also has a calculator and secondary Web browser, so you can surf the Web on one side and post to your social network accounts on the other. You can also save your sessions in workpads. I’ve used it to look at my websites, cut out sections and take notes on what I need to fix or change. The uses are, as they say, only limited by your imagination. Email your notepage or export as a PDF. This iPad app is a great tool for working on projects with others.
Sign 4 Me for iPad ($12.99)
Anyone who wants to learn sign language in order to communicate with the deaf should spend the $12.99 for Sign 4 Me for iPad. Type in a word or phrase and watch the character sign it for you. The key here is that the character is 3D, and you can move the perspective so you can see how the sign should look from multiple directions. You can also slow down the speed to better enable you to learn the sign, and zoom in on the character’s hands to see it in better detail. Definitely aimed at those new to sign language, this app is an excellent tool. It also includes a history page listing all of the words and phrases you’ve already tried.
