Top best free iPad apps 2012

On comparing iPad apps with iPhone equivalents, one thing rapidly becomes clear: apps for Apple's tablet are pricier.

                                     

Many of the best free iPhone apps cost 59p or more in their iPad incarnations, and the quality level of what's still free 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 is our pick of the best free iPad apps. Note that apps marked 'universal' will run on your iPad and iPhone, optimising themselves accordingly.

Check out our video to see 10 of the best freebies in action:

1. AccuWeather for iPad

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.

2. Facebook (universal)

Facebook  remains the king of social networks, and while the app is occasionally laggy and buggy it still beats using the website. You get access to sets of high-res photos you can flip through, navigation is simple, and there's support for iPads with a Retina display.

3. Air Video Free (universal)

Despite naysayers whining about the iPad screen's 4:3 aspect ratio, it's a decent device for watching video, although it lacks storage for housing large video collections. Air Video  enables you to stream video (converting it on-the-fly, if necessary) from your Mac or PC. The main limitation of the free version is that it only shows a few items (randomly selected) from each folder or playlist.

4. 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.

5. Bloomberg for iPad

With an eye-searing white-and-orange-on-black colour scheme that's a little like being repeatedly punched in the eyes, Bloomberg  isn't an app you'll want to spend all day staring at. However, for business news, stocks and major currency rates, it's a usable and efficient app.

6. Comics (universal)

On the iPhone, Comics  is innovative, but zooming each panel and constantly rotating your device gets old fast. By contrast, the iPad's screen is big enough to display an entire page without the need to zoom or scroll. And with dozens of free comics available via the bundled store, comic book fans should lap this app up.

7. Dictionary.com – Dictionary & Thesaurus – For iPad

We approached Dictionary  with scepticism, since most free dictionary apps are sluggish interfaces to websites. That's certainly what this looks like, but it works offline, providing speedy access to over a million words and 90,000 thesaurus entries. The app's search is also reassuringly fast.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. Feeddler RSS Reader for iPad

Feeddler RSS Reader for iPad  is fairly basic as RSS readers go, but once you've pointed it at your Google Reader account it's efficient, stores text offline, enables you to browse by feed and has a built-in browser so you're not booted to Safari when you want to visit a link.

11. The Guardian Eyewitness

A showcase for engaging photography, The Guardian Eyewitness provides a daily, visual reflection of global events. You get access to the most recent 100 photos, which can be viewed full-screen or with a caption and 'pro tip'. You can also save photos to your iPad or share them via email.

12. iBooks

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.

13. 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.

14. 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).

15. Movies by Flixter (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.

16. PaperDesk Lite for iPad

Effectively a souped-up digital notepad, PaperDesk Lite for iPad  enables you to combine typed words, scribbles and audio recordings in user-defined notebooks. Pages can be emailed (typed text is sent along with a copy of the entire page as a PDF), although be mindful that this free version restricts you to three pages per notebook.

17. 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.

18. Reuters News Pro for iPad

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 with its Reuters News Pro 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.

19. Twitterrific for Twitter (universal)

The iPad version of Twitterrific  marked a new beginning for the app, which the developers decided had become too complicated. On iPad, it was reworked into a simpler form, and this has resulted in Twitterrific becoming a simple, good-looking and usable Twitter client. Multiple-account functionality is available via IAP.

20. Wikipanion for iPad

The Wikipedia website works fine in Safari for iPad, but dedicated apps make navigating the site simpler and faster. We went back and forth between Simplepedia  and Wikipanion , eventually plumping for the latter, largely due to its efficient two-pane landscape view with excellent bookmarking and history access.

21. eBay for iPad

Use eBay for iPad  and you'll never touch eBay in a web browser again. It's fast and efficient, beautifully showcasing important details and images in its main results view. The app also enables quickfire sorting and drag-based definition of price-ranges.

22. 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.

23. Granimator

Wallpaper apps litter the App Store, but are mostly dull, offering photos of brick walls or bored animals. Granimator  is a bonkers art tool, enabling you to choose a background and spray all manner of shapes around. Compositions can be fine-tuned by dragging objects, and then shared to Flickr, Twitter or your device's Photos app.

24. 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. Explore Flickr (universal)

Explore Flickr  provides an engaging way to discover new photography. On launch, your iPad screen fills with a grid of thumbnails, drawn from Flickr.com's top daily images. Tap one to view (and, if rights permit, download to your device), or just leave the app lazily updating (every now and again, a thumbnail spins to reveal a new image) while your iPad charges in its dock.

As a special bonus, you can check out T3's favourite five iPad apps:

26. Rj Voyager

One for budding iPad DJs, Rj Voyager  enables you to choose from a selection of bundled tracks, turn parts on and off and edit parameters in real-time via an intuitive, futuristic interface. Play through headphones or a decent sound system and the result is infectious.

27. 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.

28. 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.

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Fresh iPhone Apps for Aug. 3: List Bliss, Infinity Blade II update, Glass Balance

Fresh iPhone Apps for Aug. 3: List Bliss, Infinity Blade II update, Glass Balance

Spend less time in the grocery store this weekend with the help of cloud list app List Bliss. The app allows you to share your lists over an Internet connection and even synchronize shopping, so you and a pal can get everything on your list by doing half the work each. You can use the time you save to play games including another big content update to Infinity Blade II that adds new story elements and enemies to kill, and Glass Balance, an arcade title in which you need to match colored pieces of glass to score points like in a match-three game, all while balancing them on a platform to keep them from falling.

List Bliss (iPhone, iPad) Free

The main goal of List Bliss is to cut down on the time you spend in the grocery store every time you need to go shopping, by trying to make the whole endeavor more efficient. Using cloud technology, List Bliss allows you to access your grocery list wherever you are, which means that everyone in your family can contribute to it on the fly, and you can use it to track what you’ve got at home and what you need to pick up.

The app also makes the shopping part easier. You can see categories available in the store to which you’re headed, scan barcodes on the items you already have to add them to your list so you know exactly what you want to pick up, and read product reviews before you make decisions. You can even split your list with a buddy with the “synchronized shopping” feature to divide and conquer at the grocery store.

Infinity Blade II update (iPhone, iPad) $2.99 (normally $5.99)

Another free content update has just hit the award-winning Infinity Blade II, adding the new “Skycages” levels to the sword-fighting role-playing title. As always, players have to work through a series of duels in the game in which they’ll fight hulking beasts and agile warriors, swiping to match swords and parry attacks in each battle.

The update opens a new area of the game for players to explore, and with it come new enemies to defeat. You’ll also learn more about the immortal Deathless, the creatures at the heart of the Infinity Blade universe that usually need an introduction to your sword. The update throws in a new type of weapon to master – the energy blades – and adds 30 or so more items to find and use in your quest, as well as new achievements to earn.

Glass Balance (iPhone, iPad) Free

Puzzler Glass Balance mixes two tried-and-true formulas most players have seen before and enjoyed. The first is balancing, in which you drop objects onto two sides of a fulcrum and need to keep them from tipping off the sides. In Glass Balance, that means pieces of glass that are of different shapes and colors, which you need to keep balanced in order to stay in the game. To score points, however, you need to get your match-three gameplay hat on, and put together combinations of the same color to clear glass pieces from the platform.

As you play through Glass Balance, you’ll be able to nab power-ups that earn you more points, like coins that double your score for a set period. You’ll need to be careful though, as you only have a set number of “lives,” and each piece of glass you lose off the side of your platform costs you one. Glass Balance includes Game Center support, so you can check your best scores against those of your friends or players from across the globe.

Download the Appolicious Android app

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