On my iPad...

There was a time when people used to ask you, "What's on your iPod?". Today that question has slighlty changed. Its now, "What's on your iPad?". Its now about the apps on your iPad and not the songs on your iPod. Also your iPad can also have songs and movies, so that's a given. Ever since I got my hands on iPad (and iPhone), I spend a good half hour everyday going through the app store, seeing what are the new apps, which are the apps worth having, which ones are free and which ones are paid etc. After about 6 months, I have finally reached the stage of sufficiency where I have all the apps I possibly need doing a whole new range of things. I now only go through new apps to see if there is anything worthwhile (mostly games) nowadays. Many have often asked me what are the good apps that one must have and what I suggest. So I thought I should pen down what I have and how I categorize them.

APPLE PRE-BUILT APPS

1. Messages (iMessage Basically)
2. Calendar 
3. Notes
4. Reminders
5. Maps
6. YouTube
7. Videos
8. Contacts
9. Game Center
10. iTunes (Only for Podcasts and iTunes U, otherwise doesn't work in India)
11. App Store
12. Newsstand (for all my Magazine Subscriptions)
    
    • iCreate
    • Wired
    • GQ
    • The Daily
    • Bloomberg Businessweek
    • National Geographic
    • Esquire
    • The New York Times
13. Camera
14. FaceTime
15. Photobooth
16. Settings
17. Safari
18. Mail
19. Photos
20. Music
21. Calculator HD (Same interface as the iPhone Calculator, third party paid app)
22. Clock (third party paid app)
23. iBooks (also reads and stores PDF Files)

FIND

1. Find My iPhone (useful to track your Mac, iPad and iPhone on GPS. Also enable remote locking, remote wipe and beep. iCloud account needed. It's a must for any iPhone/iPad user)
2. Find my Friends (GPS tracking for friends. You can also block your location)

iWORKS

1. Numbers
2. Pages
3. Keynote

Used with iCloud. It can seamlessly sync all your files. Keynote is for presentations, Pages are for documents and Numbers is for spreadsheets. They open Microsoft Office Documents and are made my Apple. 

iLIFE

1. iMovie (for editing and making movies)
2. Garageband (for making your music. You can also play your instruments virtually on the iPad)
3. Remote (Control your Apple TV or iTunes on your Mac with your iPad/iPhone)

These apps are made by Apple and are very good for creative people and just to fool around.

NEWS

1. NDTV
2. IBNLive
3. TOI
4. HT
5. FirstPost
6. BBC News
7. CNN
8. Pulse (configurable to what you want to read)
9. ABC News (Great Interface)
10. Mashable (if you want be update with what's happening in the digital world, then this is the app)
11. Zite (only choose news topics you are interested in)

FINANCE

1. Bloomberg (Great to keep track of your portfolio)
2. Bloomberg TV+ (Watch Bloomberg Live on Your iPad)
3. XE Currency (Currency Converter)
4. powerone FE (Financial Calculator)
5. CNBC RT
6. FinConcepts (Financial Education App)
7. Reuters MarketBoard
8. WSJ Live

MAGAZINES (NOT ON NEWSSTAND)

1. Economist
2. HBR
3. Foreign Policy
4. Financial Planning
5. Zinio (a parallel Newsstand with more magazines onboard)
6. Engadget
7. Archie
8. Fortune
9. Time
10. Forbes Lists

PRODUCTIVITY

1. DropBox (Good alternative to iCloud)
2. PrintCentral Pro (Used it for Printing, now use an AirPrint Printer)
3. DocsToGo (alternative to iWorks, iCloud makes this less convenient)
4. Roambi
5. Evernote
6. Evernote Peak
7. iMindMapMobile HD 
8. Conference (Display a presentation from your iPad to other iOS devices over WiFi)
9. SpeakIt (Converts text to voice)
10. OmniGS
11. Analytics HD (Configure Google Analytics Dashboard on this app)
12. Fuze Meeting (Have a video conference along with presentations)

SOCIAL

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. FlipBoard (One of the best apps. Configure your social networks and use it like a book. Many magazines can also be configured)
4. Spout (Shows Facebook and Twitter feeds in an innovative way)
5. StumbleUpon

IM

1. Skype
2. Fring (Have 4 way video chat)

EDUCATION

1. TED
2. Official GMAT
3. GMAT Reasoning
4. iHomeWork
5. Architizer
6. GMAT Club
7. 7 Billion (by National Geographic)

INTERNET

1. Google
2. Downloader (used for downloading songs and videos directly on your iPad)
3. Wikibot
4. SpeedTest (test the speed of your internet connection)
5. iSwifter (an internet browser which runs Flash)
6. Wolfram Alpha (the brain behind Siri & a great search engine)

TRAVEL

1. Flightboard (tells you flight timings Airport Wise)
2. FlightTrack (Tracks flight realtime on GPS)
3. Country Call (International STD Codes)
4. Sygic (Turn-by-turn voice navigation and GPS for India)
5. AllSubway HD (Subway Maps for cities around the world)

GAMES

1. Infinity Blade
2. Fruit Ninja HD
3. FlightControl HD
4. Sonic Racing
5. Angry Birds
6. Real Racing 2 HD
7. Trade Nations
8. X-Plane
9. Bubble Ball
10. Contract Killer
11. Cut the Rope
12. Scrabble
13. Boggle
14. Monopoly
15. RoadTrip

UTILITIES

1. AirPort Utility
2. Dictionary
3. PenUltimate
4. BatteryMagic (an iPhone App)
5. EZ Cam (use your iPhone camera wirelessly for the iPad)
6. iNoteBook
7. Weather

BOOKS

1. Our Choice ( by Al Gore, a book in form of an app)
2. Kindle
3. TradePub (get free books from this app which will open on iBooks)

CARS

1. Mercedes Quartets
2. Mercedes Magazine
3. Ferrari HD (a book on the history of Ferrari in HD)
4. Porsche Pad Cinema (all Porsche Videos)
5. Rolls Royce Phantom (an interactive app where you can customize your own virtual Phantom)

ENTERTAINMENT

1. IMDb
2. VLC (to play videos in other formats)
3. Brushes (use your fingers to paint)
4. djay
5. Star Walk
6. Epicurious (for cooking)
7. Groove Bug (for Music)
8. Phoster (design your own poster)
9. TuneIn Radio
10. Jango Radio

This is how all the apps are categorized on my iPad. I am using iOS 5 so Notification Center is a boon. iCloud integrates my documents, contacts, calendars, app data and photos seamlessly. These are the apps I think are sufficient to make your iPad good for anything. Do let me know if you have more to add to this.