Apps Apple Forgot For The iPad

It's hard to believe the iPad is missing a voice recorder, but there's none to be found. If you're not up for downloading the massive GarageBand, Audio Memos is a great way to go. This app has a slick iOS7 flat theme that lets you make voice recordings and get powerful features. It will record in the background and use iCloud to store the files. With in-app purchases you can extend the app to get features such as voice activation, compression, adjustable speed, and more. If you go all in with the app and purchases, it's only $11. With everything this app does, it can really cover all your bases when needing to do some voice recording.

While document use with iCloud is great, many use Google Drive. Quickoffice was purchased by Google in 2013 and instantly made a free app. This app can access everything on Google Drive. Create, edit, and share all your existing documents with ease. You can also store items on your iPad locally. One powerful tool is the ability to use Word's Track Changes feature. This helps make Quickoffice very powerful when collaborating on that important project.

For all the talk about device security, it would make sense to include Find my iPhone on the iPad. Apple has decided to leave this app as an optional download, but I feel it's essential. If your iPad or another of your iDevices went missing you would want to locate it right away. The name is a bit misleading because it's actually designed for both iPad and iPhone. My suggestion is to get this important app downloaded and set up. Then hope you never have to use it.

The iPad is a great portable workstation, but sometimes you need to get an existing paper document into it. Scanner Pro is one of the best ways to do that. Use your iPad's camera to scan the document. You'll be able to convert it to a PDF and then share it to your colleagues. Evernote and Dropbox integration rounds out the amazing features of this innovative app. It has a slick interface and uses iCloud syncing to get a scanned document onto your iPad within seconds.

Siri lives on the iPad and it's quite convenient for things like checking movie listings. Unfortunately when you get into the fun parts like buying movie tickets, you're booted out to the App Store. This is why Fandango is a must-download. Not only do you get an app filled with tons of movie information, but you can go from searching for a film to making your purchase in one workflow. Fandango is also convenient because it shows information for theaters even if they don't partner with the ticket-buying service.

YouTube is a no-brainer for the iPad. Because Apple and Google can't always play nice with each other, the native YouTube app was banished from iOS 6 and on. Google wasn't one to take that laying down and released their own YouTube app. This is quite nice because you can browse the app while watching a video in a small window. If you log into your Google account, the app will utilize your viewing history, keep your saved videos, and even give you a suggested viewing list. It looks great and has amazing functionality. It's better than Apple ever did.

There's a ton of games in the App Store and it would be great if Apple included some of the best. Until that happens, Letterpress should be one to get. It's a simple game ideas that's extremely addictive. Letterpress achieves this by turning a Boggle-like game and mixing it with the competitiveness of Othello. Letterpress provides a beautiful and simple looking game board of 25 randomly generated letters. Your goal is to form words while selecting letters your opponent has set as their color. By doing so, you steal them to your color. The score goes back and forth as letter tiles keep getting stolen. Strategy is key with Letterpress because once all letters have been used at least once, the game is instantly over. Timing the length of words and letter selections are vital to ensure the game doesn't end before you can achieve a lead and keep it. Letterpress utilizes iOS's Game Center to play against friends or auto-match random opponents. Better yet is the fact that Letterpress is free, but you'll most likely want to shell out the 99 cents to unlock the full version. That'll get you the ability to play multiple simultaneous games along with different color schemes.

Yes, Apple has FaceTime, but it's only good if the person you want to see has an iOS device. Grandma still using last year's Samsung? You're covered with Hangouts. It makes video conferencing simple. Hangouts can support up to ten people at a time. This can make family calls a lot of fun. The focus of the chat automatically changes to whomever is speaking. Want to go text-only? Hangouts can instantly change to a group chat app. You can also turn your iPad into a phone because Hangouts can make calls to any phone as well.

If you're serious about two-factor authentication, Authy is a great app to use. Apple instituted this high-level security system for their Apple IDs but if you need rolling codes for other sites, you need a dedicated app. Authy has one big advantage over Google's Authenticator app: iCloud sync. This app lets you add hardware you authorize onto your account. The rest is synced. This makes it dead simple to move your security codes to a new iPad or even keep your iPhone in sync with your iPad. If you're into securing your accounts in the best way, Authy is one you'll want to get.