My Birthday Gift

I can't believe I never posted here about the gift Ed gave me for my birthday last October. A post is no good without a picture, right? Well, now I have some cute pictures, so I guess I can dedicate a post to my gift.



Ed got me an ipad and I love it!! It's the perfect size to take along when one is traveling. It is so much smaller and lighter to carry along. It's perfect for keeping up on emails and surfing the web. I love that I have many books downloaded on it, along with a Bible, so I don't have to carry a stack of heavy books with me. It's the perfect size for me to take to work to show off pictures of Nathan. I have several games downloaded for me, but also added some for Nathan before my last trip to Colorado.



The ipad doesn't completely replace a computer, but it's a fun device to have. The new version, the ipad2 is out now.



So, if you are in the market for an ipad, here are a few of my favorite apps. If you don't really care, then just skip the rest of this post.

AppShopper
This is my favorite app. You can search for new apps, the most popular apps or by category. You can keep a list of the apps you own here as well as a wishlist of apps. You will be notified when the apps on your wishlist are updated or drop/increase in price. This app is free.

AppStart for iPad This app has basic information on how to use your ipad. It's free for a limited time. There is also an app advice app available for $1.99, but I have heard you can get the same info on their website.

GroceryIQ
This app is where I keep my grocery list now. I can enter grocery items in the favorites tab and they are always there. Then with just a touch of the button, they can be added to my list. The items are divided by aisles in the store, and you can even line them up the way your store is set up. You can also have lists set up for several different stores. You can enter prices in here as well, which makes it easy to price shop among different stores. This app is free.

Friendly This is the app I use to check facebook. This app is free. There is another free facebook app called FriendCaster which just came out. I haven't tried it yet.

TheWeatherChannel Obviously use this one to check weather. This app is free.

Google Earth If you love Google Earth on your computer, you'll love it here too. This is a free app.

Pulse This is the app I use to read my favorite blogs. I think it holds up to 25 sites. This app is free.

There are a lot of different apps for reading the Bible. One I have looked at is Olive Tree. Olive Tree has a lot of study tools, but you need to have internet connection to use them. Another is the You Version Bible. I have this one on my ipad, but you have to have internet connection to use it. I think you can pay to download a version of the Bible to your ipad. I like the features this one has. I also have the Holy Bible HD on my ipad. I have the New English Translation downloaded so I can read the Bible even without internet connection. It has crashed on me a few time. All of these apps are free.

Max Journal This is a great journal app. You can have multiple journals set up. You can password protect your journals. You can tag your entries and see your entries in a monthly calendar view for easy searchability. This app is $1.99.

For reading books I have downloaded the apps from CBD, iBooks and Kindle. CBD (Christianbook.com) has some free ebooks all the time. The titles change frequently, so check often. Same thing with the Kindle app. Many of the same titles are available from both places. In the iBooks app I have uploaded PDF's from a photography class I took. Those PDF's printed out fill a 3 inch binder! It's much more portable on my ipad!

I have a free account with Evernote on my computers and the app installed on my ipad. It's a site that you can upload word documents & PDF's to, save webpages, etc. The benefit of Evernote is that you can store things on their site and it is available to you on any device you have Evernote installed on. The app is free and the service is free up to a certain amount of MB each month. If you need more storage, it becomes a fee based service.

Now for a few apps I added to my ipad for Nathan:

Sound Touch Lite Common animals, vehicles and household items drawn in cartoon are on the screen. When you touch the item, a real life picture of that item and its sound comes up. Even if you touch the cow over and over again a different real picture of a cow comes up. The drawings are cute, and the real pictures are very crisp and clear. This app is free.

Baby Finger This app has shapes and numbers. Every time you touch the screen a different shape comes up along with different sounds or different numbers come up with a verbalization of that number. Cute. This is a free app.

Baby Piano A colorful piano app. You can record the song you are playing to play back. The keys can light up to assist you in playing a song. This app is free. There are a lot of other apps by this same designer that I have not looked at.

He didn't really look at any of these, but I have them for future use.

Kids Song Machine HD Lite Fun little songs and cute graphics. This app is free.

Noah's Ark Story Chimes Book A cute book that you can read to your child or have read. There are a whole bunch of titles, some are free and some are $.99.

Cat in the Hat There are quite a few Dr. Seuss books available, many of them free. This is a free book.


Moms with Apps This is an iphone app, but you can use it on the ipad as well. It has lots of reviews on apps for the children as well as the parents. They also have a blog. It is a free app.

Wow, this is a long post, but I hope it is useful for someone. I'd love to hear some of your favorite ipad apps too!