The app formats each rss feed under your own defined groups as a single newspaper. So for example, if you had created a group called “Cooking” and then added a few RSS links from your favourite food sites to this group this personalised newspaper would deliver content aggregated from all your links about cooking, recipes etc 2. Flipboard Flipboard is a very cool way of viewing your Facebook and Twitter feeds. With Facebook and Twitter people often posts links to content. There are normally so many of these links that people often can’t be bothered to click them to see what the link would take them to. Flipboard is cool as it automatically visits these links for you, pulls in the core content and formats it like a magazine for you. This could be pictures or even video that you can play right within the Flipboard app. Although I find this great for Facebook it is even better for Twitter. Using Twitter you can easily setup “Lists”. Some of my lists that I have setup include “Tech”, “Friends”, “Rugby”, “F1″ and “Celebs”. Any Twitter user can setup as many lists as they require and group the tweeters they are following into these lists. So if I want to see what’s going on in the tech World I simply view my tech list for real time tweets related to tech. If I want to know what’s happening in the World of rugby I look at my rugby list and can view tweets from international rugby players or those tweeting that I have followed related to the sport. This works well using most Twitter apps but comes into its own within Flipboard. I can simply hook up each of my Twitter lists to Flipboard as a section. When I tap that section my Twitter list is formatted as a magazine and all the content from each tweet that contained a link is automatically fetched and rendered for me. Flipboardtastic! 3. Analytics HD Ok, so if you don’t run any of your own websites or blogs then you will want to skip this one. However this post is titled “My top 10 favourite iPad apps” so here it is. The app hooks into your Google analytics account  formatting all your sites visitor statistics in a clear and concise format. The app doesn’t have great reviews on the iPad app store but I find it useful and easy to use 4. Pages Pages is a fully functional Word processor for your iPad.  I’m surprised at how much I use this app, in fact, I am using it at this very moment to tap out this post on my iPad. Once done, I simply hit “My Documents” within the app and can email the document straight to my desktop in Word, PDF or Pages format. It’s simple to insert pictures and has a nice drag-drop user experience when moving things around on the page. 5. Popular Science+ I have to admit I had never purchased or read Popular Science before downloading the app. The app is free and you pay a small fee for each edition that is downloaded. You really have to experience this to believe it. It looks stunning on the iPad’s display. The way they have designed the mag for the iPad is truly amazing. Each edition contains built in multimedia elements so you can flip images over , listen to sound bite interviews and watch videos all straight off the magazines page. Imagine a digital popup book and you will be on the right track. 6. WIRED Magazine Pretty much on par with Popular Science+ but loses 1 place as I prefer the UX (User Experience) that Pop Sci provides. Where as Pop Sci has what I can only describe as an overlay navigation system that is very easy on the eye and intuitive to swipe through WIRED has a more standard nav structure consisting of simple up and down finger strokes. That said, the graphics and images within both magazines are stunning and the addition of multimedia elements really does make you think about what the future of digital publishing has in store? What’s next? 3D? 7. Kindle The free Kindle app let’s you access and buy digital titles stored in the Amazon cloud. I’m lucky enough to own a Kindle device and for hardcore reading of ‘text’ as opposed to casual reading of magazines (with all their glossy images) I rate the Kindle hardware above the iPad. Mainly because the backlit screen the iPad has can become hard on the eyes after a couple of hours reading. I also love Amazons Whispersync technology between Kindle software apps that lets you continue reading titles on one device from the place where you left off reading it on another. The iPad comes with it’s own book store app but I find the titles available are generally more expensive on Apples store than Amazons. I believe Apple also have a technology similar to Whispersync but I have yet to try it out. I also read a lot of tech titles and where as Amazons Kindle store has an abundance of tech books Apple does not appear, at least as of this writing, to have any, and I mean any at all! Believe me I have tried searching for all my geeky topics and came up with “null”.  I have posted a review of the Kindle which may be of interest to some 8. BigOven Pro I occasionally like to cook and experiment with different recipes. Sometimes I just want to see what I can cook up given whatever ingredients I have at hand.  BigOven pro is a handy iPad app to have on these occasions. Due to the mobility of the iPad you can simply pick it up and take it anywhere like the Kitchen for example. I have often sat in our lounge, had a quick flick though this app, found something that got the taste buds tingling then propped my iPad up in the kitchen and attempted to cook whatever had caught my eye 9. BBC News The BBC news app delivers what you would expect – the latest news. I say the ‘latest’ news but anyone in the know knows you obtain the ‘latest’ news these days via Twitter which is real time and faster than any web based news content provider. That said, false news flashes are more and more often being tweeted these days so I don’t think the likes of the BBC have anything to worry about just yet. The app also provides a live feed to the BBC News 24 television channel that you can watch in real time which is a handy feature. Sky have a good news app for the iPhone but not as yet for the iPad (although it of course runs on the iPad as will any iPhone app). I started out using iPhone apps on the iPad but you soon grow to love the dedicated iPad apps that are built to take advantage of the bigger display 10. HTR HD High Tech Racing I don’t play many games on my iPad but this one caught my eye. It’s basically Scalextric for the iPad! You can progress through a series of races via built in tracks or better still, and what I used to love doing as a kid, is build your very own circuits and then race on them. Ok, it’s not as cool as the real thing but if you happen to be sitting on a plane, train etc and feel like a bit of racing fun it’s well worth a whizz. The full version is just a few quid although you can also download a free light version if you want to try it out

So that’s my list to date (7th September 2010). If you are a fellow iPad owner what’s your favourite app? Please do tell in the comments as I’m always keen to try new app’s out.

On average I read a tech book per month. I would normally buy my books from Amazon or occasionally head out to my local Borders (which has since closed) or Waterstones store and have a browse through their shelves.  When ordering from Amazon the titles would normally take two or three days to arrive. I like to read tech manuals cover to cover occasionally skimming chapters which are of little interest to me. As I progress through a book I make short notes on the inside front cover so I can reference pages of interest at a later date. As a programmer I need to reference things I have read all the time. Sure Google is wonderful for quick searches and snippets of code I can rip but all too often I find myself digging through my tech library of books trying to track down something I have read in the past. My hand writing has always been terrible (give me a keyboard over a pen always) and when I jot down my notes balancing a book on my knees the output is often an illegible squiggle. First I have to remember what book it was that I actually read in the first place which contains a distant memory of a piece of information that may possibly help me with whatever project I am currently working on. Then I check my often illegible squiggles inside the cover and hopefully find what I’m looking for. That was all before I purchased my Kindle. I had been looking into Kindles for a while. What put me off was the size of their screens. A mere 6 inch display just seemed too small for my usual reading which could contain screen shots of code or workflow diagrams. I held out until the Kindle DX was released in the UK at the end of January 2010. The DX boasted a bigger screen so I treated myself to my very first ebook reader.

Kindle DX Display

9.7 in diagonal (5.4″ (137 mm) x 7.9″ (201 mm)),

824 × 1200 pixels or 0.99 megapixels,

150 ppi,

16-level grayscale

electronic paper

On turning my Kindle on I found the menu very user friendly and easy to navigate. The Kindle manual is of course on the device already so that was the first ebook I read. I then easily navigated over to the Amazon Kindle store and was pleasantly surprised when I saw how many tech titles the store contained. Also the prices are cheaper as there is no book to print and publish etc. After a quick browse I purchased my first ebook. Within a minute the title was on my device and I was reading it. Far better than having to wait days to get your hands on your book. With a recent firmware update (July 2010) you can now also group books on the Kindle under your own folders which makes organising your ebooks that little bit easier on the device.

Some might say that there is no point in having a Kindle when you could have an iPad. In my opinion that is wrong. Im lucky enough to own a Kindle and an iPad and yes you can read books on the iPad but the Kindle is primarily designed as an ebook reader first. The fact that it doesn’t have a back lit screen and uses electronic paper is far easier on the readers eyes. Its true that you cant read the Kindle in the dark but neither can you read a book without adequate lighting. Either use a table lamp or light of some sort or better still invest in the Kandle. At the time or this writing I could only find the Kandle available for purchase in the US but luckily I have a friend who travels to the US frequently and he picked one up for me (cheers Chris).

Of course the iPad has many strengths over the Kindle but reading books, believe me, is not one of them.

Then there is Whispernet \ Whispersync. This is a powerful technology that syncs the last page you read across your Kindle devices. It also syncs any bookmarks or notes you have made. This has proved incredibly useful in my line of work. The Kindle client software can be downloaded free for a number of platforms including PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android. Making notes on the Kindle couldn’t be any simpler. You navigate to the text you want to highlight using the navigation joystick (or nipple as I call it) then click the nipple down. This is the start of the text you are making a note or bookmark about. Then navigate to the end of the text or picture you want to note and click again and that’s it. No pen or knee balanced squiggles required. So now I can buy and download books in seconds, read them on my DX and highlight points of interest. My digital book library is synced across all my devices so I can pull my iPhone out and have instant access to all my books wherever I am and continue reading from wherever I left off.

The real game changer for my work life has been I can access the notes I made on my kindle directly from my PC using the Kindle client software search feature. What’s more, I can even copy and paste code snippets directly from my ebooks directly into the project I’m working on. In summary, my Kindle has changed the way I work.