If you’re like us, you were eagerly awaiting the arrivals of the iPad. The iPad appeared at Apple Stores across the country today. While Apple’s new tablet is a star on it’s own, what really makes it are the apps. Apple has nurtured a unique universe of apps for the iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad. Almost all the apps which run on current iPhones and iPod touches run on the iPad (we didn’t find one which didn’t run) but they run in a clunky frame to accommodate the lower resolution. If you decide that you want to see the app larger, you end up with a blocky, blurry mess of a formerly spectacular iPhone app. With all the added screen real-estate, iPad apps can afford to take up more space and show you more information at once without it seeming cluttered and confusing.
The real stars of the app store for the iPad are the universal apps (that means that the apps wall run on both the iPhone and the iPad at their native resolutions) and the iPad only ones.
We took a look at some great iPad apps, some of which are the universal apps which run on both iPhones, iPod touches and iPads and some are iPad only.
Here are the apps that we looked at:
These are all apps which were designed to run on the iPad.
ABC Player:

ABC iPad App

ABC iPad App

In a move sure to please all those “Lost” fans out there, ABC released a free iPad app which allows you to stream some of their shows that are available for viewing online straight to your iPad. It’s a really nice program, and it’s great that ABC is allowing iPad users access to the same video content that visitors to ABC.com get. In ABC’s world, iPad users are not second-class citizens. The TV shows are clear and while there are ads, they are very short—sometimes shorter than the ads on Hulu.com. It’s a nice app that we’re glad to see on the store. Hopefully it will pave the way for a Hulu application for both the iPad and the iPhone/iPod Touch. [Free –

Nuance, the makers of the voice dictation software Dragon Naturally Speaking (for Windows) and MacSpeech Dictate (for Mac OS X), released an iPhone app a while ago which gave users access to their powerful voice dictation systems on the go. The app records your voice and then sends it to their server to analysis. Once the server processes the sound, you get back words, which are nearly all correct. Nuance did a great job of fitting their simple, straightforward interface onto the iPad’s larger screen. It’s really accurate and this is the kind of situation in which we wish Apple would allow multi-tasking. Imagine being able to just talk and have your iPad be able to type what you say—that would be amazing. [Free – Wolfram Alpha:

Wolfram Alpha for iPad

Wolfram Alpha for iPad

This app recently made a splash when they lowered the price from the outrageously expensive $50 to a much more reasonable and affordable $2. The next day, Wolfram Alpha announced that the app would be a universal iPhone+iPad app. If you don’t know what it is, Wolfram Alpha is the most amazing data-driven search tool ever invented. It seems to know everything, from the mass of 254 atoms of copper (2.68×10^-20 grams) to the number of people who speak English in Tanzania (1.5 million) and even how to solve complex math equations. It’s a very versatile app and it has replaced the calculator on my iPhone, but the iPad version is even better. The large screen gives you a HUGE view of your data in a way that I never imagined on anything less than a computer. I really like this app and I highly suggest this app to anyone who has an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. I bought this app myself, and I suggest you do too. [$2 –  AIM for iPad:

AIM for iPad

AIM for iPad

Normally the AIM app the is first IM client that people install but they quickly “graduate” to a better program like BeeJive or IM+. This version of AIM for iPad really has a chance against the paid apps. It’s nicely designed and its three pane view allows you to easily switch between chats and type quickly. I would not be upset if this was the only IM app on the app store. [Free – iBooks:

iBooks

iBooks

Apple’s E-Reader app for the iPad is the most realistic e-book reader that we have ever seen. It’s crisp and clear, and the page flip animation really makes you feel like you’re reading a book. It comes with a  complementary copy of Winnie the Pooh, a classic which reads beautifully on the iPad’s color screen. The illustrations really come to life on the LED lit IPS display. All that Apple said about the “premium display” inside the iPad is really true and it shows while you’re reading books. Apple has included little touches everywhere in the iBooks app which are super convenient. One of these is the display brightness control. It’s really nice to be able to dim the screen while you’re reading in bed so that you don’t sear your eyeballs. The iPad’s screen is really that bright. The iBookstore has a good number of books which approach the prices of hardback print versions. You get better prices from Amazon, on their Kindle (also available as an iPad app), but Apple has the edge on the experience. [Free – Kindle:

Kindle for iPad

Kindle for iPad

When you launch the App Store on the iPad for the first time, it asks you if you want to download the free iBooks app. Already, iBooks has the advantage, but if you’re after the best value books or you have a Kindle already, the iPad Kindle app is the way to read books. With Amazon’s WhisperSync technology, you can keep your place across many devices, iPads, iPhones, Kindles, and computers. With the Kindle you can read your books in many more places, but the experience is just not as nice as iBooks is. If you’ve invested in Amazon’s Kindle and Kindle books, this app is a good option, but if you’re just starting out with e-books, you should take a serious look at Apple’s iBooks and iBookstore which offer a nicer experience and syncing with iTunes Link. [Free – Tap Tap Radiation:

Tap Tap Radiation

Tap Tap Radiation

If you’ve used an iPhone or iPod Touch you probably know what Tap Tap Revenge is. It’s one of those essential apps that everyone seems to have on their phones and iPods. Tapulous, the developers of Tap Tap revenge, have released a nice new version made specially for the iPad. In the previous Tap Tap games, there have been tracks that the beats ride on. In Tap Tap Radiation, they’ve done away with the tracks. The beat bubbles “radiate” from some place on the screen and you have to catch them in the hoops that they go through by tapping on the hoops. This makes for a more challenging, more fun and different game. Tapulous has made different versions of their games in the past, tailoring them to specific artists or genres, and we hope to see this again with the iPad version because this packs a lot of potential. [Free, although some tracks cost money – NYT Editors’ Choice:

New York Times Editors' Choice

New York Times Editors' Choice

The New York Times, one of the premier news sources in the US and around the world, has always had a presence on the Apple mobile devices. They’ve continued their influence onto the iPad too. It has a stunningly designed app which simulates the feeling of reading a newspaper, columns and all. You scroll sideways though articles, clicking to read an article, which at first is not intuitive, but quickly becomes natural. As a great source for the daily news, it’s wonderful to see the NY Times on the iPad, where it’s convenient to read at any time. [Free – WordPress for iPad:

WordPress for iPad

WordPress for iPad

If you want a testament to the quality of the WordPress iPad app, consider the fact that we wrote this with the WordPress app. Yes, this review was written on an iPad, but the images were added on the computer. It’s a very nice app, a welcome upgrade from the clunky iPhone app that is available to bloggers to use with their WordPress sites. It’s indispensable for those who need to be connected to their blog 24/7 and it’s also very useful for getting “that one last post” in before you go to sleep, go on an airplane, etc. Greatly improved and it has an attractive price of $0. [Free –