City News’ top four iPad apps for various needs and lifestyles.
Compiled by Yong Yung Shin
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| CN PHOTO: Michael Chan |
With the breadth of functionality and practicality of apps coming onto the market nowadays, the iPad is well qualified to function as your second brain—there’s an app for almost anything under the sun to make your life easier, from creating dummy-proof spreadsheets to cooking for lactose-intolerant family members. Here are some of the coolest:
FOR THE FREQUENT FLYER
The App: Kayak Explore + Flight Search (Free)
There’s no better time to play DIY traveller, with the availability of travel apps like the Kayak Explore + Flight Search. By aggregating flight information from major travel sites including Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia, as well as airlines themselves, travellers can round up the best deals with a few clicks. Besides the flight search tool that allows for breakdown of flights by price, airline, time and number of connections, as well as a car and hotel search function, a recent improvement allows you to tailor your trip according to your budget, climate and activity. The only beef is that you’ll have to leave the app in order to book your flight.—Tay Su Lien, Property Executive
FOR THE WELL-INFORMED
The App: Huffington Post (Free)
Huffington Post is the award-winning website that aggregates high quality content news commentaries and columns. The baby of politician Arianna Huffington and businessman Kenneth Lerer, HuffPost has a list of columnists and contributors that would make any media owner jealous; they range from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to Madonna and Alec Baldwin. Regular contributors are Huffington herself and the likes of Rosie O’Donnell. Topics span politics, business, religion, entertainment, even comedy; and this site has an enviably lively community with over one million comments posted daily. The iPad version is a joy to surf as it offers both the easy-to-navigate layout of the web-based HuffPost but leaves out the cumbersome extras that are annoying to get around without a mouse.—Theresa Tan, Chief Editor
FOR THE BUDDING ARTISTE
The App: Glee Karaoke (US$0.99)
Topping the music app charts in more than 20 countries, the Glee Karaoke expands the hit TV series’ fandom with this ingenious, self-affirming app. Choose a song from the Glee songlist, and sing your heart away. The Glee chorus will harmonize with you, and no matter if you are off key—they will correct your pitch and make you sound like the star you aren’t. With the playback function, you can listen to your performance and improve on it before signing yourself up for the next Singapore Idol. Not only that, share your songs on Facebook and Twitter, and earn points for free songs.—A Gleek Who Wishes To Remain Anonymous.
FOR THE COMPULSIVE GAMER
The App: Tower Madness (US$2.99)
By far one of the best tower defense games to hit the market, Tower Madness far surpasses its predecessor, Fieldrunners. If you are a strategy game lover, you won’t want to miss this. The objective is to protect all 10 sheep from being abducted by incoming waves of aliens, by deciding where to position your weaponry such as cannons, laser guns, flamethrowers and mines.
There are 10 different series of maps to choose from. The adrenaline factor—one of the maps boasts a staggering 327 waves of aliens coming after your 10 sheep! There’s probably much more after that, but I won’t know as I must admit I lost at the 326th wave. It’s priced at US$2.99, but don’t let that turn you off—it’s worth it even to buy all the add-ons, because it’s hard to put it down once you start, and you keep yourself highly entertained while waiting for trains, buses, anyone and anything else.—JX Yu, I.T. Manager
