With the third-generation iPad now on retail shelves, chances are there are a lot of newly minted iPad owners out there wondering which apps to download first. Here are my ten must-haves. Note that I left out Apple's own iOS offerings, though many--including the newly updated , , and and the just-released mobile version of --are tremendously impressive and worth a download. (And if you're looking for even more download ideas, a few months ago, my colleagues came up with a list of , which include more than a few dandy iPad-optimized offerings.)
is a $5 RSS reader, and if you're not yet on the RSS bandwagon, you should be. The app, which syncs via Google Reader, presents a gloriously elegant interface for reading the latest articles from your favorite Websites.
(Image Caption: Reading through RSS feeds with your fingertip is simple and elegant with Reeder.)
Tap on a headline, and the article slides into view. If the feed in question shows only a summary, Reeder's built-in Readability support can help: Reverse-pinch on the text (or tap the Readability button), and Reeder quickly loads the rest of the article automatically. Tap and hold on links to bring up a sharing window; Reeder makes it easy to email links, save them to Instapaper (see below), post them to various social networks, and more. There's a separate , too, but the iPad incarnation is simply glorious. You'll never want to catch up on your feed subscriptions with anything else.