The release of the iPad has led to an explosion of apps designed to entertain, inform and generally amuse. We’ve put together a guide of some of the recommended ones. If you’re someone who likes to view television shows or movies on the move, then NetFlix is a great app for you. If you already have a NetFlix account then the app is free and it allows you to stream content from thousands of movies and TV shows as long as you’re in a wireless internet zone.

For those of you who like slightly weird conceptual games, then the Plants versus Zombies app could be the one for you. It comes in high definition and is equipped with a range of levels. It also has the accolade of winning over twenty game of the year awards. The purpose of it is fairly simple: you have to plant monstrous foliage to protect your ‘house’ from attack. It’s also been massively improved in its upgrade from iPhone to iPad as the screen gives you more room to play it.

Sometimes, you just want to catch up with your favorite newspaper when you’re out and about but don’t want to have to buy the paper copy. If this sounds like you, then we recommend the New York Times Editor’s Choice. It’s free for the time being and comes with all the normal sections that form the NYT, as well as lots of articles, photos and videos making it the next best thing to the real thing. It’s also really clear and easy to ready on the iPad.

Social networking is an increasingly popular way of communicating and keeping in touch with people. Twitter is one of the more popular sites and the Tweetdeck app for iPad is a fantastic way of accessing the website on your tablet computer. The desktop version of Tweetdeck comes with a column-based display and the iPad version is no different. You can choose a 2 column vertical display or a 3 column horizontal display that allows you to see your friend’s tweets.

Our last recommendation is Epicurious, an app that the food loves and keen cooks amongst you are sure to love. The app is free, comes with a fantastic database of recipes and has already been downloaded over 3.5 million times, meaning that it’s massively popular. You can access recipes on your iPad no matter where you are, making this a hugely desirable app. There are lots of great recipe categories to choose from, such as ‘decadent desserts’, ‘cool cocktails’ and ‘weeknight dinners’.

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