20 Great New Apple iPad Apps Continue

20 Great New Apple iPad Apps

NBA Game Time Courtside (Free)No, it doesn't stream NBA games for free; for that, you need the $24.99 League Pass add-on. But even without paying a penny, this app gives you moment-by-moment-updated scores and play-by-play information for live games, stats, news, and video recaps and clips. The court diagrams look particularly attractive on the Retina display, although the video clips aren't 1080p HD.

Pages ($9.99)
The dean of iPad word processors, Pages is a full-fledged document processor and page layout program that works best with a keyboard stand or case. We rated the previous version of Pages 4 stars and Editors' Choice; you can see our full review here. The new version, 1.6, adds the ability to include charts and better iCloud syncing as well as support for Retina graphics and text.

Pulse (Free)Pulse vs. Flipboard. Flipboard vs. Pulse. Pulse vs. Reeder? I'm a news junkie, which is one of the reasons we have three news apps in this list. Pulse fits squarely between Flipboard and Reeder when it comes to digesting information from a broad array of sources. It's more visually elegant than Reeder, and keeps your set of sites and chronology clearer than Flipboard does. Since they're free, why not install all three?

Reeder for iPad ($2.99)
I find Google Reader syncing to be a critical feature in an RSS reader app, because it's much, much easier to add feeds from a desktop browser than by typing in complicated XML URLs on a tablet. Reeder delivers. This RSS reader syncs with Google Reader, offering the full range of features: favorites, multiple categories, sharing and images. It's quick, clean, and looks gorgeous on the new screen.

Sketchbook Pro ($4.99)
The new iPad's retina display practically begs to be used to create art, as you can now draw lines that taper and fuzz beyond the level of human vision. Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro is the first professional-level art app to be enhanced for the retina screen, which puts it ahead of Photoshop Touch and Procreate for now. If you intend to use your iPad to create art, take a look at our roundup of iPad styli, which we tested with Sketchbook Pro.

Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy ($4.99)One of Apple's demonstration games for the Retina screen, this air combat game has breathtaking graphics. It's a fight-and-flight simulator, where you battle 40 different kinds of planes over cities, farmland and water. The high-res graphics are absolutely spectacular, and the game plays smoothly.

Star Walk ($4.99)What is that thing up there? Star Walk beats its sibling, the $2.99 Solar Walk to this list because of its utility: you can point it at the sky and it will help you figure out what stars you're looking at, in an augmented-reality mode. Beyond that, this is just a gorgeous virtual planetarium, with stars, planets, constellations, satellites, and a calendar that shows you when and where the next unusual astronomical events are happening.

Tweetbot ($2.99)
Tapbots' popular third-party Twitter client is better than the free default client in several ways. It lets you filter by lists, exclude certain hashtags, and easily follow conversations. It supports user-configurable tap shortcuts. And it uses the full 10-inch, landscape-format screen a bit better than the standard app does. All of the graphics and text, meanwhile, are fully Retina-upgraded here.