Ultimate Sharks: SHARKS! It's Shark Week folks and that means a constant loop of scary shark videos, lovely shark bites and messy shark attacks on TV during dinnertime. But you want MORE sharks don't you? You want to know what makes these beasts tick even though you don't want to take a dip with them. It's understandable. The Ultimate Sharks app, made by Discovery as a pseudo-companion app to Shark Week, gives you lists (10 deadliest sharks), tons o' videos, high res pictures and even 3D interactive sharks that respond to your touch. $5
Rdio: If you're not familiar with Rdio, just know that it was our favorite streaming music app because of its combination of selection, social aspects and quality music apps. I mean, what's a good music service without a good music player, right? The iPad app double downs on that with an easy way to check your friend's activities, gigantic in-your-face album artwork and a music player that is clearly influenced by the stellar iPod App on the iPad. The column motif that leaves room for album art and track lists is alive and well here. It's easy to see what you're listening to while searching what you're going to listen to and in Rdio's case, what your friends are listening to.
Skype: Skype. For iPad. Finaleffingly. It works over 3G or Wi-Fi and you can talk to anyone using Skype, which is pretty much the de facto standard for video chatting these days. There's also features for instant messaging, adding emoticons and you can use the front or back camera too. Original iPad owners can use it to receive video only. Free
The Atlantic: The Atlantic, excellent in all three of their mediums: their magazine, their website, and their blog of sorts, The Atlantic Wire, has finally merged all their content into one app. It's available for free. If you're not a subscriber to The Atlantic, you can still access all the website content in the app without paying a dime. The only thing missing for you is the magazine content.
Editions by AOL: It's sort of like The Daily meets Flipboard. It's conceptually laid out like a magazine, but really it's more of a news reader with a pretty face, aggregating material from many different sources. (Including traditional magazines!) It delivers a new issue to you every day, based on your location and news preferences you set up when you first launch it. You can define individual sections (like local news, technology news, or entertainment) and select sources for them. You can also connect it to Twitter and Facebook and AIM to see the things your pals are passing around on social networks, set your zipcode for local news, and enter some color preferences for a more personalized experience.
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