10 iPad Apps Every New Owner Needs

by Nathan Eddy

Get yourself into the swing of things with this multitouch Major League Baseball app, which allows you to get detailed box scores, track every pitch and get play-by-play announcements. Plus, MLB.com subscribers can watch full regular season live games with access to stats over the broadcast along with play, pause and rewind capabilities.

View the world in HD with this app, which offers more than 570 images spanning 15 regional galleries across an intuitive map-based design. Also included is a poetry selection, a travel planner and art gallery, providing an incisive portrait of the planet. Curated by noted photojournalist Peter Guttman, the photos are accompanied by his thoughts at the moment the photos were taken.

Take a break from the hectic world around you and design your own Japanese Zen garden where you can relax, meditate and let your imagination run free. The app allows you to create an endless variety of designs. Best of all, the price is far lower than that for most iPad apps: That should provide some peace of mind as well.

Brush up on your vocabulary skills with this classic game, designed just for the iPad. Play up to 25 multiplayer games simultaneously in portrait or landscape modes or in Party Play mode with up to four friends. A Scrabble Teacher feature lets you see the best word choice from your previous move, so the more you play the better you can get.

Never lose track of an alluring tune again with this app, which recognizes a song thats playing, being sung or even hummed by you in just four seconds. You can also search through your history of songs, find out whats hot (or underplayed) at the moment and get lyrics, share and buy tracks. The iPad version also offers updated graphics.

Race through the worlds cities with this physics-based gaming app, which offers HD graphics, 28 cars, manual controls and 18 tracks. Users can fine-tune performance with acceleration, tires and suspension upgrades, and the local WiFi or live Bluetooth multiplayer (across six game modes) lets you take on friends at the track.

Unleash your inner Picasso with this painting app, redesigned for the iPad. Featuring an advanced color selection, along with brushes, layers and blend modes, it also provides extreme zoom capability and the ability to upload all your art directly to Flickr.

This ones a no-brainer. Download the app to watch TV shows and movies streaming from Netflix. The app also has the ability to pick up from where you left off on your TV or computer, and you can manage your queue right from the iPad as well.

Take an HD tour of the solar system with this app, recently updated for iPad compatibility, which offers 2D and 3D versions of the sky. Learn about the sun, moon, constellations and planets with provided names and information on various heavenly bodies.

This fantastic, motion-sensitive game comes to the iPad in all its colorful, entertaining glory and includes new mini-games, including a four-player multiplayer game, a new Far East world and enhanced visuals. Roll your monkey through 125 levels across seven worlds or play Monkey Target or Monkey Golf. Its sheer bliss.