My 5 Favorite Free iPad Apps

Once upon a time, I had a Kindle Fire. I loved that thing and when it died, the day after the warranty expired, of course, I was quite sad. Unfortunately, it died at the same time that my laptop did, so when forced to choose which device my limited means would replace, I opted to replace the laptop. Junior, who had been the #1 borrower of my Kindle, was also upset, however, he did have the money to get his own tablet but chose, instead, to get an iPad Mini.


Curious about our newest Apple, I stole, errr...borrowed, it the other day while Junior was at school. After playing with it for a few hours and downloading some free apps from the App Store, here are my five favorites:

1. The Kindle App – When I had my Kindle, I downloaded free books from my local library with the added benefit that when the borrowing time was up, they'd just “magically” disappear from the device. The Kindle app gives all the benefits of reading on the Kindle with access to many of the free books Amazon's Kindle Store offers. The app replicates all of my favorite features of the actual Kindle including access to Amazon's Whispersync which “automatically syncs your last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across devices (including the Kindle), so you can pick up your book where you left off on another device.”
   
   
2. Dictionary.com (Dictionary and Thesaurus) – Being a word-a-holic, I love looking up words and this app gave me speedy access to more than two million words and definitions. The best part is that it works offline, so even if I didn't have Web access, I could use it.
   
   
3. Police Scanner + - I really enjoyed listening to police scanners when I was a local reporter and still do even though I'm not writing for our local website. With this app, I can listen to more than 40,000 police, fire, EMS, airport, railroad, comedy, talk, and music stations – FREE!
   
   
4. Soothing Sounds Light – The kids and I sleep with separate noise machines and we always schlep one whenever we travel. Soothing Sounds has a customizable sounds library and the manufacturer boasts that “you'll never hear the same 10 seconds of sound.” That means you won't hear the same bird chips every X-amount of seconds, something that drives me crazy with other noise apps. You can change the volume and intensity of each sound, meaning that you can either hear ocean waves gently lapping on a shore or hear the crashing of those waves on rocks. You can even save the combinations of intensity levels that you've created and re-play those at will. Use it as background noise during the day or while you sleep.
   
   
5. Sticky Notes Reminders & Notes App With Alarms & Sharing – Use Sticky Note reminders without the individual papers falling off your device or marring your screen. Create notes in dozens of styles, add alarms to the notes, password protect them, and share them with others. The best part of this app, however, is that you can add notes to your lockscreen so you don't have to unlock your device to view them.
   

Ok, so since the iPad Mini isn't mine, I had to delete all of these wonderful apps, but it was fun poking around the App Store to see what developers have come up with to make our lives “easier.” It may just be time to start saving up for a Mini.


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Thanks for reading! Please check back in with me in a day or so for more fun!