- 1Password
- iWork
- Microsoft Office
- Fantastical
- Zoom
- Notion
- Mint
- TurboTax
- YNAB
- Apple TV
- Netflix
- Hulu
- YouTube
- Dropbox
- Google Drive
- Microsoft OneDrive
- Google Photos
- Kindle
- Libby
- Bear
- iA Writer
- Day One Journal
- Notability
- Apollo
- X (formerly Twitter)
- Paper
- Linea Sketch
- Procreate
- CapCut
- Amazon
- eBay
- GarageBand
- Audiobus
It makes sense that the best iPad apps are also the best way to experience the full potential of your newly acquired tablet. Whether you use your iPad for notetaking, drawing, finance, gaming, or anything else, you want to make the best of it, right? Even if you've owned your iPad for years, there are still some great apps to entertain you or enrich your experience.
Important apps for your iPad extend beyond your hobbies and into realms you might not have considered, from social media and messaging to security and password managers, to make your everyday life a little easier.
We think that iPadOS 16 brings some much-needed refinement to the iPad, which makes the user experience better than ever. iPadOS 16.5 is available while we tentatively wait for iPadOS 17 soon. There's never been a better time to kit out your iPad with new software.
Whether you've got a current-gen iPad (2022), iPad Pro (M2, 2022), or an older model, make sure your tablet is the best iPad for you with our comprehensive selection of apps.
It's useful to know how to multitask on your iPad too, giving you plenty more functionality within moments.
The following apps differ slightly from iPad to iPhone. If you're looking for a mobile device, best head over to our best iPhone apps list instead.
Best iPad apps for productivity
You can always trust iMore. Our team of Apple experts have years of experience testing all kinds of tech and gadgets, so you can be sure our recommendations and criticisms are accurate and helpful. Find out more about how we test.
1Password
Whatever device you're using, you almost certainly have dozens of website passwords to keep track of. 1Password makes it incredibly easy to store information across all of your devices so you only have to remember the one you use to unlock the app. It also works with Touch ID, so you can keep your passwords ultra-secure. It's a great timesaver while keeping all your information more secure than using easy-to-guess passwords.
iWork
Apple's suite of productivity apps is great for working well on the move. You get Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, so you can create and edit plenty of files and document types. If you're sharing your work with Office users, that isn't an issue either with iWork compatible with Microsoft's counterparts.
Microsoft Office
Similar to Apple's iWork but better for those more comfortable with Microsoft's way of doing things, the Microsoft Office line of productivity apps are comprehensive. You can view, edit, and create documents on your iPad with these free apps, but with an Office 365 subscription, you'll get some really nice extras, like 1TB of OneDrive storage, Skype calls from phones, an Outlook.com email account, and more. If you prefer Microsoft to Apple, you'll want to download these best iPad apps on your new iPad right away.
Fantastical Calendar
Apple's own Calendar app is pretty weak and limited so that's why Fantastical 3 is so good. It's a very robust app for keeping track of your daily events as well as keeping track of your reminders too. It has three different views to show you your days, weeks, and months at a glance. Its sidebar helps keep you on schedule too.
It connects to your Reminders app so whether it's a meeting or a quick dash to the store for milk, Fantastical will help you out.
Zoom - One Platform to Connect
Zoom remains an integral part of many lives since the pandemic. The iPad is a great way to use it. Newer iPads have Center Stage, so if you're moving around on camera, it follows you and keeps you front and center on screen. The newest base model iPad has the camera in portrait orientation so it's an obvious choice for Zoom catchups.
Notion
Notion is one of many tools designed to make organizing your workflow easier, but it actually works well. There are plenty of customization options here to get things just how you like them. It's simple to drag and drop pretty much anything from documents to notes or tasks, while it's also just as easy to share things with others and work collaboratively.
One major highlight is being able to turn any Notion page into a website in a couple of taps.
Best iPad apps for finance
Mint
Mint automatically creates a budget for you, saving time and effort on your part. Once you connect your credit cards and bank accounts, it does the rest, creating a budget based on your average spending habits. You can increase or decrease the maximum for each budget, as well as add or remove categories. Income and expenses are automatically added as you make purchases, but you'll need to enter cash transactions manually. If you don't really need a budget, but like having one, just to see how you are doing, use Mint for the finance tracking and take advantage of the budgeting feature.
TurboTax: File Your Tax Return
TurboTax makes filing your taxes as painless as possible. It could potentially save you tons of money and it definitely gives you peace of mind knowing that you're completing your taxes correctly. You're only ever a few clicks away from a tax expert too.
YNAB (You Need A Budget)
YNAB provides great guidance on understanding how to budget your money. It helps you monitor your lifestyle and figure out which purchases are the most important to you right now, and which can be delayed. You allocate every dollar you make to one form of budget. Any time you go under budget for the month, your income rolls over to the next one. You can easily and clearly see where you've saved and how much you can set aside for a big purchase.
Best iPad apps for streaming media
Apple TV
Apple TV is the app you need to stream fantastic Apple TV Plus content. The platform started small but has matured into one of the top streaming services out there. There's smash hit Ted Lasso, along with Oscar-award winning film Coda, and critically acclaimed Severance, along with live sports, and much more. If you haven't seen it yet, don't miss one of my (criminally underrated) favorite all-time shows: For all Mankind.
Netflix
If you can't stream movies and shows on your big screen TV, watching them on your iPad is the next best thing. With a paid subscription to Netflix, you can access thousands of titles. If you are already a subscriber, all of your history, favorites, and queues will be waiting for you on your tablet.
Hulu
Similar to Netflix, Hulu gives subscribers access to thousands of TV shows and movies right on their iPad. Hulu's exclusive content makes it worth the monthly price alone but there are also current seasons of some of the most popular shows on television the day after their air. Like Netflix, if you already subscribe to Hulu, your history, favorites, and queues will be available on your iPad.
YouTube
To round out the media streaming trifecta, add YouTube for hours of homespun fun. Don't forget to subscribe to iMore to keep up with the iMore Show. And, of course, there are always cat videos.
Best iPad apps for cloud storage
Dropbox
Anyone with the sizeable 2TB iPad Pro won't need Dropbox. For everyone else, it's essential. Dropbox is a cross-platform cloud storage service that lets you keep photos, videos, documents, and more in one place. As long as you have internet access, you can access your account. You can also share content with others without giving them your personal account information.
Google Drive
Pretty much everyone has a Google account with Google Drive working as a great cloud service. Similar to Dropbox, you can save all kinds of files, including videos and pictures, before sharing them with others. With Google Docs, you can collaborate in real-time with others, too. All you need to do is be online and logged into Google, and the world is your oyster.
Microsoft OneDrive
Microsoft's cloud storage service is also the best way to transfer data between your iPad and your PC. When you sign up, like iCloud, you get 5GB of free storage. For $2 a month, you can get 50GB, and after that, you can subscribe yearly and also get Office 365 for $70 to $100 per year.
With the OneDrive app for iPad, if you have Office, you can get to work on documents right in the app, with the ability to save directly too. Photos are automatically tagged so that you can find them easily, plus it's a breeze to share everything too. You can also access files offline so that you can get work done when you don't have an internet connection.
Google Photos
Looking to store all of your precious photos and videos? Stop storing everything on your iPad/iPhone/Mac and get those photos into cloud storage so you don't run out of storage space on your devices. Google Photos makes it easy. Get 15GB of storage for free. You can easily share from the app, do image searches, and even print photos and other items emblazoned with your images.
Best iPad apps for reading
Amazon Kindle
Install the Kindle app onto your iPad and it's like you have a Kindle built-in to your tablet. When you purchase a book on Amazon, you can send it to your iPad directly from the website. When you open the app, it will be there, waiting for you to download. Thanks to landscape mode, reading on the iPad feels more natural than on a smaller screen like your phone.
Libby, by OverDrive
If you love to read but need to keep costs down, you need Libby after you've downloaded Kindle. You can borrow e-books and magazines for free from your local library, before reading them in the Kindle app. With your library card and the Libby app (assuming your local library uses the platform,) you can read to your heart's delight without spending a dime. This and the Kindle app are two of my most-used iPad apps.
Best iPad apps for writing
Bear - Markdown Notes
Bear might look simple but it offers a great deal of flexibility when handling text. It's good for both notes and to-do checklists, but its support for Markdown, a variety of themes, and simple organization means it's great for many different kinds of writing. You can add images, files, code blocks, and more to make your work more interesting or to add context.
It's also possible to sort your documents, pick a theme, pick your font, and even control finer details like font size, line height and width, along with paragraphs spacing.
iA Writer
For bloggers and those that use plain text or Markdown to write, iA Writer is a must-have for the iPad. It has a focus mode so you can concentrate on your work, with special tools for highlighting things like nouns or conjunctions. You can also get a preview of what your finished work should look like once it's published.
The customizable keyboard lets you select specific functions you use the most, like headers, bullets, or bold font. Documents can be stored and accessed in iCloud or Dropbox for easy access across any device. Oh, and there's Night mode for late night writing sessions.
Day One Journal: Private Diary
Every good writer knows that journaling is how you keep your skills sharp, and it can work as a form of therapy and self-care too. Day One is a streamlined digital journal app for keeping daily notes, musings, and ideas in order. It's possible to add photos and locations to your entries as well as create multiple journals for different themes. For example, you could keep one journal specifically for writing song lyrics, and another for keeping track of your photoshoots. There's an exclusive cloud storage service for keeping your journal accessible across all devices too.
Notability
Notability is a note-taking app that lets you handwrite your notes instead of typing them, which is fantastic for anyone with the relevant iPad and Apple Pencil at their disposal. In any given note, you can sketch, handwrite, type, cut out a section and paste it back in, and record audio that is saved with that specific note. It features palm detection, so you can write with your hand resting on your screen (the way most people handwrite) without confusing the app.
Best iPad apps for social media
Apollo for Reddit
Reddit is a great portal for discussing literally anything and learning a lot, but its website isn't the easiest to use. Apollo provides a better user experience than the site and Reddit's own app. We had the pleasure of interviewing Christian Selig on the iMore Show and he is a responsive developer that truly cares about his app. He is always interacting with users and updating Apollo for the better.
Pinterest is a social networking website for crafting, cooking, and building your dream home. Sort of like a digital scrapbook, you can search for anything that interests you with a delightful focus on all things visual. You can browse through pins in your feed, search for specific topics, and see who is saving your spots. Your pins are all saved on your private personal board for quick access. It's ideal for finding new recipes or inspiration for a home redesign.
X (formerly Twitter)
The days of options for X (formerly Twitter) apps are gone but luckily, the official app is pretty good. Clearer to look at than the website, it's simple enough to look through your lists, interact with others, and check out what's trending. Ultimately, much of the fun will come down to who you're following but it's easier to see what to do here than the fairly basic web interface.
Best iPad apps for art
Paper by WeTransfer
You may recall that former iMore managing editor Serenity Caldwell reviewed the Apple Pencil entirely in sketch. The go-to app she uses for her amazing art is Paper. It is the perfect app for sketching out ideas, creating graphs, doodling, and more. There are also some impressive tools for taking notes and annotating images. It's an all-around useful app for sparking creativity.
Linea Sketch
Linea is a great sketching app. It's simple to use but offers robust features. It provides plenty of colors including customizable shades, supports layers, and has five drawing tools, each with three-line style options. It's great for sketching or storyboarding ideas for larger projects. Artists will appreciate how easy it is to use, especially if they use their Apple Pencil with it.
Procreate
Procreate is a powerful app for creating full digital paintings. It has dozens of painting and drawing tools with a wide array of color options, and plenty of customization. You can paint on top of colors as well as blend shades for a realistic artistic experience. It also has digitizing features like adjustable motion and perspective blur, as well as color balance and many more. The project tracking feature lets you record your progress as a time-lapse video so you can easily share your work with others.
CapCut
CapCut is an easy-to-use yet powerful video editing tool. It's as simple as you need it to be. You can always just use it to trim and shorten clips or you can add keyframe video animations, adjust speed via the speed curve tool, or even remove specific colors.
If you're a keen content creator, it's just simplified your workflow massively right down to applying text-to-speech to make your videos more accessible.
Best iPad apps for shopping
Amazon
The iPad is the perfect mobile device for making a few sneaky online purchases. Of course, Amazon has pretty much everything you could ever want to buy and this mobile app makes it easy to do exactly that. You can add items to your wish list, compare items, check for daily deals, view recommend products, and buy everything possible. Shopping made even easier is tempting, so try not to go too crazy.
eBay
eBay is the second place many consider after Amazon. It sells products the giant doesn't, allows you to sell your own products, and is useful for finding some fairly obscure items. On your iPad, you can search for products and filter by price, ending time, distance, and much more. You can also see what condition something is in and bid in auctions or purchase immediately. If you've been looking for a vintage favorite from your youth, this is where to go.
Music creation
GarageBand
Whether you shred on an electric guitar or drop beats on a synthesizer, GarageBand makes it easy for you to create music. You can download tracks you've recorded from another program, connect your instrument with an adapter, or capture your inspiration using a microphone. Even if you don't own or play instruments, you can use the app to create multi-track songs as there are dozens of guitar, bass, keyboard, and drum samples here for digital music creation. Once recorded, you can export your tracks to Facebook, Youtube, SoundCloud, and more.
Audiobus: Mixer for music apps
Audiobus is like a digital pedalboard for connecting music apps. You can link up to compatible apps like SoundPrism to combine the music they both make. Given the iPad is great for music creation such as allowing you to lay down beats, clip loops, and create synth sounds, it's great to bring it all together.
What about games?
Gaming on the iPad has never been better with beautiful displays and powerful processors galore. It's worth checking out the best iPad games as well as the best free iPad games, whether you're a casual or serious gamer.
If you have an Apple Arcade subscription, it's worth seeing what the best Apple Arcade games are at the moment too.
How to get WhatsApp on your iPad
There is no iPad app for WhatsApp, although we live in hope of one in the future. If you're looking for WhatsApp on iPad there is a way to do it, you can follow our guide on how to get WhatsApp on your iPad here.
