Listen to Rush for Cheap! And Other iPad Wonders.

I am really enjoying my iPad.  My wife and I gave each other iPads for Christmas.

What I like especially like about my iPad is the availability of cheap applications, or "apps," that are quickly downloadable.  I am listening to Rush Limbaugh on a radio station broadcasting in New Mexico, and it is loud and clear.  The app is called "Conservative Talk Radio," and it cost $3.  In addition to Rush I can listen to a long list of other conservative pundits, assuming they are currently broadcasting.

I am a Rush 24/7 user, having paid around $25 for the privilege.  However, listening to that on my regular PC laptop isn't nearly as good.  There are often delays due to cache and other issues.  Listening on my iPad is much better -- no delays, no hiccups, it just works.  Apple's technology is just superior.

Other apps I use are for watching live television from Europe and other areas of the world.  I like to watch French television to improve my French, and the broadcasts are clear, the audio perfect, and the audio and video perfectly in sync (there is no time gap between them, as you sometimes see on a PC).

I can also watch the BBC broadcasts as well as television stations in Russia, China and South America.

Another app (free) allows me to watch NASA television, live.  The other night I watched astronauts frolicking within a space station, plus the control room in Houston, as well as various presentations.

Most apps that I add to my iPad are automatically uploaded to my iPhone as well, over the "cloud."  Photos are interchanged between iPad and iPhone automatically as well.

Other apps that I use on my iPad are these:

Skype -- Free phone calls to anyone in the world, with video as well as audio.  I talked to my cousin in Dallas, and a friend in South Carolina, and it worked perfectly.

YouTube -- Has a free app that works far better than accessing YouTube from a browser.  I like to watch "French in Action" videos in bed at night, just before sleep.

eBooks -- Read books on your iPad, many of them free.  I am reading "Les Miserables" on it.

Kindle -- I buy almost all of my books in Kindle format, and they are accessible from my pc, my iPad and my iPhone.

iTunes -- Music!  I rarely use this app, as I prefer using my pc to burn purchased songs to a CD.  However, it allows one to use his iPad as a kind of skinny boom box.  I like to sometimes listen to Beatles music while shaving in the morning.

Blogger -- With this free app I can post to my blogs using my iPad.

Netflix -- I can and do watch movies on my iPad and they are clear and the audio perfect.

Foreign Language Dictionaries -- I have free apps for French and Spanish, useful tools for a student of languages (as I am).

Texting -- This is not an app, it is built in to iPads.  I can and do text friends and relatives who have either iPads or iPhones.  Unfortunately, you can't text people who have non-Apple phones....but maybe there's an app for that!  I'll check.  (Update:  there are several.)

Should you get an iPad?  Heck yes.