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Welcome to Apps for iPads — a website devoted to narrowing the field by bringing you reviews, articles and tutorials on the best apps for your iPad, so you can concentrate on the important stuff… I hope you’ll consider subscribing to our free RSS feed, &  following us on Facebook or Twitter.

Read MORE about Apps for iPads “after the break,” and Enjoy all of our POSTS BELOW!

If Apple had released their iPad on April 1^st instead of the 3^rd and told you they sold over 300,000 of them in one day, with  people flying in from around the world and lining up around city blocks, waiting for hours to enter Apple stores… you would have thought it was an April Fools Joke!

However, over 3.3 million iPads later, with a cool million purchased every month, it’s definitely NO joke! iPads have invaded our homes, our lives, and with their 10+ hour batteries, our offices and schools!

Using apps on your iPad definitely makes the experience richer, and Apps for iPads makes that experience simpler for you! The Apple iTunes app store lists over 25,000 apps for iPads. With 600 new apps being added each and every day, we’re here to help. Here at Apps for iPads we sift through all these apps, researching, testing and rating. We bring you articles, reviews and tutorials on the very best apps for your iPad, along with all the important news you need to ensure you have a fabulous iPad experience!

Today we bring you a cute musical app that your young children are sure to love! It’s called Tap A Tune and it’s brought to you by Mindshapes, known for bringing wonderful apps to families. This app is one you have to see in action because still pictures just don’t cut it. So stick with us to see our video-review.

As you can see Tap A Tune has bright colorful illustrations that are stimulating and fun. The music pulls children right into the app and the myriad of options available keeps them there.

There are three different levels of play:

• Play mode: Tap on the animals, as they pop up, to play each note of a song. Upon completion, the tune plays back, and the animals dance to celebrate your success.
• Freestyle mode: Tap on any animal, in any sequence, to compose your own song.
• Baby mode: Tap on any animal and the notes of the tune will play automatically

Your child can elect to play using the blades of the xylophone or in “whack a mole” style. In each there are eight songs, eight instruments AND one assortment of animal sounds, so you can make a huge assortment of combinations! Every child seems to have their favorite but they all giggle with glee when the elephant trumpets!

Tap A Tune Contains 8 Family Favorites:

• Bah Bah Black Sheep
• Hickory Dickory Dock
• Old MacDonald
• Row, Row Row Your Boat
• The Wheels on the Bus
• This Old Man
• Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

The app prompts your child of the song they have selected so that they will grow to know the tempo that the animals should be whacked at. Once they complete each song all the animals burst into a spontaneous party as the song plays. Kids love it when you use the opportunity to clap and celebrate too!

If you’re looking for an app that kids love to play and begins to give them an appreciation for music then Tap A Tune is one of the best apps we’ve seen for the job. Grab a copy for your iPad today! It also is compatible with your iPhone and iPod Touch so go ahead and load them on there too! It won’t cost you a cent more and your kids will be able to enjoy this adorable app no matter where you happen to be!

We’d love to hear how YOUR child likes Tap A Tune! What’s their favorite part?

Other Mindshapes App for iPads Reviews:

• Bobo’s Birthday
• Birthday Countdown
• Jack and the Beanstalk
• Hickory Dickory Dock
• Casper’s Scare School

I treated my daughter and granddaughter to the theater Friday night. We saw the Dr. Seuss musical “Seussical!” Since Alexis is only 3-1/2 I made sure to have front row seats and right next to the stage stairs the characters used to interact with the audience. It was an amazing experience for Alexis! A grand night was had by all!

Seussical is a combination of a few of Dr. Seuss’s wonderful stories; The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who AND the focus of this article,  Horton Hatches the Egg. Now that story is available on your iPad via Oceanhouse Media!

“I meant what I said
And I said what I meant. . .
An elephant’s faithful
One hundred per cent!”

Kind-hearted Horton the elephant is persuaded to sit on an egg while its mother, the good-for-nothing bird lazy Maysie flutters off on a vacation. Horton is teased and taunted by his jungle friends, “How Absurd! Old Horton the Elephant thinks he’s a bird!” He’s captured by hunters, even placed in a traveling circus, but he keeps his promise and protects the egg. When runaway Maysie stumbles upon the traveling circus and demands her egg back, something incredible and unexpected occurs teaching children that virtue earns a reward!

Horton Hatches the Egg on your iPad is true to the original Dr. Seuss book in it’s wonderful illustrations, color and storyline. However that’s where the comparison ends. The iPad offers a learning experience your child cannot hope to experience with paper and ink.  The interactivity is such that it add to the story in such a way as to not be distracting.

Your child can use the app in any of three ways:

•  ”Read to Me” — listen to the narrated story with words highlighted as they are read
•  ”Read it Myself” — read the book in its traditional form
•  ”Auto Play” — plays like a movie, automatically reading and turning pages. Great for younger children!

thus letting the app “grow” with your child. We love that if your child elects to “Read it Myself” and gets stumped on any word in the story a simple tap on the offending word will enable the narrator to pronounce it for them. This way they won’t get frustrated and give up. If they tap and hold on the test the professional narrator will read them the entire page. The words will also, in the “Read to Me” option, highlight as read by the narrator. This helps your child associate the written with the spoken word and helps them transition to reading. Taking the concept a step further Oceanhouse Media has enabled all the illustrations to “speak” their “names” so once again children associate a word with an object as they see and hear it as they touch it in the app.

Horton Hatches the Egg Features:

•  Picture / Word association — words zoom up and are spoken when pictures are touched
•  Individual words highlight and are read aloud when tapped
•  Professional audio narration
•  Custom background audio for each scene
•  Pages pan & zoom to accentuate the beautiful, original art of Dr. Seuss
•  This ‘Universal App’ is optimized for Retina displays and the iPad

Horton Hatches the Egg is a childhood classic that your children will love. It never goes out of style but it just got better! Download Horton Hatches the Egg on you iPad for your children today. They’ll love you for it. Oh, and if you get the chance to see “Seussical” be sure to take your kids!

What’s YOUR favorite Dr. Seuss book or character?  Which is your kids?

The rumors have gone around a few times now…yes there will be a smaller iPad, no there won’t…over and over again and again. Steve Jobs when he was alive stated emphatically from stage that there simply would never be a smaller version, saying it would be “dead on arrival.” But Steve Jobs is gone and the rumors are once again heating up as summer approaches. Could this be the year for the mini-iPad?

PadGadget is reporting that DigiTimes tells them Foxconn Electronics will be manufacturing the mini iPad. They further state that The smaller device is rumored to have a 7.85-inch screen and the same pixel resolution as the iPad 2. Other rumors claim that the smaller device will cost between $250 and $300. At that cost, if it is compatible with iPad apps and has all the functionality of its big brother, they will put a serous crimp in Kindle Fire sales.

So what do you think? Will Apple bow to pressure and give the public what it’s been wanting or are these nothing more than baseless rumors?

Would you buy one? I think if it were true I would probably be at the head of the line. What about you? Should I save you a spot?

You know how they always say the older you get the faster time flies? Well I must be something like 103 because I find that I am (was) missing out on some of the things I always liked to do for lack of time. Like reading the newspaper or my favorite magazines! Who has TIME anymore to sit down and leisurely flip through them?

Well now I do! With the help of the new PressReader app for my iDevices! I find that I normally like to unwind and read late at night, however I certainly cannot take a full newspaper to bed and the light sometimes bothers my husband. But now with the help of PressReader, a free app by NewspaperDirect Inc., I can read my newspapers, magazines and more, on my iPad or iPhone in the comfort of my bedroom, in my car, waiting for the kids, etc.! It has made my “down-time” so much more pleasant not to mention productive!

I hope you took the time to watch the video, isn’t it simple to use, easy to see, and great to share? We had the opportunity to test out PressReader on a number of Apple and Android devices and everyone reported back that they love it! Those that were reading on smaller devices loved the ability to make the text any size they want, something they cannot do with a traditional publication! No more reading glasses! I also have found that our staff that got the opportunity to test out PressReader is sharing more of what they find in the publications they are reading… they are emailing interesting things they find but more than that they are sharing them on Facebook and Twitter! Now THAT is something you’ll never be able to do with a traditional paper and print magazine! No print paper is ever going to offer you audio and video like these can either.

I especially liked a couple features. The first is called “Smart Flow” and it allows me to read a magazine like I like to, in clumps. I like to follow a train of thought or subject and with this enabled (its easy to switch back and forth between that and page-view) I can do just that effortlessly.

The other feature I like is that I can save what I find to Instapaper or Evernote so that I have it at my fingertips later.  That option is GREAT when doing research! I would think that students will love it when working on projects or papers. Which reminds me, you have the ability to search for terms or keywords in PressReader so you can find publications that contain what you are searching for. It even allows you to tailor the search to what language or country the publication is located. What a time saver!

I also love that you do not need to be online to read! Once you decide what you’d like and download it you do not need an Internet connection to read it! That makes it fabulous for commutes, car-trips, waiting for your kids at practice or anywhere else you might happen to be.

But most of all I love that PressReader has let me take control of my time. It makes consuming content possible anytime and literally anywhere I happen to be! We all only get 1440 minutes a day; PressReader lets me make the best use of every one of them.

So just what kinds of publications are included in those 2100+?  You will find newspapers from all over the world and all the major cities across the United States. There are magazines like Life and Cosmopolitan. My husband likes Inside Golf and USA TODAY Sports Weekly. In the short time we have been testing PressReader out he has discovered that they added even more sports publications! You will find publications geared to education, sports, politics, and more.

PressReader Features:

•  Auto-delivery of your favorite publications
•  Attention-grabbing SmartFlow stream
•  Printing full pages or articles
•  Sharing stories by email or on Facebook or Twitter
•  Saving articles to Evernote or Instapaper
•  Listening to articles using on-demand audio
•  Copying & pasting entire articles into note taking applications
•  Sharing your opinion by supporting or opposing a story
•  Adjusting font size and type
•  Automatically aligning with the beginning of an article using the option SmartZoom feature
•  Cross title search
•  Authorization of PressReader with a PressDisplay.com subscription
•  Full Retina Display optimization for iPad 3
•  Instant translations of full publications in up to 12 languages
•  Auto-translation of all publications into a specific language with the ability to specify exceptions
•  Saving articles to Evernote and Instapaper

PressReader is the only application that lets you read a growing list of over 2,100 full-content newspapers from 95 countries in 54 languages available through the world’s largest online newspaper and magazine kiosk. You will enjoy reading complete digital replicas of your favorite publications, often before the printed editions hit the newsstands! Every article, advertisement, crossword puzzle and cartoon is presented in its original context.  Not only can you search, share and discuss articles from thousands of titles, the publications you access via PressReader are enhanced with interactive features such as clickable URLs, telephone numbers, email addresses and “continued on page…” links.

PressReader makes reading full-content digital replicas an absolute delight with additional features such as:

• Flipping pages like you’re reading a real publication
• The ability to pan, zoom or rotate pages, articles and photos
• Navigating publications using thumbnails or table of contents
• Opening full articles in easy-to-read text views
• Listening to publications using on-demand audio
• Searching online across titles and selecting the titles you wish to download

PressReader lets you decide how you would like to get your reading material. For the casual reader you can buy each publication as you want it. For those of us that love to read they have a great subscription package that gives you full access to ALL the publications you want! Yes, all of them, even those they are continually adding.  Download PressReader today and receive 7 issues for FREE! Check it out and see if it’s for you, and then YOU decide what and if you want more.

Mercer Mayer‘s beloved tales of little critters have been delighting children since 1975. Now they have been updated, enhanced with wonderful narration and just the right amount of background sound effects and brought to the iPad for a whole new generation of readers!

Oceanhouse Media has brought the Little Critter books to life for your children and NOW you can get a whole collection of them!

The Little Critter Collection #1 Includes:

• All By Myself  – Little Critter doesn’t always do everything perfectly, but he always does the best he can.
• I Just Forgot - On rainy days he remembers his raincoat but forgets his boots. At home he takes a bath but forgets to use soap. Poor Little Critter!
• I Was So Mad  – He wanted to keep frogs in the tub but his mom said he couldn’t. He wanted to paint the house but his Grandpa said no. Little Critter was SO mad.
• Just Me and My Mom  – Little Critter enjoys a special day in the city with his mother. He means well, but gets himself in trouble all along the way.
• Me Too!  –  Little Sister tags along wherever he goes. Whether he’s playing football with friends or hiding in his secret tree house, she always finds him. “Me too!,” she says.
• The New Potty  –  This light-hearted story of common potty training frustrations encourages children to keep trying, just as Little Sister does.
• Just Grandma and Me  – Little Critter becomes a good helper when he and grandma decide to spend a day at the beach!
• Just for You  – Sweet Little Critter wants to do something special for his mom, but he’s a little too little and a lot too silly to get anything quite right.
• The New Baby  – At first, getting along with the new baby seemed like an impossible task, but soon enough Little Critter learns how to be a good big brother.
• When I Get Bigger  – Little Critter day dreams about all the exciting things he’ll do when he gets bigger like having a paper route and staying up late watching movies.

These ebook stories are wonderful and are a great learning tool as your child listens, learns and begins to read. We love that they are all equipped with read-a-long effect; each word is highlighted as it is read. This enables your child to associate the written with the spoken word. You can also tap on any word to hear it spoken, even in the ‘read-it-myself’ mode, so they will never be frustrated while trying to learn to read again!

*** GIVEAWAY ***

Through the generosity of Oceanhouse Media we have 3 promo codes for ALL 10 of the Little Critter individual ebooks! YES! That is 30 ebooks in all and we are going to randomly give them away over the next two weeks! Here is all you need to do to get in the running to get one of those codes:

After reading our review leave us a comment telling us which of the ebooks included in the collection you like best, AND be sure to checkmark “Post to Facebook” before hitting “Comment.” We will check your Facebook page for the link to our article and that may win you an app!

Want another chance? Click on our Pinterest “Pin It” buttons and pin our article to your Pinterest boards! Again, we will follow all the pins we receive to verify it’s been pinned and THAT might just win you a Little Critter app!

Hint: we may give more “weight” to those that add a great comment or share the giveaway with their friends! That goes for both Facebook AND Pinterest! 

G0od luck and enjoy the wonderful Little Critter Collection #1 app with your children!

We, like a lot of others held onto our iPad 2′s when Apple released the new iPad. There just wasn’t enough of a reason to upgrade all our company iPads to the 3rd generation. So imagine our surprise when Macworld just released a study upon finding out that an iPad 2 purchased after the release of the new iPad wasn’t quite the same as the original iPad 2!

Seems that  Apple is using a different production process for its A5 processors. So Macworld decided to put them to a head-to-head test.

It seems that there really isn’t a drastic difference in most areas they tested. When it came to loading a webpage, as you can see in the graphic above, they are pretty much even with the new iPad opening that page a bit quicker than either of its predecessors. Loading graphics ended up in a dead heat too with the new iPad blowing them both away. A benchmark speedtest of both iPad 2′s against the new iPad ended up almost dead even across the board.

The big difference, not between the two iPad 2′s which again were pretty evenly matched, was in how fast the new iPad’s battery drained compared to the iPad 2!

As you can see the newer iPad 2 (32nm processor) outlasted the older model by a slight margin although Macworld was quick to point out that the model had been used extensively so that my account for some of it. The new iPad on the other hand had a battery that lasted considerably shorter than its competition.

All in all I would say the test show that an iPad 2 is pretty much an iPad 2 no matter when it was made. The iPad 3 on the other hand has pros and cons when it comes to performance. If you are looking for fast graphics you’ll love it but you are going to pay for it with battery performance. Me? I am glad I held onto my iPad 2′s. How about you?

Lab Tested: The new iPad 2 and old iPad 2 | Macworld

eebee is a lovable character developed by former Sesame Street and Disney execs that children love… at least MY grandchildren love eebee! Suitable for either boys or girls eebee is a fun and cuddable character (we have eebee in various sizes as well as the snuggle-time eebee and hand puppet). They enjoy playing with eebee all the time! NOW they can have eebee on our iPads,  iPhones & iPad too! YES! eebee now has his/her very own iOS app and it’s FREE! Stick with us to find out just how adorable eebee is on your iDevices!

Eebee shows your child how they can experiment with the world around them. Whether it be playing with a ball, getting the feel for laundry, water-play, investigating a box, moving in and around objects or playing a kitchen band eebee will entice your child to not only explore but try out this shiny new world for themselves!

Eebee is bright and colorful, the music is upbeat and happy and the whole app is as fun, silly and sociable as the videos you can find on their website.  Eebee toys was the recipient of the  2011 Red Tricycle Award:

Looking for educational toys for your little ones? eebee’s adventures are the best of the best as voted by parents nationwide. These are not simply books or media devices, they are a tangible learning experience in every way. Get your kiddo’s hands on some of eebee’s Totally Awesome toys!

eebee’s Baby Learning Appventures Features:

•  eebee’s adventures are all about DOING! And doing is how babies learn and grow
•  Join eebee, real babies and grown-ups and take your baby on an adventure!
•  turn bathtime into fill-spill games, sink-float experiments, and water flow exploration
•  turn a basket of balls into turn-taking, “baby bowling” and cause & effect discovery games
•  turn pots and pans into a music lab to explore rhythm, loudness, pitch and tone
•  Turn laundry time into time for language, texture, size and peek-a-boo games

Your child will love all the colors, music and activity while learning as they watch! Add eebee’s baby learning appventures app to YOUR iDevices today! It’s FREE!

Wondering why your iPad is taking so long to charge? Stick with us after the break to discover a probable cause that’s easy to fix!

The first thing you want to check is to be sure you didn’t grab your iPhone charger by mistake. Your iPad charger is equipped with 10 volts while your iPhone only supplies you with 5 volts. While they are interchangeable and Apple lists all iOS devices as being compatible with the iPad charger it will take considerably longer time if you’re trying to charge your iPad with your iPhone charger. So double check to be sure you have the correct adapter the next time you go to charge your iPad!

Everyone loves Stella and Sam! We’ve reviewed a number of their books that always include fun activities. Now they have a whole iPad app that is devoted just to activity! Come see Draw Along with Stella and Sam by zinc Roe in action!

SAM: “Is the sailboat going around the whole world, Stella?”
STELLA: “Yes. Or maybe it’s the bathtub of a baby whale, so he has a new toy to play with!”

As you can see on the one screen there are a number of shapes to select from in this app. Everything from frogs to rocket ships and MORE! Select what shape you’d like to bring to life! Paint the shape with a palette of colors and three different markers, then choose a stamp(s) and decorate further using another color, or even put a photo in the picture! Choose the photo sticker tool to snap a picture and then use it decorate your shape! Once the picture is complete you can save a photo to the iPad app or capture a video of the shape in action. It couldn’t be simpler and your child will love it.

All Stella and Sam Adventures Feature:

• Beautiful full-screen animation
• Fun and simple age appropriate activities
• Support for English and French

So if your child enjoys Stella and Sam, whether on TV or in their other iPad apps, be sure to add this fun activity app to your iPad for them! They’ll spend hours coloring and imagining as they blast off and dream.