Top 10 iPad 2 apps
Our picks of the best free and paid-for apps for the iPad 2 and iPad
Price: Free
Rating: 5/5
Every movie fan should install IMDb’s iPad app as it’s far easier to use than simply visiting imdb.com in the Safari browser. Search for a movie and the cast list is displayed on the left-hand side. Tap on any of these to see which other films they’ve appeared in – we’ve found this particularly when watching a film and struggling to remember where we saw a particular actor before.
On the right you’ll see IMDb’s user rating of the film – usually the best way to judge if it’s actually any good – and a button to watch the trailer, and a filmstrip of relevant photos. Scroll down to find a synopsis, plus both critics’ and user reviews, trivia and quotes.
A neat touch is the Back button which takes you back through all the movies you’ve searched for, saving you typing them in again. At the bottom is a link to buy the film from Amazon.
If you’re keen on films, IMDb has more information than you’ll ever need
Price: Free
Rating: 5/5
If only all electronic programme guides were like the TVGuide.co.uk app. The interface is genius: not only does it look super-slick, but it also lets you scroll around using a finger so you can move backwards and forwards in time as well as simultaneously scrolling up and down through the channel list.
Three hours’ worth of five channels are shown at once, and tapping on a programme brings up a synopsis at the top. A row of buttons below this lets you set a reminder (so you don’t miss the show), remotely record it (if you have Sky+), search for other showings of the same programme, add the programme to your calendar, rate the show and even Tweet about it.
Possibly the best feature is the ability to create a custom channel list. You choose from pre-defined lists including Freeview, Sky, Virgin, BT Vision, Freesat and HD, and then tap the individual channels to show or hide them in the guide.
As it’s free, we can live with the ads that appear at the bottom of the screen, but even if it cost a couple of quid, we’d still snap it up.
If you watch TV, you’ll find TVGuide’s app invaluable for quickly finding shows