The Best iPad Apps for 2021

Adobe Lightroom is the go-to digital photo workflow and editing application for many of today's professional photographers.

That said, there are times when you might prefer to edit photos sitting on a sofa or a train seat rather than at a desk.

The Lightroom iPad app lets you do just this, and work directly with raw camera files, perform local adjustments, and use lens-profile corrections.

Lightroom has evolved into a powerhouse among mobile photo-editing apps.

Adobe has numerous photo-related apps in the iTunes app store, but Photoshop Mix is especially interesting.

It brings some of Photoshop's most powerful tools into an easy-to-use iPad app.

Photoshop Mix appeals to a broad cross-section of users, from those who simply want to create collages to hardcore Photoshoppers who want to add iPads into their workflows.

The iPad became a legitimate music composition tool thanks in large part to its own version of GarageBand, Apple's seminal, entry-level digital audio editing app.

GarageBand contains many professional-level features, including piano roll-style note editing, an expanded sound palette, and additional recording tools.

You can even record and edit audio from third-party instrument apps using GarageBand.

If you're going to edit video on a tablet, it's hard to overlook Apple's own iMovie app.

The affordably priced iPad app lets you create trailers, whip up studio logos, save video in 4K resolution, and transfer projects between your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch using AirDrop or iCloud Drive.

Arturia, venerable purveyors of virtual versions of various Moog models over the years, has released a "real" virtual Minimoog—beating Moog itself to the punch.

Fortunately, it's a killer synth app, one that boasts plenty of useful additional features, including an all-important polyphonic mode and arpeggiator.

Flipboard offers iPad users an entirely original alternative to browsing the web for news; its magazine-style layouts and breathtaking use of photos and whitespace render RSS feeds as beautiful, easy-to-read pages.

The app also taps your social media feeds for articles, as well as music and video streams.

Traveling is expensive.

The free Google Earth app most certainly is not.

By keying in a location such as "Coney Island" or "London," you can zip to the other side of the globe in mere seconds to check out satellite and aerial imagery.

Geo-located Wikipedia articles add insight to your journey.

One of the biggest hurdles that people face when traveling abroad is language.

You may think that you're asking for directions to a music festival when you're actually insulting the town's sacred goat god.

Words can kill, so download Google Translate.

The app quickly translates either written text or spoken words.

You can even use the app to do the speaking for you, and input text through your camera or handwriting.

March of the Dinosaurs takes the basic content of National Geographic's March of the Dinosaurs and enhances it with interactive virtual reality dinosaurs, textual descriptions of each species mentioned in the show, and more.

The result is an informative story set in the late Cretaceous Era's Canadian Arctic, which should be fascinating and enjoyable for people of all ages.

There are many good NASA-sponsored and NASA-related apps for the iPad, but none compares with this official NASA App Compiled by NASA's Ames Research Center, the app combines insightful articles and news stories, dazzling images and videos, and live TV feeds, making it a one-stop portal for most everything NASA.

Oceans examines the effect of human activities on the world's seas, and presents a plan of action to manage marine resources in ways so that people can continue to benefit from the oceans' bounty while biodiversity is preserved.

The app has a good mix of text and visuals, including spectacular photos of marine life by professional nature photographers, clear and detailed descriptions, and interactive diagrams.

The Pyramids is a multimedia journey into some of the most renowned and magnificent structures of the ancient world, the Pyramids, Sphinx, and tombs at Giza, Egypt.

With this beautifully designed app, you can read about early Egyptian history, examine 3D-rendered artifacts, and even take virtual journeys into the Pyramids and tombs while a narrator explains what they are seeing.

Crackle, Sony's streaming video network, lets users stream free, ad-supported Hollywood television shows and uncut movies, as well as original content, from Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classic, and TriStar Pictures.

There's a nice variety of classic and contemporary content here, making it a solid iPad app for anyone who would like to kick back with their tablet and watch a program without needing to open their wallet.

Being a fan of anime used to mean that you were subject to the whims of media importers or your friend who had a high-bandwidth Internet connection and shady IRC contacts.

Now you can watch Attack on Titan, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Mobile Suit Gundam Iron Blooded Children, and more than 20,000 other episodes of other shows on your tablet with Crunchyroll.

Even better, many programs are available just an hour after they air overseas.

Hulu no longer offers a free viewing tier, but the service is still an excellent way to watch streaming television shows the day after they air on networks, as well as movies and original programming, on your iPad.

Its Watch Party feature synchronizes shows between you and several friends, so that you can safely enjoy content together.

iPad-toting comic book fans who want to take a dive into Marvel's deep digital comics well should download Marvel Unlimited.

This Netflix-like subscription-based app focuses on letting readers comb a library of more than 15,000 digital comics from throughout Marvel's history, provided that the books are at least three months old.

You can also purchase select titles, and, if you pay extra, receive numerous collectible bonuses.

If regular old broadcast TV isn't doing it for you, Netflix may be the answer to your media woes.

For less than the price of a New York City movie ticket, you can watch a decent array of movies and a wide selection of original Netflix content, such as Altered Carbon, The Crown, Black Mirror, Orange Is the New Black, and Stranger Things.

Spotify is an ear- and eye-catching way to enjoy an Editors' Choice pick for streaming music players on your iPad.

The app boasts collaborative playlists, commercial-free listening with premium accounts, on-demand playback, and cool, music-tempo-adjusting features for runners.

Jay Z's 2015 purchase of little-known company Aspiro left many scratching their heads, but when the rapper and an all-star squad of singers and musicians unveiled the fruits of the buy, a music streaming service named Tidal, it started to make sense.

Tidal is one of many subscription-based music apps, but it differs from Slacker Radio and Spotify in that it's aimed at music fans willing to pay a premium for exclusive content, quality editorial, and lossless, 16-bit CD-quality sound.

TuneIn Radio Pro continues to evolve.

Most recently, the live radio streaming service has added an optional $7.99 per month subscription service, TuneIn Radio Premium, that boasts ad-free music, live sports, and other audio content.

Amid all the changes, however, TuneIn Radio Pro also maintains its core functionality.

TuneIn Radio Pro still lets you fire up more than 100,000 global AM and FM stations, rewind live radio, and record programming to your iPad's storage.

The WWE Network cuts out cable companies and delivers 720p pro wrestling streams directly to fans.

Using the app, you can stream shows 24/7, including original content, such as backstage interviews and documentaries.

The schedule tab lets you know what's coming on next, and commercials are limited to brief ads in between shows, not during them.

You can also set parental controls to keep kids from watching the more violent stuff, although if you're a parent letting your child watch wrestling that genie is already out of the bottle.

Adobe Lightroom is the go-to digital photo workflow and editing application for many of today's professional photographers.

That said, there are times when you might prefer to edit photos sitting on a sofa or a train seat rather than at a desk.

The Lightroom iPad app lets you do just this, and work directly with raw camera files, perform local adjustments, and use lens-profile corrections.

Lightroom has evolved into a powerhouse among mobile photo-editing apps.

Adobe has numerous photo-related apps in the iTunes app store, but Photoshop Mix is especially interesting.

It brings some of Photoshop's most powerful tools into an easy-to-use iPad app.

Photoshop Mix appeals to a broad cross-section of users, from those who simply want to create collages to hardcore Photoshoppers who want to add iPads into their workflows.

The iPad became a legitimate music composition tool thanks in large part to its own version of GarageBand, Apple's seminal, entry-level digital audio editing app.

GarageBand contains many professional-level features, including piano roll-style note editing, an expanded sound palette, and additional recording tools.

You can even record and edit audio from third-party instrument apps using GarageBand.

If you're going to edit video on a tablet, it's hard to overlook Apple's own iMovie app.

The affordably priced iPad app lets you create trailers, whip up studio logos, save video in 4K resolution, and transfer projects between your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch using AirDrop or iCloud Drive.

Arturia, venerable purveyors of virtual versions of various Moog models over the years, has released a "real" virtual Minimoog—beating Moog itself to the punch.

Fortunately, it's a killer synth app, one that boasts plenty of useful additional features, including an all-important polyphonic mode and arpeggiator.

Flipboard offers iPad users an entirely original alternative to browsing the web for news; its magazine-style layouts and breathtaking use of photos and whitespace render RSS feeds as beautiful, easy-to-read pages.

The app also taps your social media feeds for articles, as well as music and video streams.

Traveling is expensive.

The free Google Earth app most certainly is not.

By keying in a location such as "Coney Island" or "London," you can zip to the other side of the globe in mere seconds to check out satellite and aerial imagery.

Geo-located Wikipedia articles add insight to your journey.

One of the biggest hurdles that people face when traveling abroad is language.

You may think that you're asking for directions to a music festival when you're actually insulting the town's sacred goat god.

Words can kill, so download Google Translate.

The app quickly translates either written text or spoken words.

You can even use the app to do the speaking for you, and input text through your camera or handwriting.

March of the Dinosaurs takes the basic content of National Geographic's March of the Dinosaurs and enhances it with interactive virtual reality dinosaurs, textual descriptions of each species mentioned in the show, and more.

The result is an informative story set in the late Cretaceous Era's Canadian Arctic, which should be fascinating and enjoyable for people of all ages.

There are many good NASA-sponsored and NASA-related apps for the iPad, but none compares with this official NASA App Compiled by NASA's Ames Research Center, the app combines insightful articles and news stories, dazzling images and videos, and live TV feeds, making it a one-stop portal for most everything NASA.

Oceans examines the effect of human activities on the world's seas, and presents a plan of action to manage marine resources in ways so that people can continue to benefit from the oceans' bounty while biodiversity is preserved.

The app has a good mix of text and visuals, including spectacular photos of marine life by professional nature photographers, clear and detailed descriptions, and interactive diagrams.

The Pyramids is a multimedia journey into some of the most renowned and magnificent structures of the ancient world, the Pyramids, Sphinx, and tombs at Giza, Egypt.

With this beautifully designed app, you can read about early Egyptian history, examine 3D-rendered artifacts, and even take virtual journeys into the Pyramids and tombs while a narrator explains what they are seeing.

Crackle, Sony's streaming video network, lets users stream free, ad-supported Hollywood television shows and uncut movies, as well as original content, from Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classic, and TriStar Pictures.

There's a nice variety of classic and contemporary content here, making it a solid iPad app for anyone who would like to kick back with their tablet and watch a program without needing to open their wallet.

Being a fan of anime used to mean that you were subject to the whims of media importers or your friend who had a high-bandwidth Internet connection and shady IRC contacts.

Now you can watch Attack on Titan, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Mobile Suit Gundam Iron Blooded Children, and more than 20,000 other episodes of other shows on your tablet with Crunchyroll.

Even better, many programs are available just an hour after they air overseas.

Hulu no longer offers a free viewing tier, but the service is still an excellent way to watch streaming television shows the day after they air on networks, as well as movies and original programming, on your iPad.

Its Watch Party feature synchronizes shows between you and several friends, so that you can safely enjoy content together.

iPad-toting comic book fans who want to take a dive into Marvel's deep digital comics well should download Marvel Unlimited.

This Netflix-like subscription-based app focuses on letting readers comb a library of more than 15,000 digital comics from throughout Marvel's history, provided that the books are at least three months old.

You can also purchase select titles, and, if you pay extra, receive numerous collectible bonuses.

If regular old broadcast TV isn't doing it for you, Netflix may be the answer to your media woes.

For less than the price of a New York City movie ticket, you can watch a decent array of movies and a wide selection of original Netflix content, such as Altered Carbon, The Crown, Black Mirror, Orange Is the New Black, and Stranger Things.

Spotify is an ear- and eye-catching way to enjoy an Editors' Choice pick for streaming music players on your iPad.

The app boasts collaborative playlists, commercial-free listening with premium accounts, on-demand playback, and cool, music-tempo-adjusting features for runners.

Jay Z's 2015 purchase of little-known company Aspiro left many scratching their heads, but when the rapper and an all-star squad of singers and musicians unveiled the fruits of the buy, a music streaming service named Tidal, it started to make sense.

Tidal is one of many subscription-based music apps, but it differs from Slacker Radio and Spotify in that it's aimed at music fans willing to pay a premium for exclusive content, quality editorial, and lossless, 16-bit CD-quality sound.

TuneIn Radio Pro continues to evolve.

Most recently, the live radio streaming service has added an optional $7.99 per month subscription service, TuneIn Radio Premium, that boasts ad-free music, live sports, and other audio content.

Amid all the changes, however, TuneIn Radio Pro also maintains its core functionality.

TuneIn Radio Pro still lets you fire up more than 100,000 global AM and FM stations, rewind live radio, and record programming to your iPad's storage.

The WWE Network cuts out cable companies and delivers 720p pro wrestling streams directly to fans.

Using the app, you can stream shows 24/7, including original content, such as backstage interviews and documentaries.

The schedule tab lets you know what's coming on next, and commercials are limited to brief ads in between shows, not during them.

You can also set parental controls to keep kids from watching the more violent stuff, although if you're a parent letting your child watch wrestling that genie is already out of the bottle.