The 8 best iPad apps

Apple's iPad has been available for a short time, and you can already find apps to watch streaming movies, manage your Web passwords, use Twitter, do word processing and more.
But it's still early days yet. Apple gave only a chosen few developers early access to the iPad -- everybody else had to make do with software simulators and homemade cardboard mockups. They rushed their apps to market, and it shows. Many of the early apps are buggy and missing features.

These are the best apps I've found so far. They are all iPad-optimized, not iPhone apps stretched to fit the iPad. They get the job done, they're fun to use, and several of them are free.

1Password for iPad
1Password encrypts, stores and organizes your passwords and other private information, and it automates log-ins for Web sites and other Internet services. You can also use it to store credit card numbers, bank account numbers, ATM PINs and more.

Instapaper Pro
Instapaper is simple and highly addictive. If you're browsing the Web and you find a long, meaty article that you don't have time to read right away, you simply click a bookmarklet in your browser, and that article is instantly saved to a queue of articles at Instapaper.com. Later, when you have time to read, you can call up your queue of articles and dig in.

Kindle
Apple's iBooks app was one of the centerpieces of the iPad debut -- it's a gorgeous app that has its own online bookstore.

Netflix
If you're a Netflix fan, this one is a must -- an app that lets you watch streaming movies and TV shows from your Netflix queues on your iPad.

Pages
Apple's Pages is an impressive little app. It's a fully functional slimmed-down word processor that costs only $9.99. It has all the basic capabilities you expect from a word processor: You can write and edit, format text, embed images and charts, and more. For layout, you can move things around with your fingers or resize them by pinching with two fingers.

TweetDeck for iPad
There are already several Twitter clients available for the iPad. I've tried a few, and TweetDeck is my favorite. It's a version of the free desktop client that's popular among Twitter power users. It has the familiar multicolumn view, which you can customize to show messages from all your friends, @mentions, direct messages, saved searches and your Twitter lists. TweetDeck also shortens URLs.

Things for iPad
Things is the control panel for my life. I depend on the Mac and iPhone versions, and I'm happy to see developer Cultured Code was quick out of the gate with a $19.99 iPad version. This version does all the basic tasks that the Mac and iPhone versions do: It keeps to-do lists with start and due dates, and organizes those lists into projects, areas of responsibility, next actions and more.

The Weather Channel Max for iPad
The iPhone comes with a weather widget among its pre-installed apps, but that app is missing from the iPad. That means you need to either check the weather on the Web or download an app.