8 Must-Have iPad Apps in 2020
Apps for entertainment, productivity, and lifestyle.
The iPad is an amazing tool for creativity, productivity, and entertainment. Ever since I got my iPad Pro, it has become an essential part of the tech I use on a daily basis. Here are 8 must-have apps for your iPad. Enjoy!
Procreate
$9.99
If you have an Apple Pencil and need an outlet for your creativity, you’re going to want to check out Procreate. It’s an app for illustration with a huge library of tools to accommodate whatever it is you are trying to create. While I’m no artist myself, I like using Procreate for doodling and sketching. It’s a must-have app for getting the most out of your iPad and Apple Pencil.
$9.99 may seem like a hefty price, but once you download it, you’ll realize that the many beautifully crafted brushes, pencils, and tools make it well worth its price tag.
Incredibly talented artist Gal Shir regularly posts videos to his YouTube channel where he draws using an iPad Pro, the Apple Pencil, and the app Procreate. If you’re interested in what it’s like drawing with Procreate, you should check his videos out (and most likely get stuck for hours).
Kindle
Free
If you have an iPad, you might not have considered the idea of using it as a reading tablet. The Kindle app for iPad lets you buy books from the Kindle store and read them on your iPad. The library is massive and Kindle books are generally a lot cheaper than buying physical copies, so if you’re big into reading you won’t have to carry around heavy books.
There are multiple advantages of reading on a tablet than physical copies, such as customizing the text size and paper color, and tracking reading progress. I moved over to exclusively reading on my iPad a few months ago and haven’t looked back since.
Fantastical
Free
The stock Apple Calendar is very bare-bones, and while that might suit some users, there are benefits of using a third-party calendar app — such as Fantastical. I wrote more about Fantastical in this article about some of my favorite iPhone apps, so if you’re interested in Fantastical for iPhone, you should read about it there.
In short, Fantastical is packed with some impressive features that you probably didn’t even know you wanted. These features include natural language input, weather information, and a gorgeous UI. If you find Apple Calendar a little bit lackluster, you should check out Fantastical.
ScanPro
Free
Being able to scan documents on-the-go can be very useful and handy if you find yourself having to sign papers or review something on your iPad. ScanPro is a free (but powerful) app that makes scanning documents very easy. Simply point your camera at the document you want to scan and it’ll snap a picture. You can then apply filters to make text clearer or manually adjust the scanning perimeters.
I wrote an article about some useful workflows that all students using iPads need to set up, where quickly saving scanned documents to Google Drive was one of them. If you’re interested in how to do that, you can find it in this article.
Paprika 3
$4.99
Paprika 3 is an App Store gem. I didn’t know about this app until a few months ago, and it’s made the process of storing and finding recipes a lot easier. Paprika 3 lets you categorize recipes and automatically create shopping lists based on the recipes you find online.
With the built-in browser, you simply find a recipe and click “Download”. The app then creates an easy to read recipe based on the information on the page and gives you the option to store it in a folder. You can rate recipes and write comments so that when the time comes to cook, you can easily find the recipes you love most.
Things 3
$9.99
Things 3 is a powerful to-do-list app that far surpasses Apple Reminders in functionality and UI. The app allows you to sort your tasks into projects and workspaces for better organizing. I usually dump any task that I need to do in the Inbox, and then sort it into the appropriate project at a later time. If it’s something I need to do today, I’ll put it in the Today folder. Things 3 might as well be a native macOS app — it’s that good.
Google Drive
Free
Google Drive is arguably the best cloud storage service out there. It’s got a clean UI and is extremely easy to use. Most services support it, and you’ll have a hard time finding a service that works smoother than Drive. Part of the reason why I love Google Drive so much is that I almost exclusively use Google Docs and Sheets instead of Microsoft Word and Excel. I find them to be easier to use, and since any document in Google Docs and Sheets is automatically stored in Drive, it’s super easy to keep them available at any time, any place.
I do a lot of note-taking on my iPad for university so I automatically store all my notes in Drive. You can read more about that here!
Notion
Free
Notion is probably the most important of all the apps across all my devices. It’s essentially a database for anything. Notion takes the features of most other productivity apps and puts them all into one fantastic app. I mostly use Notion for note-taking and keeping track of my university courses, but I also use it to keep a reading list, keep track of job applications, and much more.
I find it hard explaining exactly what Notion does — since it does so much. I’ll leave it to one of my favorite productivity YouTubers to explain a bit more in-depth what Notion is and how it can be used.
If you enjoyed this article, please give it a few 👏’s and comment if you have any favorite apps of your own. 🐤 Follow me on Twitter to see when I post new articles!
