My aunt gave her sister (my mom) an iPad as a gift and while Laura and I are visiting my parents, “the pad” has turned into quite a hit for all of us. Some of the games that can be had for free or just a few bucks have kept my simple-minded brain occupied for hours. If you have or are getting an iPad soon, take note of some apps I’ve come to love, and heed one warning I’ve come to find.
Flight Control HD. The game is one of the best selling ever for the iPhone, and it’s even better on the iPad. At five bucks, it’s worth every penny as you play air traffic controller to guide planes safely to the runway. Don’t let the planes collide! As the game progresses, more and more planes enter the screen and it’s as addictive as caffeine. Choose several different airfields to work and even play with multiple players.
Flick Kick Field Goal. This is also a game to be played for hours on end as you try your kicks from 12 yards to 60. Watch out for the crosswinds and make sure you angle the ball to account for them. I love this one, and it has different games to play as a field goal kicker. Swipe with your finger to kick to greatness!
Paper Toss. This is another mindless game that can occupy me for hours. Long drive or flight? Paper toss to the rescue! This game is like the flick of the field goal kick with the crosswinds, but uses a fan for crosswinds. Flick a paper wad into a trash can from different distances and pay attention to the fan because it moves around the room with each shot. Simple and addictive.
Finally a warning about setting up your iPad from the experience my mom had when setting up hers. She ran into two problems setting hers up. Her two issues were completely avoidable, but she didn’t know any better, so I thought I’d share her issues here.
Problem one came in when she opened the box and let it do it’s initial syncing on the wifi network at her sister’s house. This put all the iPhone apps from my aunt onto my mom’s iPad. This wasn’t a big deal until my mom brought it home and it joined my parent’s wifi network. The app store login wouldn’t work because it was looking for my aunt’s password to the app store. Also, when we synced the iPad to my dad’s MacMini, the syncing took four or five hours! When it was finished, it said that there were apps on the iPad that we hadn’t paid for and they all got deleted. That was fine with us, we are ethical around here, but it caused a needless hassle.
Secondly, my mom signed up for an iTunes account when she initially set up the iPad. This too caused problems when she brought it home and synced it to my dad’s computer, with his own iTunes account. Kindle books he had purchased wouldn’t go on the iPad that had my mom’s new login on it. Music on the home computer with my dad’s login wouldn’t play under my mom’s account. Some of this can be solved by making sure that the “home” computer registers the iPad as “a device on this account” through iTunes. However, the easiest way to get everything to work and communicate directly is to have one person’s login/account/password to run both the iTunes account for the music and app store and on the iPad. If not, look out for hassles.
Enjoy your new iPad everyone!