It’s been three months since the iPad App Store launched, so I think it’s relatively safe to judge apps for what they are. Granted, the iPad as a platform will continue to be ‘new’ for a long time to come, but it’s time to take a look at the good, and the bad, that has shown up on my iPad.

Let’s start with the bad ones. The apps I’m about to describe aren’t those ‘crapps’ we so often refer to. These are apps that have made a name for themselves on the iPhone platform, yet have that same 3.5-inch mentality on the larger canvas. They’re functional apps that serve are crucial to many, but I don’t think they’ve got the user interface right. I don’t mean to be a self-righteous pretentious jerk (though I quite possibly am), as I don’t know anything about the hard work these developers might have put into these apps. This is just how I see it from a user’s point of view.

Overdoing the real world metaphor; or badly doing it.

Much talk has been going on about mimicking real world objects in user interfaces. While it’s generally best to stay away from them, the iPad’s organic mode of interaction makes it quite acceptable. iBooks is a great example of that. However, if the designers pursue such an endeavor, it must be done to perfection. There are a bunch of those corkboard loving, wood adoring UIs, but the most striking ‘big name’ one of the lot is…

Filemaker’s Bento

“Dear Filemaker,” I write, “what the crap is this?”. It’s like you wouldn’t believe Filemaker is a subsidiary of Apple. While the Mac application exhibits splendid character, sophistication, power, and ease of use, their iPad app is quite a shame.

Bento ($4.99) looks quite alright in screenshots. It mimics real world metaphors like pages of a book, or a clipboard, depending on the theme you’ve chosen. But only once you use it do you realize how skin deep that UI goes. The background is merely a static graphic, as the data slides over it. And that would be forgiving, if (a) those graphics were drop dead gorgeous, which they aren’t, and (b) if the app wasn’t the least bit as slow as it currently is, even after several updates. Even the table view list in the sidebar is jerky.

It’s a very powerful app, but I wouldn’t use it if it weren’t for its Mac counterpart.

Just a big iPhone app

A lot of iPad apps exhibit this characteristic. It’s not so much a direct upscale, but something that merely borrows the most obvious iPad UI concepts like the dual column mode, or a horizontal tab bar, or just carrying over what they did on the iPhone.

TaskPaper

On the Mac, TaskPaper ($9.99) is regarded as the minimal task list manager on the Mac. It carries that philosophy over to the iPhone. When you look at its iPad version however, you can’t help but feel like things are all over the place. Even though it’s largely a copy of the iPhone version, the iPad’s larger screen and landscape orientation leaves pockets of bad whitespace. Add to that developer Jesse Grosjean has pursued his idea of pop up controls which might have worked on the iPhone, but look just plain wrong on the tablet. While that screenshot below doesn’t look all that awkward, it’s when you’re dealing with real lists (too private to display) that things get ugly.

To be fair, Grosjean knows this, and has repeatedly stated that this is a stopgap release, to allow TaskPaper iPhone users to access their lists across devices (it syncs via the cloud); it’s even universal. “But it turns out that iPhone apps that are scaled up to iPad size just don’t look good (see TaskPaper for iPad as an example). TaskPaper is more about functionality, so I didn’t mind so much in that case […].” The real iPad version will show up at a later date, so I’m hoping he’ll blow us away then.

Documents to Go

Before I go any further, I concede that users would rather have a poorly designed DocsToGo ($9.99) than nothing at all. The iWork apps, while pretty and functional, have the most retarded document workflows[1. You can greatly improve the iWork workflow by using PadSync.], so you cannot use them for any real work. DocsToGo is a brilliant app for those dealing with office documents regularly, tying into online services like Google Docs and Dropbox. Using it however, you know that this is merely a direct port of their iPhone version. There’s absolutely no thought into the user interface, and their non native stuff seems to have affected performance for small tasks Ike scrolling.

While performance may be improved, I’m afraid the UI won’t receive serious rethought until someone else steps up. No point looking at QuickOffice for this one; theirs is even worse. Those iWork apps are just oozing inspiration, and no one seems to be taking it in.

PhotoForge

PhotoForge is an app that really brought with it some terrific functionality early on to the iPhone platform. It’s practically the same app on the iPad. I can’t really see what they’re charging an extra $2 for — more pixels? The app’s faults show through while using it, as the toolbar constantly gets in the way, and you have to deal with unconventional pop ups. Compare that with Adobe Ideas, which brings a sturdy sidebar which can be pushed out whenever you need the space. The iPad can be a fantastic image editor, maybe not a full blown Photoshop (just yet) but something that could allow me to produce graphics for articles on the go. The stage is set for the Pixelmator team to make their debut on the App Store.

Thinking Outside The 3.5-inch Screen

The iPad is a blank slate. It’s not a phone. It’s not a computer. You hold the iPad differently, you interact with it differently. Even tapping it is different from tapping on a phone. Lucky for us, some developers feel the same way, and have rethought their UIs on this new platform, paying a lot of attention to the way they know users would connect with this brand new device.

Reeder

We knew the iPad was going to be a great news reader. When the iPad launched, we saw some mediocre ‘copy cat’ apps like NetNewsWire dominate the RSS feed market. I knew I had go wait it out. I recommended the cheaper NewsRack, which offered pretty much what NNW offered, at half the cost, as a universal app. Silvio Rizzi had proven himself with Reeder on the iPhone, and I knew his iPad version would blow us all away.

Unlike the rest of the RSS apps, Rizzi didn’t fall back go the ‘mail like’ two column user interface that’s so useless in portrait. Rizzi dared to be creative, and it shows. Right from the questionable-at-first thumbnail view for all your feeds, to the slide article to reveal list, Reeder has a well thought out user interface.

Where the portrait mode allows for a more engaged reading view, while still keeping articles list at hand, the landscape allows you to quickly process your feeds. The sepia pages makes it very easy on the eyes. The interaction with the application is totally organic — less tapping and more pinching, zooming, sliding, and swiping — making it feel like a real digital newspaper. I think Rizzi has won the iPad.

Rowmote

That the user interface sports up to three buttons for the exact same function, and is included in this list, is testament to how thoughtfully designed the app is. I’ve reviewed Rowmote before, and I’ll say it again: if you want to remote control your Mac, this is the app to get. In my review I gave all the credit to Evan Schoemberg, the developer. It’s not entirely him, though. Completely slipped my mind that Rik Schennik was the one behind the user interface of the app.

Jony Ive said that there’s no right way to hold the iPad. Rowmote ($4.99) keeps true to that philosophy. You could hold it in one hand and still have access to all the buttons, or hold it in two hands, and be able to tap the buttons with your thumb. None of them are out of reach at any time, but this still doesn’t make the UI look cluttered or confusing.

Things

This is perhaps the most beautiful app I’ve seen yet. Cultured Code has taken real world metaphors, and blended them with the Things ($19.99) look and feel, while still ensuring speed throughout the UI. This is what Bento should have aimed for, if at all. Things does away with the standard two column look for its landscape mode, making it feel much more real. It’s also got the smoothest animations, and very responsive interaction.

Even with my few complaints, it’s still very impressive for a two month job. If they could only get over-the-air sync to work, Things would get my full recommendation.

Étude

While it made its debut on the iPhone, this app was destined to shine on the iPad. I used to read music notes as a kid, and I remember the troubles of pausing between pages. Etude takes that all away and makes reading notes so… natural. To switch between pages, you just swipe. To hear a tune the way it’s meant to be played, you tap. The controls are also large and tappable, so you don’t have trouble while the iPad is mounted on the piano. Add to that the beautifully rendered notes, quick access to (a limited selection of) notation online, Etude ($4.99) is a winner.

Instapaper

When Marco Arment first debuted Instapaper ($4.99) on the iPad, he was most apologetic about its design. He hadn’t used an iPad before, so it was all based out of the simulator. Once he did test it on the iPad, he immediately revealed a refreshed user interface that was much more understanding of the iPad’s form factor. Text was tighter, the white background wasn’t so blinding anymore, and the tabs were moved to the top. With the latest update, one can now swipe to advance pages, something that greatly improves the reading experience. He’s even implemented an extremely subtle animation between page flips, which lets you know which side the page has switched. It’s so subtle I had to be told about it, but as an unobtrusive visual cue, it’s an ace move.

The thing that I like about Arment, and developers like him, is for this app, his way is the right way. While he’s always listening to user feedback, he won’t implement a feature unless he thinks it should be there. If he doesn’t like it, it’s not there. Very much like Apple in that regard; arrogant, you might say. This could mean that he’s losing out on customers because it’s lacking certain features, but it also means his users earn his trust, in making the right decisions for them. Instapaper is one of the most crucial third party apps on my iPad. Read my introduction to Instapaper to know why you should be using it.

WriteRoom / PlainText

Another one of my most launched apps, is Simplenote. I do a lot of typing on the iPad, with the onscreen keyboard (much to the surprise of many). While Simplenote is a wonder in terms of syncing, its iPad UI is little too plain and uninteresting. It sports the Mail-like dual column layout, so you’re faced with looking at the sidebar while typing in landscape.

Grosjean, the developer of above mentioned TaskPaper, has been working on a fresh user interface for his notes app WriteRoom, which he’s now calling PlainText (where WriteRoom will be a separate app with more features). I don’t know why the confusion, but it looks rather splendid. You can hide the sidebar at any time, it’s got beautiful typography, and very little chrome. PlainText will sync with Dropbox, so you have your files everywhere you go—including Notational Velocity. Grosjean is putting his finishing touches on the app, and I can’t wait to use it.

FTP on the Go

This is an odd one in the mix. By definition, if such things could be defined, this app is quite a bit ugly. Weird scrollbars, unconventional metaphors—seriously, don’t buy this app—but there is one thing they’ve got right. I reviewed a couple of web development apps for the iPad a while ago—Gusto and Markup. I continued using Gusto to do light edits on the go. I really did, and it sort of worked. However, the keyboard proves to be a real pain, as you can’t enter in special characters that are so needed in web dev, or any programming for that matter.

And this is where FTP on the Go ($4.99) shines. Once you deal with its clunky U the keyboard shows you a full set of function keys and numbers, without losing your alphabets. I recall Loren Brichter said something about how the iPad keyboard could be quite the programming tool. With specialised keyboards like this one, I don’t see why not. I’m just hoping the Gusto developer picks up on this, adds useful quick access features like snippets and text expansion, so we can have beauty and functionality in the same app.

Howcast

While Howcast’s (Free) content doesn’t interest me much, I like how the UI designers have put some effort into figuring considering the form factor, users, and designed an experience that clearly exceeds what one might imagine on a 1024×768 document in Photoshop. The slideout panel is right where your thumb would rest, you can swipe the screen to progress through chapter markers; read all about it in this feature on beautifulpixels.

Soulver

Where other calculators merely mimic the thing that’s on your desk (some to extreme degrees), Soulver rethinks calculations on a digital device. Starting off its humble beginnings on the Mac itself, Soulver for iPad ($6.99) is a brilliantly designed and presented math application, that simply works. An easy access keyboard, support for variables, coupled with its revolutionary natural language input, makes mobile (and desktop) calculations a breeze. If you have to deal with a calculator in your daily workflow, this is one app you’ve got to have.

The future is long

[tweetmeme]I have no doubt developers will pick up on the iPad where they left off on the iPhone, and bring us some truly remarkable UIs to touch. And even if some of them pursue lazy ideas, the competition on the platform is so strong the market will have no problem moving on to the better experience. Three months in and we’re seeing radical user interfaces like Reeder and Rowmote. Some might work, some might fail, but never before has there been such a blank slate, allowing creators to reimagine what they think content ought to look like, rather than what it has been looking like. Can’t wait to see what the future holds.

UPDATE: Added App Store links.