TUAW Best of 2012 Awards: iPad products

TUAW Best of 2012 Awards: iPad products

For the past two years, TUAW readers have done the Apple world a service by nominating and then voting for the cream of the crop when it comes to software and hardware products. The TUAW Best of 2012 awards for iPhone have already been announced; now it’s time to look at the winners in the iPad categories.

The envelopes, please…

Best iPad Game App of 2012

May the birds be with you. For the second time in the TUAW Best of 2012 voting, Angry Birds Star Wars has walked away with top honors (the first was for Best iPhone Game App of 2012). This time, it’s the iPad version; Rovio’s Angry Birds Star Wars HD ($2.99) grabbed almost 54 percent of the votes tallied, while Plants vs. Zombies HD ($0.99) pulled into the runner-up position with 14 percent of all the gamer votes.

Best iPad Music App of 2012

Congratulations to the winner of the TUAW Best of 2012 Music App — Algoriddim djay (on sale for $9.99). The app, which lets iPad owners and professional disc jockeys spin tunes on virtual turntables, pulled in almost 30 percent of all of the votes in this category. Internet radio app Pandora Radio (free) is the runner-up, with about 22 percent of the vote.

Best iPad Photo App of 2012

It’s great to see deserving apps grab TUAW Best of 2012 awards, and one that I’ve personally been a fan of is Occipital’s 360 Panorama ($0.99, universal). This app, which takes amazing panorama shots simply by waving an iPad (or iPhone) up and down while turning around, pulled in almost one-third of the votes for the best iPad photo app. The runner-up was Apple’s own iPhoto ($4.99) app, a surprisingly good universal photo editing and organization application.

Best iPad Productivity App of 2012

Of the three iPad productivity apps that were in the final voting for the Best of 2012 award, one stood out as the walk-away winner with 44 percent of votes tallied — Dropbox (free). The app also won in this category in the iPhone voting, showing that the app has universal appeal — no pun intended.

There was a tie for the runner-up spot between perennial favorite Evernote (free) and a surprise entry — Cooking Planit HD ($4.99). Both apps grabbed 28 percent of the vote from TUAW readers.

Best iPad Social Networking App of 2012

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, almost everybody uses Facebook (free). The app was the walkaway winner of this category both for iPad and iPhone with almost 59 percent of the vote, and solid improvements in the app during 2012 point to a bright future for Facebook on iOS devices. The runner-up is the Twitter app that beat the official Twitter app — Tweetbot for Twitter (iPad edition, $2.99).

Best iPad Utility App of 2012

If you checked out the results of the TUAW Best of 2012 voting for iPhone earlier today, you’ll know that AgileBits’ 1Password won the big prize. Well, the iPad version of 1Password ($7.99) solidly won the top honors for Best iPad Utility App of 2012 with 53 percent of all readers voting for the password manager.

The runner-up wasn’t a surprise to me, as I prefer Google’s Chrome Browser for iPad (free) to Mobile Safari. 24 percent of voters chose Chrome as their pick.

Best iPad Video App of 2012

Congratulations to Apple’s iMovie for iOS team, as iMovie ($4.99, universal) was the favorite of TUAW readers. Our readers apparently like to watch movies as much as they like to make them, as Netflix (free) was the runner-up in the video app category.

Best iPad Case of 2012

iPad cases are a very personal choice for most people, with functionality and style often battling it out. When new iPad owners see the variety of choices in the Apple Store, many of them reach instinctively for the Apple iPad Smart Case ($49). It’s a relatively low-cost and functional iPad case offering both protection and a stand. When it comes to style, though, the Twelve South BookBook for iPad ($79.99) took the votes and almost ran away with the win — there was a razor-thin margin of nine votes between the category winner and the runner-up.

Best iPad Accessory of 2012

Apple came in as both the winner and runner-up in the best iPad accessory category. This year’s favorite iPad accessory according to TUAW readers was the Apple Wireless Keyboard ($69), garnering about 45 percent of all the votes. Close behind with 36 percent of the votes was the Apple TV ($99), considered by many to be the only way to easily beam content from your iPad to an HDTV.

And that wraps up our TUAW Best of 2012 iPad awards. Coming up tomorrow will the the final set of categories, the awards for Mac. Thanks to all of the TUAW readers who took the time and effort to nominate and vote for their favorite products.

TUAW Best of 2012 Awards: iPad products originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 05 Jan 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source : blancer[dot]com