Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Productivity:
Pages
Numbers
Keynote
iPhoto

Fun:
Infinity Blade II
Epoch.
Rage HD
Tiger Woods Golf
HBO Go (free with your HBO subscription)
Hulu+ (have to pay a subscription fee)

As some of the other people have said, if you're patient you can get most apps at a discount, except the :apple: branded apps. They're never discounted.
 
So it seems like a consensus on some of the apple based apps especially Pages. I may be bringing this to school so I would assume this might be a no brainier especially since it is also compatible with word which is good. Thanks for the input, anyone else can freely put their two cents in I'm always game to look into new or undiscovered apps,
 
if you havent played swordigo. do it now!! its my favorite action/adventure game on the ipad and i cant believe i forgot to mention it in my above post. Its a side scroll that feels just like zelda.
I'm 80% of the way through this right now and loving it.
 
So it seems like a consensus on some of the apple based apps especially Pages. I may be bringing this to school so I would assume this might be a no brainier especially since it is also compatible with word which is good. Thanks for the input, anyone else can freely put their two cents in I'm always game to look into new or undiscovered apps,

If you are looking for an iPad version of Pages or Word you will be sorely disappointed. Pages lacks many features needed to produce reasonable documents. It is good for entering text and moving it to a desktop program for formatting but not for producing final copy, IMHO.
Keynote is very nice, OTOH.
 
My favourite paid ones are

iAnnotate (PDF reading and annotation)
Notability (note taking, especially hand written and audio notes)
Backgammon HD (best backgammon app I've found)
iPhoto
Star Chart (FUN app)
123D Sculpt (FUN app)
Circus Ponies Notebook (writing notes, I really like the interface and you can sync it with your mac)
 
iPhoto is a must just for the Journal feature. Helped me out massively with the canning of "Gallery" on MobileMe.

If you're interested in Space, "Brian Cox Wonders of the Universe" is a beautiful App on the Retina screen.
 
Surprized no one mentioned Kingdom Rush for games. This little addictive app has paid for itself many, many, many times over.

EDIT: My apologies. It WAS mentioned, so just let me add my recommendations.
 
For me,

Notability
Sente
iAnnotate
Backgammon
Pages
iThoughtsHD
and probably OmniFocus, too.
 
If you are going to visit Macrumors's forums often, I recommend Tapatalk.

which one? i just looked and see there are 2 available... a tapatalk universal and a new tapatalk HD (that is a lot more expensive)

thanx
 
Generally speaking, most of the apps are great values in comparison to their
OS X or Windows counterparts (Android doesn't even rate :D )

That said, just use the reviews in iTunes like you would any other online shopping megastore. I use these reviews constantly (i'm really a review addict).

Unlike movie reviews (which are worthless), app reviews aren't all that subjective; although I said "most apps are good values", a lot of them are total junk and don't work correctly, or are rip-offs. Here's where the reviews can come in handy.
 
which one? i just looked and see there are 2 available... a tapatalk universal and a new tapatalk HD (that is a lot more expensive)

Neither. I have both and they can provide quicker access to supported forums when it works, but they break frequently. And both have pretty funky UI.
 
Like to play sports or make brackets? Checkout my apps =) or if you want you can pm me and I will send you a promo code =)
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.