Most universities and colleges are switching to online learning. These iPad apps will help you stay on track and get off to a good start for the new school year. As a student, there is a collection of some of the best iPad apps for college students you should have.
Now more than ever, it’s hard for students to stay organized. Since most classes are now online, it’s getting more and more tempting to miss just one more Zoom lecture and say you had a “bad Internet connection.”
Setting and sticking to your study hours can be hard to do independently. This is why you should use all the help you can. There are also a lot of iPad resources that can be very helpful.
In this article, we chose our favorites from various categories. There are productivity apps that will help you stay focused and avoid distractions. There are also to-do list makers that will help clear your desk (and your mind!). We have great note-taking workspaces and book scanners, revision and education apps, and even an app that will help you take a break.
Want to know the best iPad apps for college students? Keep reading.
Table of contents
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What Can Students Do with an iPad?
As a student, you’ll want to check out the iOS features that only work on the iPad. You can put a lot of apps in the app dock and open them by pulling them up from the dock. The App Switcher lets you easily drag and drop text, images, multiple selections, etc. The Files app will hold all of your iPad’s files and folders so you can find everything.
With iOS 11, the iPad got a brand-new dock that made it easier to find your favorite apps, apps you’ve recently used, and homework files. The Dock is also important for multitasking on the tablet. For example, the right-edge swipe no longer works on the iPad, so it’s the only way to turn on the split-view mode. How it works is as follows:
- Hold down on an app until it starts to move.
- Move icons to the dock until the dock is full (it can hold up to 13 apps or folders).
- Tap on an app’s icon in the dock to open it.
- To get back to the dock, swipe up from the bottom of the screen.
- Move an icon from the dock to the right or left side of the tablet’s screen.
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Best Apps on the iPad for Students
#1. APPLE Files app
Apple added a new Files app to iOS 11 for the iPad. It puts all your homework files in one place and is now a familiar part of the ecosystem. It doesn’t just collect files on your iPad; it also gathers files from apps, iCloud, and third-party services. The Browse tab at the bottom of the app makes it easy to switch between files on your device or in iCloud, and the Recents tab at the bottom makes it easy to keep working.
#2. APPLE App Switcher
The Dock comes with an App Switcher that shows all of the apps you’ve used most recently. It also lets you change the settings for the Control Center and keeps your Split View or Slide Over window arrangements. Apple said that the App Switcher makes switching apps “as easy as a swipe” because you can move text, photos, and files from one app to another with your finger.
It even remembers how you switched between apps in the past, and apps stay open in Slide Over and Split View.
#3. Apple Pencil.
The Apple Pencil is now more useful because it has:
Instant Notes: Tap the Apple Pencil on the Lock screen of your iPad, and a note will open. This makes it easy to write down ideas while in class.
Instant Markup: You can now easily sign class documents, add notes to PDFs that your teacher sent, or draw on a screenshot for a project.
Inline Drawing: You can also sketch, draw, or write right next to text in Notes and Mail. This is helpful if you don’t want to pay full attention to your teacher while they talk and talk.
Write what you want now, and then you can search your handwritten text and characters later. With this feature, it’s easy to keep track of all the notes you make in class.
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How to Install the Best iPad Apps for College Students? Step by Step Guide
Step 1
Tap the App Store icon on the Home screen of your Apple iPad. You need to sign in with your Apple ID or make one to install apps.
Step 2
Tap Apps to look through the Apple® App Store® (located at the bottom).
Step 3
Tap Search in the lower right corner, then types the app’s name in the search bar (at the top).
Step 4
Tap the program.
Step 5
Tap INSTALL after tapping GET.
Step 6
If the app costs money, tap Purchase.
Step 7
Sign in with your AppleID if asked to finish the download.
We added the links to all of the best iPad for college students below. This would help ensure you don’t go through a long process to find them. Tap the link then follow the steps above.
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15 Best iPad Apps for College Students
#1. Todoist
With more than 10 million users and a 4.8 rating on App Store, Todoist has a reputation for being the easiest, most user-friendly, and most flexible to-do list app on the market. Todoist is one of the best iPad apps for college students.
This app has keyboard shortcuts, language processing, and predictive language. You may also add tasks with dates, comments, priorities, tags, and attachments. For example, if you type “Essay deadline Tuesday,” Todoist will automatically add the task.
The app also stands out because you can link it to other popular apps like Google Calendar, Dropbox, and Zapier. People have also said how well Todoist works on all devices.
Most reviews, though, point out that the free version has some limitations. For example, you can’t access completed to-do lists and you can only have a certain number of projects. Google Tasks is a great choice if you’re looking for a free alternative.
Price
Free with limited features. The premium for individuals or teams of up to 25 people ($3 a month billed annually or $4 a month billed monthly). Business for teams of 25 or more people ($5 per user a month billed annually or $6 per user a month billed monthly).
#2. Freedom
Students’ worst enemy is putting things off; Freedom could be the perfect tool to fight it. The app is currently used by more than a million people worldwide. It temporarily blocks time-wasting apps and websites so you can concentrate better. The users report a gain of an average of 2.5 hours of productive time each day.
Freedom lets you choose a time frame during which certain devices, apps, or even the whole Internet gets locked for up to 8 hours at a time. It lets you customize blocklists and schedule distraction-free sessions for later. The app also offers a locked mode for extreme procrastinators. This stops you from changing settings in the middle of a session.
Freedom also syncs across all of your devices. Whether you’re using a computer, tablet, or phone (and you can use as many devices as you want!). But keep in mind that Freedom is pretty simple. It doesn’t reward you for a distraction-free session or give you any goals or incentives. Freedom is one of the best iPad apps for college students.
Price
Free, with all Premium features and up to 7 distraction-free sessions on all your devices. Premium costs $6.99 per month or $29.99 per year.
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#3. Forest
If you find Freedom a little too simple, Forest is a must-have. The app takes a unique approach. Every time you start a new session without distractions, it plants a seed. Over time, this seed will grow into a tree.
But your tree will die if you give in to the urge to use your phone and stop using the app. Over time, all the times you pay attention to something make a lush forest. This reminds you how easy and rewarding it can be to put down your phone for a while. It is one of the best iPad apps for college students.
You can also get rewards and unlock a lot of different kinds of trees to plant. There are also many little things, like messages that change (Don’t look at me! Keep going!). These make being away from the Internet even more fun.
Price:
You can download Forest and use it on all of your iOS devices with a one-time payment of $1.99.
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#4. Google Calendar
Google Calendar is the best calendar app out of the many that are available. This app works with almost everything else on the market. It is also almost always compatible with timetable applications that universities use. This means that you can import your timetable into your calendar with the class number, location, professor name, and many other details (synced automatically).
Like other Google apps, it’s easy to use. You can make multiple calendars with different colors in a matter of seconds. Plus, it can automatically set up events like flights or concert tickets based on emails you get.
As a cloud-based app, it syncs with all of your devices once you sign in to your Google account. This means you can still access the same calendar whether at your desk or on the go with your phone.
The only bad thing is that there isn’t a desktop version for macOS yet. Mac users can only use Google Calendar through their browsers. You can sync Google Calendar with the Calendar app that comes with your Mac, and it works perfectly. Either way, it is still one of the best iPad apps for college students.
Price
Nothing (with a Google account).
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#5. Notion
Notion is one of the best iPad apps for college students. If you keep wondering what font to use, notion takes care of all the formatting for you. You don’t have to do much to change the fonts, so you can focus on what’s most important: the content.
It’s also an “all-in-one workspace.” This means you can make calendars, task lists, notes, budgets, pages, and subpages. The notion also handles toggle lists and a lot more without having to open multiple tabs or windows every time.
So, if you wanted to take notes for a certain class, you could make separate subpages for each lecture or topic covered. You may also have a list of deadlines and your schedule. It’s free for students—all they have to do is sign up with an email address from their school.
The only bad thing about Notion is that it might take some time to get used to. Once you do, it will be very useful and change the way you take notes for good.
Price:
Personal lets you share with up to 5 guests and is free. Personal Pro lets you share with and upload files to an unlimited number of people. It is free for students, teachers, first responders, researchers, and non-profits fighting COVID-19.
For everyone else, it costs $4 per month billed annually or $5 per month billed monthly. The team is for teams and costs $8 per member per month billed annually or $10 per member per month billed monthly. Enterprise is made to help you manage and support your business.
#6. Highlighted
You no longer have to copy and paste large chunks of quotes from books onto your computer. Instead, will do it for you. The app saves quotes, puts them in order, and makes it easier than ever to highlight parts of books.
The interface is sleek, free of distractions, and very easy to use. It also has a design similar to that of Apple’s first apps. And, most importantly, setting up and using highlighted book scanner is very easy. Highlighted is one of the best iPad apps for college students.
It currently only works with books written in English, but the developers are working on making it work with books written in other languages.
Price:
Free
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#7. Quizlet
With more than 50 million students learning with Quizlet every month, it is the best way to study. It is also one of the best iPad apps for college students. Quizlet lets you make your flashcards or choose from over 400 million sets made by other users.
You can then test your knowledge in several different ways and games. There is Gravity, where correct answers stop asteroids from hitting your planet. You can also play a match, where you race against the clock to match terms and definitions.
It is especially helpful for people learning another language (or other courses requiring a lot of memorization). Quizlet is one of the best iPad apps for college students.
Price-
The free version has limited features and ads. Quizlet Go is an ad-free version with customization options costing $1.99 per year. Quizlet Plus has many ways to track your progress and more advanced features, costing $19.99 per year.
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#8. Khan Academy
Khan Academy is one of the best iPad apps for college students. If you’re a student, you probably already know about the many YouTube channels like CrashCourse and The School of Life that explain months’ worth of lectures and tutorials in just one video.
Not many people know that one of the most popular channels, Khan Academy, has an app. You can use thousands of interactive exercises, quizzes, and articles with the Khan Academy app. You can also use videos to practice what you’ve learned in math and many other subjects.
It’s a great free app that covers a huge range of topics and is great for reviewing. The app’s content is great, but some users have said that it doesn’t save their progress or has other bugs.
Price-
Free
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#9. Google Slides
Google Slides is the best free tool for making slideshows, full stop. It is one of the best iPad apps for college students. The app lets you make presentations anytime, anywhere (even when you’re not online). You can also work with others in real time, and present from any Internet-connected device.
Google Slides is so easy to use and intuitive. It makes it easier than ever to make slideshows that look professional. The good thing is that Google Slides has everything you need to make a slideshow that looks professional in seconds. However, there aren’t as many transitions and effects as in PowerPoint.
Price
If you have a Google account, it’s free to use.
#10. Headspace
Headspace is a must-have in every college student’s iPad. It is one of the best iPad apps for college students. Taking a break from studying is the most important thing you can do. Headspace is a great way to do that. This powerful meditation and mindfulness app can help you feel less stressed. With it, you can get your mind back on track, and reset everything.
Headspace has everything you need to make meditation a part of your daily life. It has hundreds of guided meditations on topics like focus, exercise, and sleep. There are also mini-meditation sessions great for quick mental resets. Their website says that just 10 days of Headspace can make people 16% happier.
Price:
After a two-week free trial, Headspace offers two subscription options: $12.99 per month or $69.99 per year. If you are a student, you can get a discount that brings the price down to $9.99 per year. A family discount lets you get up to six accounts for $99.99 per year.
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#11. Slack
Slack is a platform for sending and receiving messages for your college or university classroom. It makes it easy to chat with friends and coworkers in a group. Slack lets teachers and students work together to share, talk about, and get involved deeply in learning. It is one of the best iPad apps for college students.
The Slack iPad app makes work for students with different roles and responsibilities easier, more fun, and more productive. You can set up topics-based channels for your course conversations. A course channel is a great way to keep students up to date on everything. From assignments and due dates to changes in lecture location and time without having to send a lot of emails.
It is one of the best iPad apps for college students.
Price-
Free
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#12. The Microsoft Office
Students use Microsoft Office more than any other set of office tools. With these free apps, you can edit, view, and print documents, presentations, and spreadsheets on your iPad. However, you will need to sign in first. It is one of the best iPad apps for college students.
The Microsoft Office student package is great for students on a tight budget. This is especially for those who don’t want to or can’t pay the full price for the Office Suite. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook are all free for iPad users to download from the App Store.
It has everything you need in an email client, like a unified inbox, and swipe options you can change. There is also a strong search engine, and a good filtering system.
Price-
Access to the Microsoft 365 collection across devices and family members usually costs between $70 and $100 per year for a subscription. Microsoft also put out a new version of Microsoft Office for Windows and Mac that doesn’t require a subscription. It’s called Office Home and Student 2024, costing $150.
#13. Week Calendar
Week Calendar is an iPad calendar app that you can use if you don’t like how Apple’s built-in calendar looks. It looks great and has a lot of settings to play with. It also has useful extras like Templates, complex Repeats, and multiple alarms. It is one of the best iPad apps for college students.
There are a lot of options and settings to change. Maybe even too many if you don’t want to change every font size, calendar behavior, and menu to your liking. Templates are a great addition to a mobile calendar app. Once you’ve set them up, creating new events based on them only takes seconds. This way, you don’t have to enter the same information over and over again.
WeekCal works with all of your calendars, even the ones you share with other people. It supports iCloud, Google Calendar, Yahoo! Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Exchange ActiveSync, iCal, CalDAV, and ICS.
Price-
Annual Pro Subscription: $7.49; Annual Pro Subscription: $19.99; WeekCal Weather: $3.99 per month
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#14. Zoho Notebook
Zoho Notebook for iPad is a simple app for taking notes. It lets you tag your notes so that they are easy to find and stay organized. Notebook for iPad Pro lets you drag and drop to make changes, organize, make note cards, share content, and more.
Your note cards just became more flexible. Drag Photo or Audio Cards into a Text Card to add them to a note. You can also drag images and recordings out of a Text Card and put them on their note cards. It is one of the best iPad apps for college students.
This free app from Zoho lets you store notes in the form of cards in virtual notebooks with pretty covers. You can also choose your fonts, font sizes, and colors. With this app, you can make text notes, checklists, audio notes, photo notes, sketches, and document notes. Siri works with the app on iPads and iPhones. You can ask Siri, for example, to look through your notes.
Price-
Zoho Notebook is free to use in every way. There are no in-app purchases, service levels to worry about, or storage limits, except for the files you upload. You can make as many notes as you want, but the total size of all File Cards has a limit of 5GB.
#15. Splitwise
The Splitwise app makes it easy to split costs with friends, roommates, or anyone else. Dividing bills has never been easier. You can split payments between groups, and different types of events. Most importantly, you can keep track of what you have to pay.
The app keeps track of what people borrow and lend over time. And until you pay the balance, the amount owed by each person may go up and down. At the end of each month, Splitwise sends out reminders so that everyone can pay what they owe. They can then start the next month with a clean slate. It is one of the best iPad apps for college students.
Price-
Free. You can sign up for the pro version for $3 a month
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Frequently Asked Questions
Headspace: Meditation and Sleep
Forest – Stay on track.
Slack- Collaboration
Todoist- Stay organized
Google slides
The most popular apps among college students are-
Google Calendar.
Venmo.
Spotify.
CamScanner.
SplitWise.
Quizlet.
Duo Mobile.
Word Hippo.
Todoist
Freedom
Forest
Google Calendar
Notion
Highlighted
Quizlet
Khan Academy
Google Slides
Headspace
Write down your thoughts and ideas whenever and however they come to you. Notes and Voice Memos are already built into the Mac and iPad. You can also download apps like Notability and GoodNotes.
GoodNotes wins both in terms of how it looks and how easy it is to find important documents. Both apps make it easy to find your way around. However, GoodNotes has spent a little more time “dressing up” the document management process. This helps both the navigation display and the user interface.
Hammer.
Screwdrivers.
Pliers
Adjustable Wrench
Utility Knife
Duct Tape
Putty Knife
Assortment of Screws.
If you’re considering getting an iPad for college, you’re probably considering taking digital notes. An iPad does this very well. The delay between the pencil and the screen is ridiculously low. Once you get used to writing on glass, it’s almost as good as writing on paper.
Conclusion
Want to know which iPad apps you can’t live without? We think our list of best iPad apps for college students helped. It seems like Apple adds many new apps to its already huge catalog every day. There are over a million apps in the App Store for the large screen and power of the iPad.
The most advanced tablet now has a new look that matches its new features. This is the biggest change to the iPad since it first came out. The Apple iPad Pro is an amazing tablet that feels great and could be even better in the future. Get started today with these apps to make your college experience better.
References
- igeeksblog.com– Best iPhone iPads for college students
- educationalappstore.com– Best iPad apps
- ebookfriendly.com– Best iPad for apps students
- Image Link
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