We recently recommended a handful of apps to get new iPad or iPad mini owners up to speed on some common usage patterns. But the buck didn't stop there: Ars readers also chimed in with several recommendations we thought were worth sharing. We've arranged the recommendations loosely into categories, such as games, productivity, and music.

Here at Ars, we use many of these are apps ourselves or know colleagues who use them. Either way, they are apps that Ars readers feel passionate about—a ringing endorsement, I'm sure you'll agree.

News

We recommended Flipboard for a curated selection of top news articles in your favorite categories and Reeder for sifting through mountains of articles via RSS. One Ars reader recommended Newsify RSS Reader ($0.99) as an alternative to Reeder. It also uses Google Reader to subscribe to and sync RSS feeds, it looks nice, and it will only cost you a buck.

Other readers mentioned apps like Instapaper ($3.99) and Pocket (free), which let you read articles that you have cached for offline reading. Such apps also re-format long-form articles using layouts and fonts more conducive to reading for long stretches.

Learning

The iPad is a great device for learning, and readers pointed to a couple apps for knowledge enhancement. An obvious choice is iTunes U (free), Apple's gateway to largely free content available from colleges and universities. You can access video lectures, handouts, notes, and more, from courses like Stanford's iOS development class or Oxford's lecture series on JRR Tolkien.

If you love space (and what self-respecting Ars reader doesn't, I ask), Solar Walk ($2.99) lets you navigate a virtual 3D version of the solar system from the comfort of your own couch—zero-G training not required.

Interactive textbooks are considered one of the latest advancements in learning, and the iPad has them in spades. In addition to interactive texts available through the iBookstore, Touch Press has a series of "books" designed as standalone apps. The Elements ($13.99) was the company's first foray into the field of apps as interactive texts, and can certainly entertain and wow with its interactive presentation of the periodic table.

Reader eas wasn't as impressed as others, though. "I found The Elements to be long on style and short on substance or enduring value. I say this not to spoil your enjoyment, but to let other people who come here looking for recommendations know that there are differences of opinion on this one."

Touch Press has several other interactive book apps available, covering gems, dinosaurs, orchestral music, and even T.S. Eliot.

Games

Unsurprisingly, readers had a lot of opinions to offer on games. Kingdom Rush HD ($2.99) was mentioned several times as a good tower defense style game, for instance.

Reader r3tina disagreed with our choice of Ticket to Ride as a top board game adaptation. "While I enjoy Ticket to Ride, most of my multiplayer board game time is spend with Carcassonne ($9.99). In my opinion it has set the bar for board game-to-tablet adaptations."

reverend atman felt casual gamers would really like Jetpack Joyride (free), one of our recommendations for new Android tablet users. "I don't think it's possible to overstate how cool that game is for casual gamers. One control. Your finger or thumb. That's it." Also, you can fly by shooting bullets at the ground. 'Nuff said.

MacdonaldTriad was upset we didn't mention one of the most popular sandbox games around. "How is Minecraft ($6.99) not listed under games? It's not the same experience as on a PC or Mac, but it's still fun."

Other recommended games include the 3D shooter Modern Combat 4 ($6.99), the ever-popular Angry Birds HD ($2.99), the charming Tiny Wings HD ($2.99), Fruit Ninja HD ($0.99), and Scribblenauts Remix ($0.99).

Music

When it comes to listening to music, not everyone is a fan of our recommendation, Spotify. Reader jamieskella wondered, "How and why is Spotify still being recommended when Rdio (free) boasts 18 million songs and is available in so many regions globally? The supremely intuitive app experience leaves Spotify in the dust, the social features add to the already first-rate discovery options, while the method of cataloguing your favourite music is far superior."

A few other readers also recommended TuneIn Radio Pro ($0.99), which connects to freely available streaming Internet radio stations like Indie Pop Rocks from Soma.FM or Metal Invasion Radio.

For making music, readers also recommended some more serious tools over the easy-to-recommend GarageBand, especially if you like electronic music.

EmeraldArcana said that "for on-the-fly music making I prefer Figure ($0.99) by Propellerheads. It's cheap, has great use of the touchscreen, super easy to use, sounds great, and you can actually put out some great songs."

Propellerheads' ReBirth for iPad ($14.99) also got some mentions. It combines a virtual Roland T-303 bass synth with virtual T-808 and T-909 drum machines to make the perfect techno beat machine. Relive 1994 all over again, and rave 'til dawn to your own club hits!

If that isn't enough virtual synth for you, readers also raved about Korg's iMS-20 ($29.99) and Moog's Animoog ($29.99) simulators.

Chat

Connecting and communicating with others is always important. If our recommendation of Verbs IM doesn't suit your needs, readers also recommend Trillian (free), which can sync with the desktop version; imo messenger for iPad (free), which includes its own protocol in addition to several others, and BeeJiveIM for iPad ($4.99), a popular favorite.

Art

We pointed out a few image editors, including Google's free Snapseed. However, PhotoForge2 ($3.99) was posited as a great image editing alternative. (We have mentioned others for iPhone users in the past, and many have iPad versions as well).

But tablets can be used for more than just photo editing. Paper (free) was chosen by Apple as "App of the Year" for 2012. The natural media panting and drawing app includes tools like pencils, pens, brushes, and more, and the "ink engine" reacts the way you would expect on real paper.

For more technical drawing and illustration, users might prefer a vector tool like iDraw ($8.99), or Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro ($4.99), which uses the same paint engine as the desktop version of Sketchbook.

Video

Reader alagemo complained that our app roundup had "no mention of anything to do with video...Netflix, YouTube, or Hulu should be on most people's shopping lists."

We agree—lots of users like watching video on an iPad when watching the 55-inch flatscreen in the living room isn't convenient. Here are several apps to consider:

Netflix (free)

(free) Hulu Plus (free)

(free) Amazon Instant Video (free)

(free) Crackle (free)

(free) YouTube (free)

(free) PBS for iPad (free)

Several broadcast and cable channels also have their own apps for streaming video content as well. Some services, like Netflix and Hulu Plus, may also require additional subscription fees to actually stream content.

Productivity

Despite many claims to the contrary, the iPad can be used by some to get work done. We mentioned some good text editors in our previous roundup, but reader invalidname pointed out that developers would probably be better served by a purpose-built code editor.

"For developers, Textastic Code Editor ($8.99) is an even better text editor than the options [mentioned previously]. It syntax-highlights dozens of different kinds of files, including the hip programming languages like Groovy and Scala, and old necessities like Makefiles and Apache config files."

"To top it off, Textastic has a clever scheme for getting to non-alphanumerics on the screen keyboard: an extra row of keys with five characters per key arranged like the 5 on a die. Tap for the center character, swipe diagonally for any of the corners. It's a clever solution to the problem of forgetting your Bluetooth keyboard, and it's mighty fast in practice. To wit, I wrote significant parts of my last two iOS programming books in Textastic, including some C examples."

Though we noted that iBooks can be used to read PDF files, some readers mentioned iAnnotate PDF ($9.99) and GoodReader for iPad ($4.99) as alternatives, particularly for their built-in tools for making detailed annotations.

For keeping track of notes, images, websites, to-dos, and other assorted bits of information, lots of readers like Evernote (free). The mobile app syncs with the Evernote service via the cloud, so you can access your virtual "notebooks" from your Mac, PC, iPhone, or Android device as well. An optional premium subscription allows you to cache data offline, share notebooks with others, and add a password lock to sensitive information.

Finally, many readers agree that 1Password ($7.99) is an indispensable tool for any iPad user. It can generate strong passwords for you and store them in a secure place unlocked by a master password. Think of it like OS X's Keychain, only you can sync passwords among desktop and mobile devices.