i-pads for business school students

Image courtesy: online.wsj.com

Top ranking business schools are planning to give away free ipads to its MBA candidates on a pilot basis but knowing the convenience the device provides, this trend will catch up almost everywhere. With productivity apps, cloud file sharing and the ever-so-important wireless printing, ipad will become a necessity before we realize that it is a fad. With 7.2 million devices sold till date, this may not come as a surprise to most of you.

So, here are some apps which you can download on your ipad if you are a b-school student or are planning to be one. Best part is, these apps are free and will prove to be indispensable to you while you are earning your MBA degree.

1. dictionary.com - a dictionary of 1 million words, along with thesaurus is available offline. If you have Wi-fi connectivity (which all schools have), additional features will also be available.

2. Notability - Not a free app but great for making notes and storing information. There is a menu bar at the top and bottom of the screen that will give you access to your tools without necessarily having to go back and forth. Sharing your notes is made even simpler with this app, since you can email notes to your friends as PDF files. A recording feature will allow you to record sounds while you take notes.

3. reuters.com - once you are in a business school, keeping yourself updated with events around the globe becomes super important. This app will help you do just that.

4. wikipanion - wikipanion for ipad will provide Wikipedia content into a more ipad-friendly format.

5. Evernote - This is the perfect app for keeping track of information. It lets you take notes and sync them with the cloud on evernote's servers. You can also sync it with your phone and/or computer and information will be available to you on-the-go.

6. box.net - With this free app, you will be able to share and collaborate all types of files. You can store all your documents and projects here, so you can pull up a Powerpoint of excel, whenever needed.

7. Bloomberg - a great free app for obtaining real-time business news and information on stock market.

8. NPR - Another news app for organizing the day's news and topics into a convenience magazine style format.

9. blackboard mobile learn - this is a classroom learning tool where professors can post assignments, write blogs and post grades. this will be possible with backend infrastructure, but with most schools headed towards ipad-oriented learning, this app is sure to be popular.

10.ibooks - extra reading forms an intricate part of the MBA experience. all students are encouraged to read books related to their courses in a quarter or semester. ibooks is a great app to download books and catch up on your reading whenever you have a free moment.

11.dropbox - this is again a free app for sharing information. it is the easiest way to sync and share information online and across computers. the only thing you will require with this app is a dropbox account, which can be created free of cost.

12.urbanspoon - Need to catch a quick dinner after a gruelling brainstorming or negotiations session? urbanspoon can help you by suggesting restaurants.