Apple chose not to include clock, voice recording, weather, calculator, and stock apps, but luckily the App Store has great alternatives for each one!

When Steve Jobs introduced the very first iPad, one of his big statements was that the 75 million iPhone users in the world already knew how to use it. Well, many of those users were suprised to discover that four of the built-in apps that they had grown to love on their iPhone were missing on their iPad. Namely, Clock, Voice Memos, Weather, Calculator and Stocks. Rumor has it Apple didn't think those apps would scale to look good on the bigger iPad screen. Fortunately, many great developers have filled that void and proven that, not only can these apps look good on the iPad. They can look great.

In fact, there are so many great apps in these categories that it can be overwhelming. That's where we come in. We took all the top Clock, Voice Memos, Weather, Calculator, scrutinized them, and tested them some more and named a single app in each category as the best of its kind. So without further adieu, here they are!

Best clock app -- Night Stand for iPad

Night Stand for is a gorgeous clock app for the iPad the supports the new iPad's Retina Display. In the background of your flip-style clock, you can have a slideshow of included movies/animations or photos, or you can have it play through your own photos.

As for the alarm clock, you can add as many alarms as you need with custom interval times and wake up to your own music or one of the included sounds. There is also a large range of intervals for that precious snooze button.

But that's not all, Night Stand includes widgets for Twitter, Facebook, RSS, and weather, so that you don't even need to leave the app after it wakes you up to check up on all the social networks and news -- something you normally do before rolling out of bed anyway.

• Night Stand for iPad review

$2.99 - Download Now

Best voice recording app -- Audio Memos

If you're looking for a Voice Recorder for your iPad that offer great quality and professional features, look no further than Audio Memos. It in three different versions: a free one that does only the basics, a $0.99 version that does a little bit more with optional extensions available as in-app purchases, and a Pro version that includes all the extensions available in the $0.99 version. So whether you're looking for something basic, middle of the road, or full-featured, Audio Memos has got you covered.

• Audio Memos review

Free - Download Now

$1.99 - Download Now

$9.99 - Download Now

Best weather app - Living Earth HD

Living Earth HD is a gorgeous way to check the weather. It features an interactive earth in the background that can be rotated and zoomed in and out of with your fingers. You can also tap a button that keep the earth slowly rotated on its axis, and as it spins, you see which part of the earth is currently being hit by the sun.

Regarding weather, Living Earth HD will give you 10-day forecasts that are broken down into 2-hour intervals as well as show you sunrise/sunset times. There is also an option to have the current cloud formations overlaid on the earth, so that you can get an idea of any clouds that might be heading your way.

In addition to weather, Living Earth HD also include an alarm clock that allows you to wake up to your own music and set custom repeat intervals. It only supports one alarm setting at a time, however.

Living Earth HD may not be as fully-featured as some other weather apps, but it provides the information that most people want -- and does it beautifully.

• Living Earth HD review

$1.99 - Download Now

Best calculator app - Calcbot

Calcbot is a great scientific calculator for the iPhone and iPad. It features nice, large keys and a SwipePad that switches between the basic operations (including numbers) and scientific functions. It also keep track of all your calculations on a tape where you can copy and paste into a new calculation. Another nice feature is that it keeps a live history of what you type, so that you never get lost with where you are in your calculation.

• Calcbot for iPhone and iPad review

$1.99 - Download Now

Best stock app - Bloomberg for iPad

Whether you need to casually monitor stocks on your iPad or just find the urge to check out financial news, Bloomberg provides the best of both worlds combined with an easy to use interface. I've found that some of the applications in the App Store are quite hard to navigate and may be confusing for many users to figure out. Sometimes too many charts and graphs can be overwhelming. Bloomberg gives you what you want to know right up front.

If you're more interested in world and financial news than you are stocks, Bloomberg doubles up as a great resource for such information. It ties news and the stock market together in a fluid way that users will appreciate.

• Bloomberg for iPad review

Free - Download Now

The Calculator app is one of those iPhone apps that didn't make it's way onto the iPad. It's a shame, because a lot of people, including students, travelers, and home book keepers would get a lot of use out of it. The most popular type of calculator is a scientific calculator -- it can do more than the basic operations (adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing), but isn't as different in approach as an RPN (reverse Polish notation) or as advanced as a graphing calculator or CAS (computer algebra system). So which iPad app is the best scientific calculator? Calcbot by Tapbots.

One of the great features of Calcbot is that it has large buttons, making it very easy to make entries. In portrait mode, the calculator takes up the whole screen. Along the top is the output screen of the calculator. Under that, you'll find the positive/negative, parentheses, and EE buttons. These are the elements that remain static.

The area of the calculator that contains all the numbers and operations is scrollable. Swiping to the left will reveal all the scientific functions. The up-arrow button on the scientific page will replace the trigonometic functions with their inverses, and the logarithm and exponential functions that are base e change to base 2. Visually, these are all the buttons that are light blue in color.

As you press buttons on the calculator, their symbols will appear in small, light blue letters at the bottom of the calculator's screen. This is extremely helpful for keeping track of which button you've pressed last. The tracking will reset every time you press enter, when it then gets transferred to the tape.

To see the tape, rotate your iPad to landscape. The calculator will become slightly smaller and the tape will slide in from the right. The tape keeps track of all your calculations, including all the buttons that were pressed to get the results. Holding your finger down on an entry pops up a menu to either Use Result, Use Expression, Copy, Send as Email, or Delete. Using the result or expression will automatically add your choice into the calculator. You can also paste into the screen of the calculator or into another app.

The Good

• Large buttons
• Keeps track of buttons pressed
• Beautiful UI
• Landscape orientation reveals the tape
• Every button emits a subtle sound -- true to Tapbots style (can be disabled)
• Option to round for currency
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The Bad

• Must sacrifice having all the buttons on one screen for the larger buttons

The Conclusion

Calcbot by Tapbots has been my favorite calculator on both the iPhone and iPad for quite some time. It does what I need and does it well. Unfortunately for students, Calcbot likely will not be able to replace a physical calculator because most teachers will not allow the use of iPads during exams.

$1.99 - Download Now

QuickMath is a new tweak that allows you to do simple math functions within iOS search. If you're a Mac user you're probably already use to this kind of functionality within Spotlight. I've definitely caught myself a time or two swiping to search on my iPhone to do a simple math problem and quickly realizing that I can't.

Once you install QuickMath there is nothing to configure. Just swipe on over to search and type in your math problem. Hit search and the solution will show up in the search bar. It's a bit quicker than searching or paging through for the Calculator app in my experience. Maybe this math tweak will be enough to make Leanna jump over to #TeamJailbreak?

QuickMath is available in Cydia for free.

[Free - Cydia Search Link]

Calcbot is a universal calculator application for iPad and iPhone. It is a basic scientific calculator but is designed well with big buttons and tape. For this review, we will be focusing on the iPad version.

In landscape, you will find the calculator on the left and tape on the right. The calculator has two pages of buttons which keeps them nice and big. Just swipe the calculator to the left to bring the next page of functions. The first page is primarily numbers and basic operators as well as power and root functions. The second page contains a more functions such at the specific powers of 2 and 3, square root, factorial, log, natural logarithm, exponential, and trigonometric functions. Tapping the shift key (up arrow) will change the trigonometric functions to their inverses. Calcbot lets you chose between radians and degrees as well. The second page does not include an equal sign. This is annoying because a calculation does not appear on the tape until the equal sign is tapped.

If you want to re-enter a calculation from the tape, just tap the desired calculation and a menu pops up to use result, use expression, copy, send in email, or delete. You can also swipe to delete any expression. To email or clear the entire tape, tap the wheel in the upper right hand corner. If you're not interested in seeing the tape, rotate to portrait mode to view only the calculator.

Calcbot is an excellent little calculator app that looks and works great. There is nothing fancy about it, but that's part of it's appeal. Calcbot is strait-forward and to the point which makes it easy and intuitive to use. Simply put, Calcbot is another visually appealing and terrifically designed app by Tapbots.

Screenshots after the break!

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

Pros

• Simple and effective calculator
• Email and access calculations from tape
• Swipe to access more functions. This keeps the calculator buttons nice and big.

Cons

• Must hit equal sign for calculation to appear on tape. It would be nice to have equal sign available on both screens.

Unlike the iPhone 3GS, the iPad doesn't have built-in stocks, weather, voice memo, clock, calculator, or compass apps. It does, however, have the brand new iPad App Store, and yeah... there are apps for all that!

Check out our picks after the break!

Bloomberg for iPad [Free - iTunes link] offers not just stocks but news, company info, price charts, trends, analysis and... you get the idea. It could just be information overload on a 9.7" screen, but that's likely just what you stockies want!

Weather Channel Max [Free - iTunes link] costs nothing (thanks to Toyota) but packs in the weathery-goodness. Full screen, customizable maps, in-motion radar, local, regional, and national video, and more make it not so much of a replacement as a escalation.

Voice memos for iPad [Free - iTunes link] is the "I can't believe it's not butter" of replacement apps. It looks similar to Apple's iPhone Voice Memo app, but it's scaled up to iPad size. Unlimited recording, tagging, pause, levels, timer, and email options make it a great fill in option.

Clock... We haven't found a good replacement for Clock yet. If you know of one that matches the functionality and the grace of the iPhone Clock app, let us know in the comments. And developers -- make a good one, with a great icon. Seriously.

PCalc Lite [Free - iTunes] or PCalc [$9.99 - iTunes link] make the iPhone calculator look anemic by comparison. It includes an optional RPN mode, multiple undo and redo, unit conversions and constants, a couple of themes, and much more in the paid version.

Compass HD + Vector Magnetometer / Gravitometer [Free for now - iTunes link] is an app that, frankly, we may not be smart enough to properly describe. It has absolute mode, north mode, declination mode, and relative modes, and a bunch of different display modes for acceleration visualization. Get it while it's free!

So there you have it, App Store to the rescue! Did we miss any (other than clocks!)? Are there alternatives your like better? Let us know in the comments!

Why are there no Clock, Calculator, Voice Memo, Weather, or Stocks apps on the iPad? Because Steve Jobs didn't think they worked on the larger iPad screen, according to Daring Fireball's John Gruber.

It’s not that Apple couldn’t just create bigger versions of these apps and have them run on the iPad. It wasn’t a technical problem, it was a design problem. There were, internally to Apple (of course), versions of these apps (or at least some of them) with upscaled iPad-sized graphics, but otherwise the same UI and layout as the iPhone versions. Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated. So they were scrapped by you-know-who.

Gruber was responding to theories that these apps would instead be offered as App Store downloads, or could be part of some secret widget dashboard implementation. In other words, that it's a design issue, not a technical issue.

However, new UI that would make the iPad an amazing bedside clock (how's that for a Lock Screen), or show Stocks with a variety of graphs and related news and data, or weather for several days and cities at once, certainly seems possible for Apple's UI wizards. Perhaps they simply lacked time to re-do the apps for the already extended April 3 release date?

Perhaps they’ll appear on the iPad in some re-imagined form this summer with OS 4.0, but when the iPad ships next month, there won’t be versions of these apps. At least that’s the story I’ve heard from a few well-informed little birdies.

Speaking of which, any little birdies hear anything about an iPhone 4.0 sneak preview event yet? Or is everyone just focused on getting the iPad out right now?

Source: Daring Fireball

UPDATE: Just so everyone is clear, the developer did this as a parody, Apple didn't censor anything. B'okay? Read the full 8008135 story on Three Letter Acronym...

PCalc RPN Calculator [$9.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone has just updated to version 1.8, and the update is... rather unique:

Have you, or somebody close to you, ever turned your calculator upside down and accidentally seen a mildly suggestive word? Have you ever been in a maths class, and had to put up with groups of giggling boys performing elaborate calculations that are not part of the lesson?

Yes, it's one of the main problems affecting the calculator industry today, the so-called "calculator words". These otherwise harmless devices can be made to display smut at the press of a few buttons. Added to that, the iPhone App Store is very strict about having inappropriate content in apps. Nobody wants their app to get a 17+ rating, or worse, to be rejected entirely.

Which is why we are happy to announce that the latest version of our PCalc scientific calculator for the iPhone contains a new patent-worthy profanity filter.

Simply enter a number such as "5318008", turn the calculator upside down, and the offending word will be discreetly censored. Many common calculator words have been included as standard, and we plan to increase this over time via software updates.

The new version also comes, you know, calculator features, and a $9 off coupon for the Mac version (which doesn't seem to change when you turn your Mac upside down... hmmm... feature parity?!)

James Thomson wrote in to tell us about PCalc 1.7 [$9.99 - iTunes link], and as usual, the prose is almost as good as the app. Almost.

One year ago, as the doors of the iPhone App Store first opened to the public, PCalc was there. One of only four hundred applications available, and a mere handful of calculators. Now, there are more than sixty-five thousand applications in the store, and calculators are second only to Twitter clients in terms of near-pestilential ubiquitousness.

Metaphorgeddon aside, while we mentioned the new version already, after using it for the day, it was obvious it deserved a closer look. Here are the updates again:

• Faster startup!
• Three and four-line display modes, including complete control over what appears on each line.
• Multiple-memory support.
• Optional HP48-style RPN behaviour.
• Much nicer number display with the "Easier To Read" digits option. It's now actually easier to read!

It is indeed. I'm not a mathmagician like Leanna, but this really is the built-in calculator on Hulk-serum. Check out the screenshots after the break, and if you give PCalc 1.7 a try, let us know what you think!

Macworld formulates word of HP's foray into iPhone application development, and it's both nostalgic for calculator enthusiasts, and interesting from a premium price point:

When run in landscape mode, each app uses the original ROM code and provides an exact visual replica of the actual horizontal-format calculator, making it familiar to users of the originals. The $15 HP 12c and $20 HP 12c Platinum provide the same business-focused functions and formulas as the hardware models, and the $30 HP 15c includes all of the original's scientific algorithms and calculation sequences, including matrix, root, and complex-number functions. All three apps are also, like their hardware counterparts, programmable.

Here's the rundown again:

• HP 12C Financial Calculator [$14.99 - iTunes link]
• HP 12C Platinum Calculator [$19.99 - pending]
• HP 15C Scientific Calculator [$29.99 - iTunes link]

Anyone compelled to pick up one of those heavy crunchers, and if so, which one, what makes it compelling, and does it feel enough like the hardware version for you?

Engadget honcho Ryan Block got his techie mitts on a pre-release version of the iPhone 2.0 firmware, and here are the highlights (and lowlights!):

Exchange over Wi-Fi is not instantaneous (!). No contact search he could find. New button in Calendar don't do nothing for him yet. App Store error's out. Cisco branded VPN screen. Parental controls are good-to-go. Wi-Fi order can be specified in prefs. Calc has new widescreen scientific mode and icon. And his favorite new feature -- Multi-Select in Mail!

Head on over for a full rundown and gallery o' pics!