24 Must-Have iPad Retina Display Apps For New Users

This week the 2012 iPad comes out, the third edition of the ipad with no less than a Retina Display for the sharpest graphics you've ever seen! What we've got here to compliment our full review of the new iPad is a collection of apps developed specifically to make the best use of your newfound power! Each of the apps you see here has been touted by Apple to be perfect for your first day with the new iPad, each of them containing full 2048 x 1536 Retina-quality graphics and awesome optimization for the most up-to-date action!

Each of the developers who've created these apps is well known enough to have been included in a list prepped by Apple – this means that these apps are going to be top class and certainly well worth the cash you'll be dropping on them, so says the makers of the hardware you're picking them up for. So let's have at them! Also note: this guide is in no particular order, each entry having been added randomly – check em all out!

1 ) Real Racing 2 $6.99 for iPad A racing game called a favorite by gamers the whole mobile world over, this is one of the best – and the only Retina-quality racing game on the market today!

2 ) Day One (Journal/Diary) $1.99 for iPad and iPhone A tiny journaling application made specifically to sync with the cloud, this app is one two such apps on the market with Retina graphics – the other is number 3 on our list.

3 ) Evernote Free for iPad and iPhone The most famous and heavily used note-taking application on the planet, there's an equivalent app on basically any platform your can think of. Desktop, iOS, Android, and more – and here with the new iPad you can do it all with ultra high-quality graphics.

4 ) IncrediBooth $0.99 for iPad and iPhone Here we've got a photography app that takes four images just like you would in a real live photo booth. Sometimes limitations can be fantastic as the very small amount of things you can do with this app (with Retina quality graphics) brings an awesome party to your fingertips – one, two, three, snap!

5 ) Joining Hands $2.99 for iPad and iPhone This game is simple enough – connect the creatures by their hands to set the free – it looks a whole lot easier than it is though, so beware the time devourer!

6 ) Star Walk for iPad – interactive astronomy guide $4.99 for iPad One of the classic must-have apps for iPad, this newly refined stargazing applications allows you to look at the night (or day) sky through a whole new set of eyes!

7 ) Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy $4.99 for iPad and iPhone For those of you looking for a slightly more violent look at the skies, this warplane action game will have you destroying enemies over the sea for hours.

8 ) Tweetbot – A Twitter Client with Personality for iPad $2.99 for iPad and iPhone This application was born and bred for the iPad, and judging by the review of the iPhone version we've got, you certainly need to jump right in. Reviews have been nothing but positive for this monster of a Twitter client.

9 ) The Early Edition 2 $4.99 for iPad The first of two "reader" applications on this Retina-quality list and one of the original newspaper apps for the original iPad. This app is fully optimized for iOS 5 and the Retina-quality display of the new iPad and is able to sync up with your Google Reader account – connect to SlashGear asap!

10 ) Solar Walk – 3D Solar System model $2.99 for iPad and iPhone With the help of your own set of cyan and red glasses (classics!) you'll be able to see the universe in full 3D. This app is used by common citizens, teachers, and professors the world over – intense fun and great for visualizing our universe!

11 ) Foosball HD $2.99 for iPad This application has your iPad turning into a two-person death match with players on a pole as your warriors. Get all the foosball action you crave anywhere your iPad's capable of going.

12 ) SketchBook Pro for iPad $4.99 for iPad This application is the ultimate way for you to draw a picture on your brand new Retina-quality display. There's nothing quite like SketchBook, made by the folks at Autodesk to compete with any oncoming similar sketching app for iPad – 2814 ratings with an average vote of four stars says a whole lot about the quality of this app.

13 ) Flight Control Rocket $0.99 for iPhone and iPad One of the cutest games on our list here, this ultra simple-to-command unit is also ultra entertaining – made for kids and adults.

14 ) Labyrinth 2 HD $7.99 for iPad Herein lies the most awesome wooden box with metal ball game in our collective past – but with so many new twists you might think you're in a completely new world. And in fact you are! The same goal exists – moving the ball from one area to another – but that's where the similarities end: get into traps, switches, bumps, walls, and who knows what!

15 ) StockTouch $4.99 for iPad and iPhone An absolutely awe-inspiring, intuitive, and colorful application for reading and interpreting your stocks. It takes the otherwise drab world of numbers and prices and makes it beautiful even to the lay person's eyes.

16 ) NYTimes for iPad Free for iPad You'll get the latest news on whatever it is you like to read about from one of the world's most famous newspapers – now in full Retina-loving HD!

17 ) Calcbot – The Intelligent Calculator $1.99 for iPad and iPhone If you're the sort of person that relies on their smart device to figure out your mathematics on a daily basis but just are not satisfied with the built-in apps you've got at the moment, Calcbot is your key to happiness. Here you've got all the scientific calculator functions you could ever want and some ticker tape to keep track of everything you've done – in high definition!

18 ) Diamond Dash Free for iPad and iPhone This game is one of many extremely similar drop-down block games where you flip and tap pieces to make rows disappear. This game holds the distinction of being the first to work with the new iPad's Retina-quality display.

19 ) Barefoot World Atlas $7.99 for iPad Here in a lovely atlas of the world is a vision of the earth made for children to get to know the whole planet. It not only gives kids an idea of how gigantic our earth is, but how similar (and different!) we all are from one another – all with extremely intuitive controls and fun-to-use graphics, text, and sounds!

20 ) iStopMotion for iPad $4.99 for iPad Using your iPad's camera, here you'll be able to take a series of photos and stitch them together with great ease to create a stop-motion video. Do some claymation, make your paper characters create a South Park scene, or use some good ol' Star Wars figures to create a Cantina brawl! It's all good to go!

21 ) Martha Stewart Cookies $4.99 for iPad It's exactly what you think it is – a massive library of cookies made by, for, and on behalf of Martha Stewart – each one of them with a recipe so you can make them yourself!

22 ) Touchgrind BMX $4.99 for iPad Those of you who have played any of the Touchgrind series of finger-flipping X-games apps on either iOS or OS X know: there's nothing quite like taking your love of fingerboarding to the digital level. Now you've got the ability to do the same with a BMX bike in HD – better than ever!

23 ) Another Monster at the End of This Book...Starring Grover & Elmo! $3.99 for iPad and iPhone The first book on our list, this app works directly with your iBooks app from Apple and brings the new classic second edition of the original Monster at the End of this Book to life! This time Grover has Elmo to protect him from danger – in HD!

24 ) Infinity Blade II $6.99 for iPad and iPhone Fighting with your fingers never looked so fantastic. The Infinity Blade series has been used since its inception to show off the magic of the iPad, and this game acts as a pre-cursor to the next generation (a prequel, ironically) called Infinity Blade: Dungeons.

Stick with us here on SlashGear for a whole bunch more iPad-related guides all day long – and in to the future as well, of course! Check out the timeline below for some hot new iPad action and see our [iOS App Reviews] for both the iPad and the iPhone – gotta catch em all!

UPDATE: just for those of you sending in emails (thanks!) we'll be making additional lists soon with the Retina-quality apps appearing throughout the day and the weekend of course – more coming all the time!

And of course don't forget to pick up the iLife suite including the brand new to iOS iPhoto, the newest edition of iMovie to work with your new and improved 1080p-capable iPad camera, and the most amazing GarageBand yet – Smart Instruments galore!