An Ipad user has access to nearly a million apps (by early 2014) to choose from in the App Store. These apps range from those that increase your productivity, give you simpler access to social networks and those that serve a myriad of diverse utilities. Some of them offer high graphics, video and audio capabilities. However, with the many apps on offer, how can one discover other uncommon (but useful) ones? This article will suggest five uncommon apps that may make your IPad experience the more interesting. But if you are new to iPads, see our quick  iPad tutorial for beginners.

1. Designated Dialer

Have you ever made a call that you regret? You might have had one too many, and decided to vent your anger on an ex, or cried over the phone to claim ‘your undying love’. Although a phone keeps you a click away from the contacts in your phone book, it also allows you to contact people that you swore to never contact again. This is where this app – Designated Dialer, steps in.

Currently, there are apps that enable you to make calls from the IPad (for example, ICall, Viber and Skype). Although originally designed to work on the IPhone, the Designated Dialer app now transfers its capabilities to the IPad.

The app’s developers claim that it ‘protects its users from themselves’. To use it, you need to work out which contacts you should never contact when you are not in the right frame of mind. For example, the next you plan to spend a night out, clubbing and grabbing a few drinks with friends, install it and mark the contacts that you will regret later for contacting them out of uninhibited emotions.

The way it works, is you notify those contacts that the app should ‘lock’ for you. If you happen to call any of those contacts, the app will direct you to a number (toll free) that will remind you of your decision to cease from contacting the number in question, at a particular time. After the time that you defined elapses, the app will unlock those contacts, and you will be free to contact them.

2. Email ‘n Walk

This is a multitasking app. You risk on-coming traffic hitting or tripping over an unseen object if you walk with your IPad covering your face, (you might be sending an email at the time).

The Email ‘n Walk app uses your IPad’s camera to give you a look of the view in front of you. It offers a keyboard over the camera’s view and translucent wording over the camera’s view. As a result, you have the ability to write that urgent email, while still rushing to your next rendezvous.

After writing an email, you just click ‘send’ and the app transfers it to your preferred emailing app.

3. Dog Whistler

A release of the Mobeezio mobile entertainment group, this app allows your Ipad to produce various audio frequencies that you can use to train a dog. It can produce sounds that range from as gentle as 500Hz to a notably fast 5 KHz. Furthermore, you can use this app to turn your IPad into a motion detector (which gives off an alarm on activation), or a composer of ‘whistle tunes’ that you can share over social networks or send via email.However, its uses do not stop there; you may also use it to create to create annoying whistles (whose use remains entirely up to you).

The app offers several features. You can choose a frequency of your choice by using a slider on its main interface, or you may type the specific frequency value. If that does not suffice, you also have the option to use the app’s preset patterns that range from tones, short and long beeps, within the predefined frequency oscillations.

To show how much ability some IPad apps can offer a user, the app’s developers note that the Dog Whistler can serve as a mosquito anti-repellant if set to the appropriate frequency. While to hearingspecialists, this app can serve as a tool to examine the sensitivity of the human ear to marginal audio frequencies.

4. Hold On!

The ‘Hold On!’ app’s developers – IMAK Creations, contend that this is a ‘productivity’ app. However, you may categorize it this is a simple app. You only have to hold onto a button on its interface for the longest time possible. You do not have to possess any prior skills, experience or strategy to score highly on this app. You can play alone, or link up with other users over Bluetooth, to test who has the keenest concentration. This is possible because the app measures the time you have pressed down the ‘Hold On!’ button to an accuracy of a millisecond.

On release, you can submit your scores to a general score board that tracks the users who have previously pressed the ‘Hold On!’ for the longest times. Its supporters cite the straightforward interface, its simple logic and accuracy as some of the attributes that makes it standout. However, others criticize it for not offering any ‘intelligent’ challenges. Hate it or love it, try it out and see what uses you create for it (for example, a user with the longest hold wins a bet – game).

5. WeChat

Tencent Inc. offers this app. It is a ‘Social Networking’ app. As a result, it offers a facility for sending ‘rich’ texts, videos, images and audio clips. Furthermore, it sends all this information over your IPad’s data connection, thus has the potential of being free when you use it over a free Wi-Fi connection. The app’s features also include making video calls, conventional voice calls and sending voice messages. A user can also deploy all these capabilities when communicating with other multiple users in a ‘group chat’. In addition to providing emoticons to an ongoing chat, the app can also allow a user to communicate from a ‘walkie-talkie’ feature with scores of friends.