5 excellent iPad Pro apps for college students

The iPad Pro and its second generation have made Appleā€™s tablets more powerful than they have ever been in the history of iOS. With the releaseĀ ofĀ iOS 11, the iPad is more capableĀ than ever to serve as a primary computing device for many people.

College students are some of the best suited primary iPad Pro users, and the following are some of the best apps to help those students flourish in college with Appleā€™s most powerful tablet.

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is a longtime staple in traditional desktop operating systems, and its iOS equivalent is a worthy download for all college students. While you will find a somewhat simplified experience and design, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote have been completely adequate for all of my office software needs so far in my use.

Another benefit of Office is that many United States universities offer free Office 365 subscriptions to their students. Check out your options at your university, and if this is available, definitely consider downloading Microsoft Office for free on iOS. Office 365 will give you the full experience.

Things 3

It can often be difficult for students to keep track of assignments and tasks for all of their classes, and I have found no better way to manage all of my to-doā€™s than Things 3 for iPad.

The power of Things lies in its ability to create multiple levels of tasks. These are organized as Areas, Projects, and To-Doā€™s. No matter how many tasks and sub-tasks you need to get done, you can put them all down in checkable lists within Things.

Things 3 for iPad is available as a $9.99 download on the App Store.

Fantastical 2 for iPad

I enjoy and benefit from using Fantastical in a lot of the same ways I enjoy Things 3. The primary benefit here is the density of information. With Fantastical 2 for iPad, you can view your events in List, Month, and Week views all on the same screen. Throw in natural language event creation, and youā€™ve got a winner and one excellent Calendar app for iPad Pro-using college students. These is also a reminder/list feature within the app, but I recommend using Things 3 instead due to its deeper feature set. Fantastical 2 for iPad is available for $9.99 on the App Store.

Notability

One of the biggest perks of using an iPad Pro as a student is the ability to convert from typing mode into an extremely useful writing slate using the Apple Pencil. Notability was great before the debut of the Pencil, and it proves to be even better combined with Appleā€™s extremely realistic-feeling stylus.

You can customize the paper to your liking and organize your notes into groups by class. Notability offers one of the closest experiences to writing on paper, and this combined with its convenience makes it a must-have for an iPad Pro student. You can find it on the App Store for $4.99.

Bear

If Microsoft Word is for typing that paper for your next class and formatting it just how your professor wants it, Bear is for you to simply get your thoughts down in text.

I often find myself writing almost everything in Bear and then subsequently transferring it to whatever application the text is needed in. Bearā€™s function is in its form. The design of the app gets out of the way and lets you focus on writing, simple as that. It does this beautifully and thoughtfully, and it is always a pleasure to use. Bear is available as a free download on the App Store, but a Bear Pro subscription will unlock cloud syncing and a variety of app themes. Bear Pro is available for $1.49 per month or $14.99 per year.

Are you going to give any of these iPad Pro apps a try? What are your favorite iOS apps for school? Let us know in the comments.