No matter how easy it is to use an iPhone for the first time, I can understand how overwhelming it can feel to learn how best use it beyond simple telephone use. Actually, I suspect a lot of people use it as a plain phone for quite a while before gradually starting to use it to its full potential. A lot of its potential is through apps, but again it can be difficult to be directed to the best apps given the fast changing nature of the app store.
With the iPad, that feeling of being at a loss is even worse when no app is installed. You can use an iPad for web browsing and as an expensive video and music player for you iTunes collection, but still without apps it feels even emptier.
So, where to start?
Then, for the apps themselves, looking at the curated lists on Apple's app store is OK, but I found the free app from AppAdvice ( http://appadvice.com/ ) called AppStart to be quite good. Almost all of the apps I would myself recommend are listed, though sadly the app doesn't distinguish between free apps and paid ones, and some apps are US only.