TUAW's Daily iPad App: Doodle Buddy for the iPad

Doodle Buddy is a free finger-drawing app for the iPad. It brings the fun of childhood finger-painting to the iPad as well as the grown-up need to make quick sketches to share with friends, family or co-workers.

For your children or the child inside all of us, Doodle Buddy lets you draw with multiple finger on the iPad's large screen, just like finger-painting. It has over 44,000 colors in its color-picker so you never run out of choices. A variety of stamps can be added to your creation and each one makes a funny noise when you use it. It's perfect for situations when children want to draw, but parents don't have the materials or time to let them get all messy from markers, paints and ink. I've field-tested with my own children and my kids love it.

For the adult, Doodle Buddy has a variety of tools you can use to mock up a quick drawing that can be shared via email. It's easy to grab the brush tool, dial down the brush size and draw out rough directions or a floor plan to send off the your significant other when apartment or house shopping. You can create each doodle on a blank slate, pre-made background, or doodle over your own pictures. The ability to mock up your own pictures can be useful for pointing an important aspect of a image, like "hey, that's me on that roller coaster." You can also use it to have some fun when you put a silly phrase on your cat picture and create your own lolcat.

Overall, Doodle Buddy is fun, easy to use and great for both adults and children. The drawing app also has a rewards feature called Doodle Bucks that you earn when you download an app. Powered by Tapjoy, the Doodle buck let you buy expansion packs that include birthday, stencil, food and other theme-related tools.

Doodle Buddy is available for free in the App Store. It does include advertisements which some parents don't like in an app used by children. These ads are removed with a 99-cent in-app purchase.