1. technology and computing
2. hardware
3. computer
4. portable computer
5. tablet

Superguides
1
iPad
2
Superguide
Everything You Need to Know about the iPad 2
Foreword
I used a laptop as my primary Mac for more than a
decade, hauling it on my back between work and
home every day. But within two months of getting
an iPad, I stopped doing that. I bought a new iMac
for work and stuck the MacBook in a drawer at
home—all because the iPad had replaced my laptop
for a huge number of my daily tasks. I didn’t expect
the iPad to be so immediately disruptive. But it was.
And the success the iPad has had in the market suggests that lots of
other people have had that experience too.
For ages now, when I’ve been at home, I’ve kept my laptop tucked under
the couch. With the arrival of the iPad in our home, however, there’s no
need to use either computer. Whether we’re checking in on a game of
Words With Friends, browsing Twitter, or quickly answering e-mail, the
iPad works better for general-purpose Internet work than either our
laptops or the iPhone.
The iPad is not perfect, and it’s not a complete replacement for your
computer—at least not yet. But it fits into your life in ways you might
never before have considered possible. In this book, we’ve collected all
our intelligence about the iPad. I hope that when you’re finished reading,
you’ll have found plenty of new ways to make it an even bigger part of
your life.
—Jason Snell
Editorial Director, Macworld
San Francisco, May 2011
1
Photograph by Peter Belanger
This is not to say that the iPad is perfect for every job. I don’t, for
instance, use it to reply to e-mails at great length; if a message requires
a long answer, I wait until I’m at a Mac. The same goes for any task
requiring me to dig around for an old file. And yet, even with its limitations, the iPad can still do wonders. On an overnight business jaunt, I
brought my iPad and Apple’s Wireless Keyboard and was able to do
some real writing. For a trip on which I would once have lugged a laptop,
all I needed was the iPad.
Contents
Get Started
iPad at a Glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Familiarize yourself with every button, switch, port, and plug.
Activate the iPad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Register your iPad and get it set up and synced with your computer.
Master Gestures and Navigation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Learn simple gestures, manage your apps, create folders, and multitask.
Customize Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Set your wallpaper, alert sounds, third-party app preferences, and more.
Find More Apps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Browse offerings, sign up for an account, and buy and update apps.
Connect and Communicate
Get Connected. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Learn about Wi-Fi and 3G, set up a data plan, and manage your usage.
Browse the Web. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Get familiar with mobile Safari: Navigate the Web and add bookmarks.
Check and Send E-Mail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Set up your e-mail accounts, organize messages, and share files.
Video Chat with Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65
Chat with your fellow iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch users over video.
Navigate with Maps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Search, view traffic, get directions, and add bookmarks.
2
Contents
Productivity
Get Organized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76
Use Calendar, Notes, and Contacts to file and arrange your digital life.
iWork on the iPad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85
Create stunning work in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.
Microsoft Office and Google Docs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Work with Office files and edit in the cloud with Google Docs.
Sync Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Learn how to add files to your third-party apps and use services like
Dropbox and MobileMe to harmonize documents.
Print from the iPad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Print wirelessly using AirPrint or one of several third-party apps.
Multimedia
Sync and Load . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111
Master syncing and make your content iPad friendly.
Music. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Play and stream music using apps, or create tunes in GarageBand.
Videos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Watch movies and TV, stream online video using third-party apps, and
make your own videos with iMovie.
Photos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Browse pictures, display slideshows, and e-mail and share photos.
Books and Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Read a book on your iPad. Download iBooks and browse the iBookstore,
or take advantage of the many third-party e-book apps in the App Store.
Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Play games, connect with other players, and battle for high scores.
Share and Stream. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Project your music, video, photos, and games on your television and beyond.
3
Contents
Troubleshooting Tips
Quick-Fix Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Learn essential tricks for fixing a misbehaving iPad.
Common iPad Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Browse this list of the most common iPad problems and questions, and
find some handy solutions.
Seek Outside Help. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
When your own expertise isn’t enough, find the folks who can help.
Security Tips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Secure your device: Utilize passcodes, VPNs, and services like MobileMe
to protect your iPad against potential problems.
Accessories
Cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Protect your device from drops, scrapes, and other mishaps.
Headphones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Get better sound quality, Bluetooth support, and other useful features,
such as noise-canceling technology, when you invest in a good pair of
third-party headphones.
Speakers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Find the right iPad speakers for any setup with our recommendations
for every size and budget.
Other Accessories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Check out an assortment of other important iPad accessories: stands,
Bluetooth keyboards, styluses, chargers, and more.
4
Browse by App
Included Apple Apps
App Store
34
Notes
80
Calendar
76
Photos
133
Camera
132
Photo Booth
137
Contacts
83
Safari
48
FaceTime
65
Settings
25
iPod
121
Videos
127
iTunes
115
YouTube
129
Mail
56
Game Center
142
Maps
69
Other Apple Apps
5
Keynote
92
iMovie
130
GarageBand
124
Numbers
88
iBooks
139
Pages
86
Contributors
Senior Associate Editor Dan Moren hasn’t let the iPad out of his
hands since its release. This makes sleeping awkward.
Senior Editor Jonathan Seff oversees Macworld’s coverage of
iTunes, iPods, Apple TV, video and audio playback, and more.
Staff Writer Lex Friedman is the writer of The Snuggie Sutra
(2010, St. Martin’s Griffin), of which his three young children must
never know.
Senior Editor Chris Breen offers troubleshooting advice in
Macworld.com’s Mac 911 blog and is the author of The iPhone
Pocket Guide, sixth edition (Peachpit Press, 2011).
Senior Editor Dan Frakes covers iPod, iPhone, iPad, and audio
gear for Macworld and runs Macworld.com’s Mac Gems blog.
Senior Contributor Glenn Fleishman is the author of Take Control of iPhone and iPod touch Networking and Security, iOS 4
edition (TidBits Publishing, 2011).
Rob Griffiths is a former Macworld senior editor and Mac OS X
Hints founder, and helps run Many Tricks (manytricks.com).
Senior Contributor Joe Kissell is the author of Take Control of
Working with Your iPad (TidBits Publishing, 2010).
Senior Contributor Ted Landau writes the Bugs & Fixes column
for Macworld.
Senior Contributor Kirk McElhearn is the author of Take Control
of iTunes 10: The FAQ (TidBits Publishing, 2010).
David Chartier is a regular contributer to Macworld. He enjoys
productivity apps and games for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
6
Contributors
Jeffery Battersby is a
regular contributor to
Macworld. He writes about
Macs and more on his blog
(jeffbattersby.com).
iPad 2 Superguide
Editor Heather Kelly
President & CEO
VP & Editorial Director
Executive Editor
Mike Kisseberth
Jason Snell
Dan Miller
Managing Editor
Jennifer Werner
Staff Editor
Copy Editor
Jeff Merron is a freelance
writer and editor in North
Carolina.
John C. Welch is a regular
contributor to Macworld.
Dr. Franklin N. Tessler is a
radiologist from Birmingham, Alabama, who frequently writes about
presentations.
Serenity Caldwell
Gail Nelson-Bonebrake
Art DirectorRob Schultz
Designers Lori Flynn,
Kate VandenBerghe
Production DirectorNancy Jonathans
Prepress Manager Tamara Gargus
Macworld is a publication of Mac Publishing, L.L.C., and International Data Group, Inc.
Macworld is an independent journal not affiliated with Apple, Inc. Copyright © 2010, Mac
Publishing, L.L.C. All rights reserved. Macworld, the Macworld logo, the Macworld Lab, the
mouse-ratings logo, MacCentral.com, PriceGrabber, and Mac Developer Journal are registered
trademarks of International Data Group, Inc., and used under license by Mac Publishing, L.L.C.
Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple, Inc. Printed in
the United States of America.
Have comments or suggestions? E-mail us at [email protected].
Peter Cohen is the executive editor of The Loop (loopinsight
.com) and the cohost of Angry Mac Bastards (angrymacbastards
.blogspot.com).
Jim Dalrymple is the editor in chief of The Loop (loopinsight
.com) and blogs for CNet.
7
Also from the Editors of Macworld
iPhone and
iPod Touch
Superguide
4TH EDITION
Mac
GeMs
240+ Software Bargains
UPDATE
iPhoneFOR

AND
ios 
Get more insider tips, tricks, and
troubleshooting advice from
Macworld’s team of experts. Our
popular Superguide series offers
useful insights and step-by-step
instructions for the latest Apple
hardware and software.
D
tricks about your operating
system, set up a new Mac, learn
about your new iPhone or iPod
touch, and download great Mac
applications.
Each book is available in a variety
of formats. Choose from a downWhether you’re new to the world loadable PDF, a hi-res PDF on
CD, a printed book, or an e-book.
of Apple products or a seasoned
Go to macworld.com
pro, we’ll show you
/superguide to
how to master
Enter the code
order or preview
troubleshooting
MWREADER6
any of the
problems, disto get a discount
Superguides.
cover tips and
on your next
order.
8
1
Get Started
Before you can unleash your iPad’s power, you’ll
need to take a few minutes to get acquainted with
its hardware features—every button, switch, slot,
port, and plug—and we’ve put together a comprehensive visual guide to help you do just that.
Once you know the outside, it’s time for a software
tour. Learn how to activate your iPad from iTunes;
find out exactly what the difference between a
flick and a swipe is; and organize your on-screen
apps using folders and the Dock.
We’ll also show you how to tweak your settings to
your liking, and fill up your iPad with great thirdparty apps from the App Store.
Contents
iPad at a Glance
Page 10
Activate the
iPad
Page 15
Master Gestures
and Navigation
Page 18
Customize
Settings
Page 25
Find More Apps
Page 34
9
Chapter 1
Get Started
iPad at a Glance
It’s always best to start from the beginning. And the beginning, in this
case, is the outside of the iPad 2. Here is a quick guide to your iPad’s
switches, buttons, and ports.
10
Chapter 1
Get Started
A Front Camera The iPad 2 has two cameras: a 0.3-megapixel VGA
front-facing camera; and a 0.7-megapixel camera located on the rear of
the tablet. The front-facing camera is primarily designed for FaceTime
conversation, but can also shoot SD video and 640-by-480-pixel stills.
B Touchscreen Display The iPad doesn’t have a tactile keyboard or a
bunch of hardware buttons. Instead, you use its 9.7-inch LED-backlit
glossy widescreen glass display to surf the Web, compose e-mail
messages, navigate apps, and change settings. The screen has a resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels at 132 pixels per inch. It also has an oleophobic coating‚ so it’s easy to wipe off fingerprints and smudges.
C Home Button One of only four buttons on the device, and the only
one on the front of the iPad, the Home button primarily acts as an
escape option, though it can also help you manage your apps. When
you’re in an app, pressing the Home button will return you to your Home
screen, where all your apps are located (read more about the Home
screen in “Master Gestures and Navigation” later in this chapter).
If you double-press the Home button, you’ll pull up the multitasking
shelf, which allows you to see recently running apps and access device
shortcuts. If you’re already on your Home screen, pressing the Home
button will send you to the Spotlight search screen; if you have multiple
Home screens, pressing it will take you back to the first page. When the
device is off, you can wake it up by pressing the Home button once; a
double press while the device is awake and locked will bring up your
iPod controls.
11
Chapter 1
Get Started
m
D Sleep/Wake and On/Off Button Located on the top right of the
iPad 2 is the Sleep/Wake button. When your iPad is on, you can press
this button once to put it to sleep. To wake the iPad up, press the button
again, and slide your finger across the lock slider at the bottom of the
touchscreen to unlock it. To turn the iPad off completely, hold the
Sleep/Wake button down for a few seconds, until the Slide To Power
Off slider appears. To turn the iPad back on, press and hold the Sleep/
Wake button until the Apple logo appears.
E Back Camera The second of the iPad 2’s cameras is located along
the back of the device, in the upper left corner. This 0.7-megapixel
12
Chapter 1
Get Started
camera shoots 720p HD video and 720-by-960-pixel stills, and can be
used for FaceTime conversation, quick movie-making, or a still shot or
two. The software offers a tap-to-focus feature and a 5x digital zoom.
Sadly, the quality is largely below that of a point-and-shoot camera or
the iPhone 4.
F Side Switch The iPad’s Side Switch‚ located on the right side of the
tablet, near the top‚ can be set to lock the screen orientation or to act as
a mute switch, depending on your preference. In Settings, tap General,
and then tap Lock Rotation or Mute in the Use Side Switch To section. If
you choose Lock Rotation, toggle the screen-rotation switch on the side
of the iPad to expose the orange dot, and your iPad will stay in either
landscape or portrait view, regardless of how you’re positioning it. When
the rotation lock is engaged, a small icon showing a lock with an arrow
around it will appear on the right side of your status bar, near the
battery icon. If you select Mute in the settings screen, the switch will
control the iPad’s Silent mode, which mutes alert noises. Be advised that
you can still hear the audio from music and videos on the device’s
speaker when the iPad is in Silent mode.
G Volume Up/Down Buttons Directly below the Side Switch are the
iPad’s volume buttons. Press the top of the button (Volume Up) to
increase the volume and the bottom of it (Volume Down) to lower the
volume. You can also quickly mute the iPad by holding down the bottom
button for two seconds. These buttons affect app sounds, as well as
audio and video playback. You can make these buttons affect your alert
and ringer volume as well by enabling Change With Buttons in Settings
-> General -> Sounds -> Ringer And Alerts.
H Built-in Speaker You’ll find a speaker on the bottom right edge of
the iPad 2 (when facing forward). It will play anything that makes noise
on your iPad, including music, video, or app sounds. Because the iPad
has just one speaker, it only outputs mono (single-channel) sound. You
can also connect the iPad to third-party speakers via the headphone
jack, Bluetooth, or the dock-connector port.
I Dock-Connector Port To charge and sync your iPad, you use the
device’s 30-pin dock-connector port, on the bottom center of the
device. You can also use this port to hook up your iPad with third-party
accessories, such as Apple’s Camera Connection Kit. Keep in mind that
only some Macs and AC adapters can charge the iPad; others cause the
iPad to declare that it is not charging, although your computer shows
that the device is connected and able to sync. When plugged into the
13
Chapter 1
Get Started
included 10-watt USB power adapter, the iPad can charge while awake
or asleep. On high-powered USB ports—such as the ones on most
recent Macs—the iPad charges but it takes longer, according to Apple.
On Macs and PCs without high-powered USB ports, the iPad will charge
only in Sleep mode; when it’s awake, it will display a “Not charging”
message in the status bar at the top of the screen.
J Micro-SIM Card Tray Available only on the Wi-Fi + 3G (GSM) iPad
model, the micro-SIM card tray along the back left edge of the tablet is
where your GSM SIM card is stored. With one of these cards and a
cellular data plan, you can get 3G data service on your iPad. In the United
States, only AT&T offers an iPad service plan and micro-SIM card, but
since the iPad is sold unlocked (not tethered to a specific wireless
carrier), you can pop in any international carrier’s applicable micro-SIM
card while you’re abroad to receive 3G access. Even if you don’t have an
active 3G plan, you can still connect your iPad to the Internet over Wi-Fi.
To eject a micro-SIM card, insert the end of a paper clip into the small
hole adjacent to the tray and push.
K Headphone Jack Located at the top left edge of the iPad is a stan-
dard 3.5mm audio jack‚ the same type that’s found in iPods and iPhones.
You can use either wired or Bluetooth-enabled wireless headphones
with the iPad. If you plug in headphones that have a microphone, the
iPad will recognize it and allow you to use it for apps with audio-recording capabilities. Otherwise, the iPad will use its built-in microphone.
L Microphone The iPad’s internal microphone is on the top center edge
of the device, right above the front-facing camera. You can use it to
record audio in any app that supports audio recording.
M 3G Antenna (3G iPad only) For optimal reception, the 3G antenna in
your iPad is at the top of the device, housed under a black plastic shield.
14
Chapter 1
Get Started
Activate the iPad
Before you can start surfing the Web, reading novels, or typing e-mails
on your iPad, you have to activate it. Fortunately, doing so doesn’t
require filling out paperwork or standing in line at the Apple Store.
What You Need
In order to activate and sync your iPad, you’ll need a Mac or PC with a
USB 2.0 port, iTunes 10 or later, the connection cable that came with the
iPad, and an iTunes Store account. iTunes is not included in the iPad box,
so if you don’t have a copy, go to itunes.com/download and get it. In
addition, your Mac should be running OS X 10.5.8 or later; on a PC, you’ll
need Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP Home or Professional
(SP3). You’ll also need your Apple ID and password. If you’ve ever
bought songs from iTunes, what you use to log in there will be your
Apple ID; if you don’t have an Apple ID, you can create one for free by
going to appleid.apple.com.
Set It Up
When you first plug your iPad into your computer, iTunes will launch and
walk you through the activation process. The first screen will say “Let’s
Get Started” and will lay out the first two steps: registering your iPad
and setting up an iTunes Store account. If you don’t want to register
your iPad at the moment, you can click the Register Later button on the
left. If you’re ready to register, click the Continue button.
Next you’ll see the iPad Software License Agreement. Give it a read,
check the box confirming that you have read and agree to the license,
and click on Continue (if you’d like to look at this document again later,
click the Save button before clicking Continue).
The iTunes Account screen is up next. This is where you enter your
Apple ID and password to register your iPad. If you’ve ever purchased
anything from the iTunes Store, you should already have a login. If not,
click the radio button labeled I Do Not Have An Apple ID, then select
your country, and iTunes will walk you through the sign-up process.
15
Chapter 1
Get Started
Once you’re logged in, Apple will offer to sign you up for its MobileMe
service if you aren’t already a member. Skip this screen unless you’ve
already researched MobileMe and were just waiting for the best time to
sign up. (Read more about MobileMe here: macworld.com/6706.)
The Setup Your iPad screen is next. You can opt to set up the iPad as a
new iPad, or to restore from another backup that you can choose from
the drop-down menu. (You’ll also see iPhone and iPod backups listed
here.) If this is your first iPad, you can ignore the second option and click
Continue to start fresh.
The second screen in the Set Up Your iPad section has a few customization options. Here, you can enter a name for your iPad. Below the Name
field are three syncing options. Check as many of these boxes as you
like, or none at all. The first option is Automatically Sync Songs To My
iPad, which will fill your iPad with all the music it can fit from your iTunes
library. The second is Automatically Add Photos To My iPad, which fills
any space your music doesn’t already occupy with photos it finds in
iPhoto. The third option syncs any compatible apps you have in your
iTunes library with the iPad.
The iPad might seem to have a lot of memory, but it fills up fast. If you
have a lot of media already in iTunes, you may want to leave all three of
these boxes unchecked. Once you’re out of the setup screens and in the
main iTunes interface, you can manually choose exactly what songs,
videos, books, and apps you want to keep on your iPad. When you’ve
chosen your options, click Done.
Navigate the iTunes Interface
Congratulations—you’ve activated your iPad! Now, it’s time to add some
content. Immediately after you finish setup, you’ll be taken to your iPad’s
settings window within iTunes. You can also access this any other time
your iPad is connected by clicking the name of your iPad in the iTunes
Source list, under Devices.
Along the top of the window, you’ll see a row of buttons: Summary, Info,
Apps, Music, Movies, TV Shows, Books, and Photos. Each button will
take you to an individual screen that contains information and sync
settings for each category. Along the bottom of the window, you’ll see a
capacity bar (color-sorted by type of content) and a button to sync your
iPad (or, if you’ve made changes to any settings, Revert or Apply).
16
Chapter 1
Get Started
By default, connecting your iPad will bring you to the Summary screen.
Here, you’ll find three sections: iPad, Version, and Options. iPad will
display an icon of your iPad as well as its name, storage capacity, software version, and serial number.
Under Version, you’ll find two buttons: Check For Updates and Restore.
Click the first to perform a quick search and find out whether Apple has
posted a new version of iOS‚ the iPad’s operating system. If so, your iPad
will ask if you’d like to install it. Click the Restore button to take your
iPad back to its factory settings. This is useful if the device is having any
sort of major issues. For detailed troubleshooting advice, see the
Troubleshooting Tips chapter later in this book.
TIP
Hidden Info
Occasionally, you may
need to look up your
UDID (your iPad’s
unique identifier),
or—if you have a 3G
iPad—any of its
cellular numbers
(Cellular Data Number,
The Options section gives you a number of controls for fine-tuning how
your iPad and iTunes interact. The first, Open iTunes When This iPad Is
Connected, does what it says: automatically opens the application
whenever you connect your iPad. You can also sync only checked songs
and videos from your iTunes library; tell your device to load standard
definition video rather than high definition when there is a choice;
convert high-bit-rate songs (with a correspondingly large file size) to
smaller files; manually manage music and videos, which allows you to
drag items one by one to your iPad’s icon (rather than sync prespecified
chunks automatically); and encrypt your iPad backup. Additionally, you
can configure Universal Access preferences here (you can also do this
through Settings -> General -> Accessibility).
IMEI, or ICCID). You
can access this
information by
single-clicking on the
serial number text
(this appears on the
Summary screen in
We’ll cover each of the other tabs in more detail later in this book. For
information about syncing your contacts, calendars, mail accounts,
bookmarks, and notes, see the Connect and Communicate chapter; for
information about syncing apps, see “Find More Apps” at the end of this
chapter; for information about syncing music, movies, television shows,
podcasts, books, and photos, see the Multimedia chapter.
iTunes’ iPad section).
Click to cycle through
this information with
each click, starting
with the UDID. You
can’t highlight anything, but if for some
reason you need to
copy it, just press 1-C
on your keyboard.
17
Each time you connect it to a computer, iTunes will attempt to back up
all of your data. If you’d like to manage this manually, head to iTunes ->
Preferences -> Devices.
Chapter 1
Get Started
Master Gestures
and Navigation
Now that you have your iPad activated and running, it’s time to learn
how to use it. Your device is running Apple’s mobile operating system,
iOS, which uses multitouch gestures. But before you start playing, you’ll
want to know the basics of working with iOS and your apps, and what
they can (and can’t) do. In this chapter, we’ll walk you through basic
gestures, help you take control of navigating and organizing, and throw
in some typing tips.
Gestures and Techniques
If you’ve never before owned a multitouch device from Apple, you
may be unfamiliar with crazy phrases like pinch-to-zoom and the
difference between the flick and the swipe. Have no fear: While
some of these gestures may have odd names, they’re easy enough
to pick up.
Tap As clicking is to a desktop computer, so is tapping
to an iOS device. Tapping is the most common and
basic gesture on the iPad. You tap to open apps, bring
up controls, make choices from menus, and more.
Double-Tap Tap an object twice in succession to
effect a double-tap. Double-taps are primarily used for
zooming in or out on text, but third-party apps also use
the double-tap for various purposes.
18
Chapter 1
Get Started
Tap, Hold, and Drag For some functions‚
such as highlighting text, copying and pasting,
or deleting and moving apps‚ you’ll need to
tap and hold down on the screen. When you
do this on a piece of text, it will highlight in
blue, and editing handles—vertical lines with
blue dots—will appear on either side of the
highlighted area. You can tap, hold, and, while holding down, drag your
finger to increase or decrease the selection. Dragging also comes into
play for moving objects in apps, drawing, and swiping and flicking.
TIP
Inverse Scroll
All flicking and swiping
on your iPad is inverse,
meaning that when
you move your finger
down (in other words,
swipe down), you’re
actually moving
whatever is on the
screen upward. This
makes perfect sense in
Flick and Swipe Drag your finger across the
screen‚ up, down, left, or right‚ to swipe.
Swiping is one of the primary navigational
tools on the iPad: You use a left or right
swipe to move through app pages on your
Home screen or images in the Photos app;
you use an up or down swipe to read text in
Safari. It’s one of the easiest gestures to
learn. A flick is just like a swipe, only faster: The iPad supports inertial
scrolling, which means that the faster or slower you move your finger,
the faster or slower content will move. If you want to get to the bottom
of a page quickly, just flick your finger upward in a fast motion.
the real world, but
when you’re coming
from a computer,
where scrolling down
on a trackpad or
mouse actually scrolls
the window down, it
can be a bit disorienting at first. Why make
this clarification? In
this book, we refer
Pinch To zoom in or out, you’ll use the
pinch gesture (also referred to as pinch-tozoom). To zoom in or to open something,
place your thumb and index finger, pinched
together, on screen and spread them apart.
To zoom out, do the reverse: start with your
thumb and index finger outwards, and then
pinch them together.
several times to
“swiping right” to
bring up a left-side
navigational bar‚ which
can be confusing if you
don’t know about
inverse gestures.
19
Rotate You can even rotate some elements
with two or more fingers. Just place two
fingers on the screen and make a circular
gesture‚ clockwise or counterclockwise.
Chapter 1
Get Started
Navigation Basics
Without apps, your iPad wouldn’t be much fun. Thankfully, your iPad
comes with some stock Apple apps, and provides easy access to the App
Store. Here’s a quick overview on opening, closing, managing, and
deleting apps.
At the Start This is
the iPad’s Home screen.
It’s where you access
your apps and the
Spotlight functionality.
The Home Screen When you first turn on the iPad, you’re brought to the
Home screen (see “At the Start”). Here, you’ll see an assortment of icons
grouped into rows, and several more icons grouped in the silver Dock
along the bottom of the screen. The Home screen is where your apps live,
and where you can launch them. Because only 20 apps will fit on one
Home screen, you can organize your apps on multiple Home screens, or
app pages. Above the Dock, you’ll see a row of dots, with one dot highlighted in white to represent the Home screen you’re currently on; these
dots signify the number of app pages you have. Swipe left or right to go
from page to page.
20
Chapter 1
Get Started
All in a Line Your dock
holds your most
frequently used apps.
The Dock The silver translucent bar along the bottom of your Home
screen is called the Dock (see “All in a Line”). If you’ve tried swiping
between Home pages, you’ll notice the icons in the Dock don’t change.
That’s because the Dock is for apps you use frequently; instead of having
to swipe from page to page to find an app, you can drop it directly into
the Dock for easy access. You can store up to six apps in the Dock.
Search in Spotlight You can search for every e-mail message, Web
page, and app on your device, or search through Google or Wikipedia, by
swiping right on your Home screen until you reach Spotlight. To search,
just type your query in the text box at the top.
Open and Close an App Want to launch an app? To open it, all you have
to do is tap its icon. Once it’s open, you can return to the Home screen at
any time by pressing the Home button.
Rearrange and Delete Apps To rearrange the order of your icons, tap
and hold any icon on the Home screen. After a few seconds, all your app
icons‚ including the one you’re holding‚ will start to wiggle, and a small
black X will pop up in each icon’s top left corner (see “Organize Away”).
Once they do this, you can rearrange any apps on the Home screen, or
even drag them into or out of the Dock. If you’ve installed a third-party
app you don’t want anymore, you can tap the X to delete it from your
iPad. When you’re finished, press the Home button, and your icons will
stop wiggling and stay in their new location. You can also rearrange your
icons and Home screen pages through iTunes when you connect your
iPad to your computer (see “Find More Apps” later in this chapter).
Organize Away You
can rearrange apps by
dragging them into the
space where they
should be, or create a
folder by dropping one
app on top of another.
21
Chapter 1
Get Started
Use Folders Having a bunch of apps scattered about your Home screen
is OK if you have a small number of them, but when you start amassing a
collection, you can use app folders. A folder is a group of apps, represented by a single icon, on the iPad’s Home screen. Each folder sports
miniature icons representing the apps inside, along with an overall name.
When you tap a folder, the Dock fades and slides down, making room for
a view of the folder’s contents. Within, you’ll find the name and icon for
each app. Tap any app to launch it, or tap anywhere outside the folder to
return to the Home screen.
To create a folder, start by tapping and holding any app icon to enter
your iPad’s edit mode; after the icons begin to wiggle, drag an app on
top of another app. When you release the app, you’ll create a folder,
which will open and display both apps. By default the folder is named
based on the App Store category for one of the first two apps in the
folder. If you want to customize this name, just tap inside the field (while
still in edit mode) and enter something new. When you’re done, press
the Home button to exit edit mode.
To add another app to the folder, reenter edit mode and drag the
desired app onto the folder icon. Repeat until you’ve added all the apps
you want (up to 20 per folder), and then press the Home button to exit
edit mode.
To edit the folder itself‚ its name, contents, or the layout of the apps
inside‚ you can either enter edit mode and then tap the folder, or, while
the folder is open, tap and hold any icon inside (see “Group and Go”).
You can then tap the folder’s name to change it, drag apps within the
folder to rearrange them, drag an app out of the folder to return it to the
Home screen, or tap an app’s Delete button to completely delete it from
your iPad. Unlike apps, folders don’t have a Delete button; to delete a
folder, you must remove all the apps from it.
Group and Go When
rearranging apps, you
can also edit a folder’s
name by tapping it.
22
Chapter 1
Get Started
Multitask on Your iPad
Opening and closing an app is easy: Tap the app to open it, and then
press the Home button to close it. But when you exit, you’re not actually
shutting down the app: You’re freezing it in place, or sending it to run in
the background. This means you can have multiple active apps running
at any one time, and you can even switch between active apps without
returning to the Home screen.
Frozen Apps versus Background Apps Sometimes you need an app to
keep doing something when it’s not in the foreground. For that reason,
Apple allows apps to perform tasks in the background using several
tools. One of these tools is the push-notification system; another allows
apps that provide audio to keep playing while the user switches to
another app; and yet another allows tasks‚ such as photo uploads‚ to
continue running in the background even if you switch out of the
program performing the upload. If your third-party app doesn’t incorporate one of these background features, it will “freeze”‚ which is to say it
will remember whatever you were just doing, but not continue to do
anything further when you exit it.
Switch-a-roo You can
scroll between all
currently running or
frozen apps by flicking
left or right along the
multitasking shelf.
The Multitasking Shelf You can quickly switch between apps by
bringing up the multitasking shelf (see “Switch-a-roo”). To do so, quickly
double-press the Home button; a shelf below the Dock will rise up from
the bottom of the screen, showing off the apps most recently run. To
switch to a different app, tap on its icon.
Shelf Shortcuts In addition to holding a list of your most recently used
apps, the multitasking shelf has a couple of other neat shortcuts for
your iPad (see “Extra Controls”). If you swipe right, you’ll bring up a
secondary set of controls; here, you can lock your iPad’s orientation (or
mute your iPad, depending on how you’ve enabled it in the Settings
app), adjust the brightness and volume, and control the music currently
playing on your iPad (it defaults to the iPod app’s music library).
Extra Controls You
can mute your iPad or
change brightness,
volume, or your music.
23
Chapter 1
Get Started
Work with Text
Just as your computer has shortcuts and key commands for commonly
used tasks, your iPad has a variety of fun techniques you can use for
copying and altering your text.
Select Text There are two types of text you can select on your iPad:
editable and noneditable. To select noneditable text, just tap and hold on
the word or phrase you’d like to select; if the text is editable, double-tap
on the word. You can adjust this initial selection by moving the blue edit
handles that pop up on either side of your selection. While typing, you
can also pinpoint your cursor where you need it. Just tap and hold until a
magnifying loupe appears, and then drag your finger through your text
(see “As You Like It”). Drag the loupe around, and the text insertion
point will follow it so you can easily position the cursor exactly where
you want. When you release, the cursor will be in the desired spot.
Cut, Copy, and Paste Once you tap, hold, and release your text, you’ll
see the following options: Select (to select a word) and Select All (to
select everything). Pick one, and then choose Cut, Copy, or Paste, or
even choose a replacement word, if you’ve highlighted a misspelled
word. To paste a word, just position your cursor by tapping, then hold
down for several seconds until the Cut, Copy, Paste pop-up appears.
Check Your Spelling If you misspell a word, the iPad will underline it
with a red squiggly line. Tap and hold on an underlined word, and, to the
right of the Copy and Paste options, you’ll see a Replace button that,
when tapped, will give you suggestions for alternative words you may
have meant to type instead. If you don’t care to see your writing covered
in squiggly red lines, you can easily deactivate this spelling checker by
making a trip to Settings -> General -> Keyboards.
As You Like It Want to
highlight starting at a
certain letter? Just tap
and hold to bring up the
loupe, then drag to
where you’d like to start
highlighting or typing.
24
Chapter 1
Get Started
Customize Settings
To change and customize your preferences, you need only head over
to the Settings app from your Home screen. The app is split into
two columns: Along the left, you’ll find a listing for each individual
system setting, with entries for any downloaded apps below that;
along the right, you’ll see the contents of the currently highlighted
setting. We explain each system setting in detail below.
Airplane Mode
If you travel frequently, Airplane Mode is a necessity: It temporarily
switches off the cellular antenna and Wi-Fi, which could interfere with
the airplane’s navigational system. This allows you to safely use the iPad
in the air once the captain gives the all-clear; for airlines that offer
in-flight Wi-Fi service, you can reenable Wi-Fi without turning off
Airplane Mode by flipping the Wi-Fi switch in Settings.
Wi-Fi
The Wi-Fi listing in the left column displays your current connection
status (Off, Not Connected, or a network name). On the right, in the
main Wi-Fi screen, the first setting is a On/Off toggle switch. If you have
Wi-Fi turned on, a list of available networks will appear under the
Choose A Network heading. If you’re currently connected to a Wi-Fi
network, that network’s name will appear in blue and will have a checkmark by it. The bars by a network indicate its signal strength, and a lock
icon means it requires a password. Tapping the blue arrow to the far
right of a network’s name brings up its advanced connection information. To join an unlisted network, tap Other and enter an exact network
name. The final setting on this screen controls whether the iPad asks if
you want to join new networks when you’re out and about.
Notifications
A notification is a sound, a pop-up alert, or a badge on an application’s
icon that appears when an app needs to tell you something—for example, when you have a new instant message or it’s your turn in a game.
25
Chapter 1
Get Started
You can turn notifications on or off for all applications that use them, or
pick and choose what notifications to activate for each app listed.
Location Services
The iPad’s Location Services lets apps—both Apple’s built-in ones and
any third-party apps from the App Store—figure out where you are using
Wi-Fi networks. The iPad Wi-Fi + 3G model also uses cellular networks
and GPS to find your location. If you want to globally bar all software
from knowing your location, turn off Location Services. (You can turn
off access for specific apps by tapping the Location Services option.)
Cellular Data
These options are only available on the Wi-Fi + 3G iPad. The first option
here allows you to turn your data abilities on or off, and the second switch
turns Data Roaming on or off. This is very important if you travel abroad‚ as
data rates outside your home country will probably be exorbitant, and with
Data Roaming turned off, the iPad will simply abstain from using the cellular
data network when it’s outside its home territory. You can look over your
account and any data plan by tapping View Account; if you’re using a 3G
iPad with a GSM radio (in the United States, an AT&T iPad), you can also
add a password to your SIM for security reasons by tapping SIM PIN.
Brightness & Wallpaper
By default, the brightness of the iPad’s screen will adjust automatically
as it detects the lighting levels around it. You can turn this feature off
and manually adjust the brightness with the on-screen slider in the
Brightness & Wallpaper section. (There’s also a Brightness slider next to
the iPod controls in the multitasking shelf.)
The other setting in this section is for wallpaper. Your wallpaper image
appears whenever the iPad is locked or when you are on a Home screen.
Tap the preview images once to bring up your image collections. You can
assign the same photo for the iPad’s lock screen and Home screen, or
you can choose two separate backgrounds. You can choose an image
from Apple’s bundled patterns, from pictures you’ve synced with the
iPad’s Photo app, or from pictures you’ve taken with or saved to the iPad
(under the Saved Photos option).
26
Chapter 1
Get Started
Frame
When you wake up your iPad, you will see a small framed sunflower icon
to the right of your unlock slider. This is the Picture Frame icon, a
shortcut that allows your iPad to double as an animated digital picture
frame. Under the Picture Frame setting, you can choose between two
transitions‚ the classic Dissolve and a nifty folding Origami effect‚ and
select which photos you want the slideshow to pull from: all of the
photos on your iPad, or certain albums or events.
General
This section collects any miscellaneous system settings. From here you
can set the date, enable Bluetooth, and more (see “General Joy”).
About The About screen lists various details about your device, such as
legal information, the current Wi-Fi address, available memory, and the
serial number. You can also view the number of songs, videos, photos,
and applications you have.
Usage On the Wi-Fi + 3G iPad only, the Usage section contains the
Battery Percentage On/Off switch (the percentage itself is displayed in
the menu bar) and a summary of the amount of network data you’ve
General Joy In the General section,
you can find settings
that don’t necessarily
warrant their own pane.
27
Chapter 1
Get Started
sent and received. The Reset Statistics button makes it easy to zero out
all these values, as you might do at the end of a month.
Sounds In the Sounds section, you can use the volume slider to adjust
the volume, as well as turn sound alerts on or off—these are the alerts
that play when you receive or send mail, or get a calendar reminder.
When you set an alert, moving the slider next to it from Off to On will
preview the sound that plays for that event (unfortunately, you can’t
change the sound). You can also mute keyboard clicks and lock sounds
from here. Turn on the Change With Buttons setting to control the
ringer and alert sounds with the volume buttons on the side of the iPad.
Network In the Network menu, you’ll see VPN and Wi-Fi options.
Tapping Wi-Fi will bring up the same options you’ll find in the Wi-Fi tab
of the Settings menu. VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows outsiders to
securely tap into a private network. This comes in useful, for example,
when you’re offsite and wish to join your company’s internal network.
To set up a VPN, tap Add VPN Configuration. The Add Configuration
screen displays the three support options: L2TP, PPTP, and IPsec. Check
with your network administrator if you’re not sure which one to use.
Bluetooth When this setting is on, the iPad becomes discoverable over
Bluetooth and will search for compatible devices, such as headphones
and wireless keyboards.
Spotlight Search When you swipe left on the first page of your Home
screen, you can use Spotlight to search your entire device for apps,
messages, calendar events, and more. This preference lets you choose
what topics to include in a search and what order they appear in (for
example, relevant Mail messages first and applications second).
Auto-Lock After periods of inactivity, the iPad locks so that touching its
screen does nothing; you must wake it by pressing the Home or Sleep/
Wake button. In the Auto-Lock screen, you set the amount of time that
should pass before the iPad locks. Your choices are two, five, ten, or 15
minutes, or never.
Passcode Lock You can assign a four-digit passcode to your iPad so
that no one can use it without entering the passcode. Tap this entry and
select Turn Passcode On to pop up the Set Passcode screen. Use the
numeric keyboard to enter and verify a passcode. Once you’ve entered a
code twice, you have the option to turn it off, change it, or set whether
28
Chapter 1
Get Started
the iPad requires a passcode immediately or after a period of inactivity.
If you want more security than just a four-digit passcode, turn off the
Simple Passcode setting and enter any password you like, including
numbers, letters, or special characters. You can additionally use the
passcode lock on the Picture Frame feature, or set the iPad to automatically erase all its data after ten failed attempts to enter the passcode.
iPad Cover Lock/Unlock If you are using an iPad 2 Smart Cover, you
can turn this setting to On, and the iPad will automatically lock and
unlock when you close and open the cover. (For more information about
the Smart Cover, see the Accessories chapter.)
Restrictions This is the iPad’s parental controls section: Set a passcode, and
you can then lock users out of certain features. You can restrict installing and
deleting apps from the App Store, as well as access to Safari, YouTube, the
camera, FaceTime, the iTunes Store, and Ping. Additional controls prevent
changes to location services and accounts. In the Allowed Content section,
you can turn off the ability to make in-app purchases, choose a ratings
system for your country, and block access to explicit music and podcast
content. There are separate ratings entries for movies, TV shows, and apps,
which vary depending on your country. The final controls on this page
control allowing multiplayer games and adding friends in Game Center.
Use Side Switch To You can choose the function of the iPad’s Side
Switch, located on the top right side of the device above the volume
controls. If Lock Rotation is selected, toggle the Side Switch until the
orange dot is exposed, and your iPad will stay in either landscape or
portrait view, regardless of how you’re holding it. When Lock Rotation is
engaged, a lock with an arrow icon will appear on the right side of your
status bar, near the battery symbol. Alternately, if you decide to use the
Side Switch for volume, select Mute. When you toggle the switch, this
option will silence alerts and ringtones from FaceTime calls. (Note that
even when your iPad is in Silent mode for alerts, you’ll still be able to
hear audio from music and videos.)
Date & Time This screen lets you choose between a 12- and a 24-hour
clock. You can also set your date and time manually from here if you’d
rather your iPad didn’t set it automatically, and choose your time zone.
Keyboard Here you can turn on some useful keyboard shortcuts:
Auto-Capitalization will capitalize the beginning of a sentence; AutoCorrection will attempt to correct any misspelled words; Check Spelling
underlines words not found in the dictionary; Enable Caps Lock lets you
29
Chapter 1
Get Started
double-tap the Shift key to go into Caps Lock mode; and the “.” Shortcut
option lets you tap the spacebar twice to insert a period.
Beneath those options is the International Keyboards menu. Here, you
can choose which language-based keyboards your iPad will support. If
you opt for more than one language, a small globe key will appear to the
left of your spacebar when typing, allowing you to toggle between the
international keyboard options you selected.
Under each international keyboard listing, you may also optionally find a
setting for changing the keyboard layout. With the English keyboard, you
can change the layout from the default QWERTY to AZERTY or
QWERTZ; if you’re using a reconfigured hardware keyboard (like one
with a DVORAK layout, for example), you can let your iPad know here.
International From this menu, choose the language you’d prefer for the
iPad’s interface. In addition, you can set your keyboard options (see
above) and choose the format the iPad uses to display times, dates, and
phone numbers by default.
Accessibility Here, you can turn on any number of accessibility options:
VoiceOver (to enable spoken text), Zoom, Large Text, White On Black
(to invert the iPad interface), Mono Audio, and Speak Auto-text (which
will speak auto-corrections and capitalizations aloud). Within VoiceOver,
you can also change the Speaking Rate, as well as whether to Speak
Hints or use Typing Feedback, Phonetics, or Pitch Change. You can also
enable a Bluetooth braille keyboard from this setting, or change Web or
Language Rotors. Additionally, you can enable a shortcut for turning on
VoiceOver, White On Black, Zoom, or Ask (which allows you to select
any of the three) using a triple-press of the Home button.
Reset You’ll find the Reset screen useful if your iPad behaves strangely
or if you simply want to start from scratch. Reset All Settings will reset
the iPad’s settings but won’t delete any media. Erase All Content And
Settings will erase settings as well as data and media, essentially wiping
your iPad clean. Reset Network Settings will take you back to the
device’s original network settings. Reset Keyboard Dictionary will return
the iPad’s dictionary to its default settings. Reset Home Screen Layout
will move all the icons on your Home screen back to their initial positions. Reset Location Warnings will require all apps to reconfirm that
you’d like to give them your location data.
30
Chapter 1
Get Started
Mail, Contacts, Calendars
The Mail, Contacts, Calendars screen is the hub of all settings pertaining
to your mail, contacts, and calendars.
Accounts From the Accounts area, you can see your existing accounts,
add new ones, and modify the settings for each existing account. For
standard POP and IMAP mail accounts, tap on the name of the account
to edit the usual litany of mail settings, including server names, usernames, and passwords. (For more about adding accounts, see “Check
and Send E-mail” in the Connect and Communicate chapter.)
Fetch New Data In the Fetch New Data section, you’ll choose how often
your iPad connects to the Internet to gather new mail and contact and
calendar data. It lets you choose how often updates are pushed through,
from every 15 minutes to hourly. Choose Manually, and it’ll only check
when you tell it to.
Mail Here you can choose the number of messages that display, how
much of each message appears in the preview, and the minimum font
size to use. You can also set Mail to show To and Cc labels, to ask before
deleting a message, to load remote images, to organize e-mail by thread,
and to always Bcc you on sent e-mail messages. You can also change or
remove the signature (the default is “Sent from My iPad”).
Contacts In the Contacts section, you can control how contacts are
sorted and how their names display (either First, Last, or Last, First).
Calendars In the Calendars area, you can choose to be alerted to new
invitations after syncing calendars, set how far back in time the calendars
should sync, and pick the time zone in which you want to display items.
Safari
Here, you can choose a default search engine: Google, Yahoo, or
Bing; decide whether to show the Bookmarks Bar; enable a Fraud
Warning alert for fraudulent Websites; enable JavaScript; block
pop-ups; and set your Cookies settings. You can also clear the
history, cookies, and cache. Clearing the cache, in particular, can
help solve issues, like constant crashing, that you may be having
with Safari on the iPad. You can also turn on the Debug Console
under Developer to help diagnose Web page errors.
31
Chapter 1
Get Started
Perhaps the most important item on this screen, however, is AutoFill,
which can save you time by automatically filling out Web forms with
your contact information or with usernames and passwords you’ve
previously entered. When you turn on the Use Contact Info slider, you’ll
be able to select your default contact in the My Info field. In this screen,
you can also turn the Names And Passwords option on or off, and tap on
Clear All to delete saved information.
iPod
The iPod entry in Settings contains music options such as Sound Check,
EQ, and maximum audio volume. You can also turn Lyrics & Podcast Info
on, which allows you to get song lyrics and information about podcasts
when an audio file is playing.
The Home Sharing option allows you to stream music from your local
iTunes library on your home computer to any of your iOS devices. To
use this feature, you must first log in with the Apple ID you have
synced with your computer. Once you’ve connected it with your iPad,
if you go into the iPod or Video app, you should be able to see any
shared libraries from computers that use your Apple ID on your local
network. (For more information on enabling Home Sharing, see
“Share and Stream” in the Multimedia chapter.)
Video
The Video screen lets you control whether you want videos to
always start playing from the beginning or pick up where you last
left off, and turn closed captioning for videos on or off. If you’re
connecting your iPad to a TV, you can toggle widescreen format on
or off, and set the iPad to output in either NTSC (standard in North
America and parts of Asia) or PAL (the rest of the world).
Photos
The Photos screen offers settings that control the slideshow feature‚
how long each image appears on screen, whether the slideshow repeats,
and whether to shuffle the photos.
32
Chapter 1
Get Started
FaceTime
You will need an Apple ID to use FaceTime on the iPad. Log in, sign up
for a new account, and manage current Apple IDs and e-mail addresses
from this screen.
Notes
The Notes section allows you to switch the default font in the Notes app
from Marker Felt to Noteworthy or Helvetica. It’ll even update all your
existing notes to use your new font choice. You can also set your default
sync account for Notes.
Store
This screen holds your iTunes account credentials. If you are not logged
in with your Apple ID, you’ll be given two options: Sign In or Create New
Account. Once you’re signed in, you can select View Account (to see
your payment and contact information) or Sign Out.
Other Apps
Some third-party apps downloaded from the App Store will also store a
portion of their individual settings here. These will appear under the
Apps heading in the left column of the Settings screen, listed alphabetically by app name.
33
Chapter 1
Get Started
Find More Apps
While Apple has a number of apps preinstalled to help you manage your
calendars, e-mail, Web browsing, photos, and more, you may want to
venture outside the sandbox for more varied fare. The App Store, which
you can access on your iPad or via iTunes on your Mac, features more
than 11,000 made-for-iPad apps and more than 225,000 apps for all iOS
devices. If you have something you want to do on your iPad, chances are
you can find a way to do it using the App Store.
App Basics
The iPad can run almost every one of the App Store’s iOS apps, but only
certain apps are specifically designed for your device’s larger screen.
There are three types of apps in the store: iPhone and iPod touch only,
iPad only, and Universal.
Apps that are iPhone and iPod touch only will run on your iPad—but not
full screen. This means when you first launch the app, it’ll appear about
half size (about the size of an iPhone) in the center of the screen (see
“Alas, Poor App”). You can make it full screen‚ using a technique called
Alas, Poor App An app
designed only for the
iPhone or iPod touch
will run on the iPad, but
at half size, or, if you tap
the 2x button, full size
but pixelated.
34
Chapter 1
Get Started
pixel doubling‚ by tapping on the 2X button in the lower left corner of
the screen, but that will make the picture slightly fuzzy, and you’ll be
stuck using the iPhone-designed keyboard.
In contrast, iPad-only apps are designed natively for the iPad’s screen
resolution and features, but will not run on an iPhone or an iPod touch.
Universal apps are built to work natively for the iPhone, iPod touch, and
iPad. In the App Store, a little plus sign (+) next to the price of an app
tells you it’s Universal.
Navigate the App Store on the iPad
On the iPad, you can access the App Store by tapping the blue App Store
icon on your Home screen (see “Get Thee to an Appery”). The store is
divided into five tabs: Featured (Apple’s special picks), Genius (apps
suggested based on your personal taste), Top Charts (showcasing top
iPad-friendly apps), Categories (all iPad apps, sorted into primary
categories), and Updates (go here to download updates and patches for
your currently installed iPad apps).
Featured and Top Charts are both great places to start looking for
recommended apps, and you can search the entire App Store from
either tab using the search bar in the upper right corner of the screen.
Get Thee to an
Appery You can
browse, download, and
update your programs
from the App Store app.
35
Chapter 1
Get Started
The Featured tab includes New And Noteworthy, Staff Favorites, and
special banner features on the page, which the team at Apple updates
every week or so. For more app options, you can also sort by New,
What’s Hot, and Release Date.
Scroll to the bottom of the page while in Featured, and you’ll find a
Quick Links section, where you can view App Of The Week, Apps From
iPad TV Ads, and Game Of The Week, in addition to several other
highlighted sections. Below this section, you’ll find a direct link to your
account (or an option to sign in or create a new account), a Redeem
button for cashing in iTunes gift cards, and a Support button, which
launches Apple’s iTunes Support Website in Safari. Below all of this is a
link to the iTunes Store’s terms and conditions.
The Genius tab displays apps similar to those you’ve already downloaded. For privacy reasons, Genius is turned off by default; to enable it, go
to the tab and tap Turn On Genius. Top Charts displays the top ten paid,
free, and highest-grossing iPad apps in the App Store; you can view up
to 60 by tapping Show More under any of the lists. You can also sort
these app charts by category. The Categories tab organizes apps into
sections by release date, and allows you to browse through every page
of apps within that category. You can also sort by Name or Most Popular.
You’ll need an App Store account to download anything‚ even free apps‚
so if you don’t have one, head on over to the Featured tab, scroll down
to the bottom of the page, and tap Sign In. If you don’t have an account,
tap Create New Account; otherwise, tap Use Existing Account to sign in
with your Apple ID and password. You can change and link your credit
card information from within the app (though you can also do this from
your desktop computer). To download an app, tap its price once to
highlight the green Buy App button, then tap once more to confirm the
purchase; you’ll be prompted for your password as a security measure.
Like the makers of desktop software, iPad app developers regularly
upgrade their apps to add new features and fix problems. When your
device detects updates for your installed programs, a red badge on the
App Store icon will show the number of updates available‚ though
sometimes that number won’t update until you relaunch the App Store
app. Launch the App Store and tap the Updates section of the App Store
window to choose whether to update one or all of your apps to the
latest versions. You can also update your apps from the Applications
section in iTunes on your Mac; the updates will transfer to your iPad the
next time you sync it with iTunes.
36
Chapter 1
Get Started
Manage Apps in iTunes
Once you amass a collection of apps, downloading, organizing, and
deleting them on the iPad can be a bit of a pain. Thankfully, you can save
your fingers from tapping and dragging exhaustion and do all of this
from iTunes.
Download Apps On your computer, you can download any app available
in the App Store from iTunes. From the Source list, select the iTunes
Store, click the App Store tab at the top, and click the iPad option
underneath the tab to weed out all non-iPad apps. You’ll see a rotating
banner showcasing Apps Of The Week, New And Noteworthy, What’s
Hot, Staff Favorites, and random rotating app collections curated by the
App Store team. A column to the right will display Quick Links to common App Store categories as well as charts for the Top Paid, Free, and
Grossing apps (see “O True App-othecary”).
When you select an app in iTunes, you’ll see a description of what it
does, a few screenshots of the app, and customer ratings. (To review or
rate an app yourself, you must be logged in and own the app in question.) You’ll also find other useful info on the app’s page. For example,
you’ll see the app’s category, age rating, and file size‚ handy to know if
you’re short on space. Underneath the app’s description, you’ll find the
URL of the developer’s Website.
To download an app, click the button below its icon that lists its price.
(As on the iPad, you’ll need an Apple ID and password to purchase or
O True App-othecary The App Store on
iTunes pretty closely
resembles its iPad
counterpart in looks
and functionality.
37
Chapter 1
Get Started
download any app.) Once you’ve bought an app, it will download to your
Apps section in iTunes, found in the Source list. Within this section, you
can see a list of your apps, organized by app type (iPhone and iPod
touch, iPad, or all three) or genre, though you can’t actually open any
app on your computer. In the lower right corner, you can check whether
updates are available for your apps or navigate directly to the App Store
to look for more.
Sync Apps from Your iPad Every time you connect your iPad to your
computer, it automatically backs up any content you’ve purchased while
out and about. Apps you’ve downloaded on your iPad will be copied to
the Apps section in iTunes.
While by default all the apps found in iTunes will be synced to your iPad,
this can get unwieldy once you build up a collection (or if you have other
iOS devices, like an iPhone or an iPod touch, synced to your computer).
So you can also pick and choose the apps you’d like to sync from your
iPad’s Apps settings pane within iTunes (see “Bag and Baggage”).
Once your iPad is connected to your computer, click on it in the Source
list and click the Apps tab at the top of the pane. You’ll see a comprehensive list of all the apps you own in a column on the left side of the
pane, including iPhone-only apps as well as iPad-only and Universal apps.
On the right side is a preview of your iPad’s Home screens and app icons.
Bag and Baggage All your apps—both
iPhone and iPod touch
only, and iPad—are
catalogued here for
your selection.
38
Chapter 1
Get Started
You can sort these apps by name, kind, category, date, and size. If you’d
rather only see iPad-friendly apps, you can select the Show Only iPad
Apps option. To load an app onto your device, click the checkbox to the
left of the program’s icon; to remove the app, click the checkbox again.
Below the column on the left side is a checkbox that allows you to
automatically sync any new apps you’ve purchased in iTunes to your
iPad. Check this if you’d rather not have to manually check the box of
any new app you’ve downloaded every time you sync.
Organize Apps Next to the column of installed apps in the Apps tab,
you’ll see a preview of your Home screen(s). Click and drag an app icon
to move its location; if you see an app you’d like to remove, mouse over
it and click the X that appears over the top left corner of the app icon.
You can also create folders from iTunes. If you drag an app onto another
app, after a slight delay, a folder is created‚ just as if you’d performed the
same action on your iPad. You get the same editable folder name, and
you can rearrange icons within the folder. Since you’re using a computer,
you don’t need to click and hold to enter the jiggling-icon edit mode; you
can click and drag anytime. Similarly, to edit an existing folder, just
double-click it.
Add Files to Your Apps Below app management, you’ll find the File
Sharing section. While your apps, on the whole, do not interact, some
Apple and third-party apps allow you to add files to them from your
computer, by way of iTunes. (If you have no apps that support file
sharing, this section won’t appear.) You’ll see a list of apps installed on
your iPad that can share files through iTunes. Click on one in the Apps
list and you’ll see any files you’ve already added to, or created on, the
iPad on the right, along with their creation date and size. (For more
information on adding files to your apps, check out “Sync Files” in the
Productivity chapter.)
39
2
Connect and
Communicate
Apple calls the iPad “the best way to experience
the Web, e-mail, photos, and video.” Now that you
have your iPad set up, it’s time to learn how to best
take advantage of these keystone features. In this
chapter, we’ll be focusing on how to get online,
communicate, and find your way around. We’ll walk
you through getting connected (via Wi-Fi or 3G),
browsing the Web with ease, setting up and
writing e-mail, video chatting over FaceTime, and
navigating with Maps. We’ll also suggest some
related third-party apps that can fill in the gaps or
expand upon the features in the built-in software.
Contents
Get Connected
Page 41
Browse the
Web
Page 48
Check and Send
E-mail
Page 56
Video Chat with
Friends
Page 65
Navigate with
Maps
Page 69
40
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Get Connected
The iPad comes in three models: Wi-Fi only, and two versions of Wi-Fi +
3G—a GSM model, which uses AT&T’s 3G network, and CDMA, which
uses Verizon’s. All three can connect over wireless home and business
networks, but only Wi-Fi + 3G iPad owners can take advantage of the 3G
cellular network—assuming they’ve signed up for a data plan. You can
check which kind of network your iPad is connected to in the upper left
corner of the screen: When on Wi-Fi, you’ll see an upside-down pyramid
representing the signal strength (the more bars there are, the stronger
the signal); on a cellular network, you’ll see a row of vertical white bars
(again, more bars means a stronger signal) with the word 3G next to it.
Connect over Wi-Fi
Both the Wi-Fi–only iPad and the 3G iPad can connect over wireless
networks. These are fairly common in homes and businesses, but they’re
not available everywhere, and your network speed depends on your
local Internet connection.
Pair Up It’s easy to
connect your iPad to an
available Wi-Fi hotspot
using the Settings app.
41
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
To turn Wi-Fi on, head into Settings, where you’ll see the Wi-Fi option
on the left side. (Alternatively, you can find the same preferences within
General -> Network.) To the right of the option, you’ll either see Off, if
you have the setting turned off; Not Connected, if it’s turned on but not
connected; or the name of the network currently in use, if Wi-Fi is
turned on and connected.
Tap the option to bring up the Wi-Fi preference pane (see “Pair Up”). By
default, Wi-Fi is off; to turn the iPad on, simply tap the On/Off switch.
This will turn on the Wi-Fi antenna and display a list of networks currently in range, if any. Each one will list—from left to right—its name,
whether it requires some sort of password authentication (if it does,
you’ll see a small lock symbol), the strength of the signal, and a small
blue arrow (for detailed information).
Tap a network to connect to it. If the network is protected, you’ll be
prompted for a password; otherwise, you should connect automatically.
If you don’t see your network listed—if it’s hidden, for instance—tap
Other to enter its name and security information, if it has any, so that
you can connect to it.
Once you’ve connected to a network for the first time, your iPad will add
it to a list of friendly hotspots, and in the future will attempt to look for
and join it automatically. If you ever want your device to forget a network, simply tap the little blue arrow to the right of its name, then tap
Forget This Network. The blue arrow also gives you access to internal
information about the hotspot, such as its IP address and DNS.
At the bottom of the Wi-Fi settings panel, you’ll see the Ask To Join
Networks option. If this is on, while you’re out and about and not connected to a Wi-Fi network, your device will prompt you with a list of
available hotspots to connect to.
Connect over 3G
If you own a 3G-capable iPad, you can also—for a monthly fee—connect
over a cellular data network. In the United States, both AT&T and Verizon
provide iPad 3G service over their respective networks. Unlike the iPhone
3G and other such services, this is a contract-free plan—you can sign up or
discontinue it at any time. In addition, you can manage your 3G service
entirely from the iPad—there’s no need to go into a carrier retail location
or Apple Store to activate or reconnect your service.
42
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Data Breakdown View
your account, toggle
data on or off, and
enable roaming from
the Cellular Data
settings pane.
Know Your 3G Plan Options There are two ways to set up a cellular
data plan. If you try to access the Internet on your 3G-capable iPad while
you’re out of range of a Wi-Fi network, the device will automatically
prompt you with a pop-up window asking if you’d like to sign up for a
plan. If you proceed, you’ll be taken to the Cellular Data account window,
where you can activate 3G service then and there. Alternatively, you can
set up, monitor, and discontinue 3G data service at any time by going to
Settings -> Cellular Data (see “Data Breakdown”).
There are several options within the Cellular Data settings pane: an
On/Off toggle to enable or disable the use of cellular data on your iPad
(see “3G Data Usage Tips” later in this chapter for more information); an
On/Off toggle for data roaming (to control international use); View
Account, which lets you set up and view your cellular data plan; and—if
you’re using the GSM version of a Wi-Fi + 3G iPad—SIM Pin, which lets
you set a private code for your iPad’s SIM card (to prevent others from
activating it for 3G use).
To sign up for a plan, tap View Account to bring up the Cellular Data
Account window. When creating a new account, your iPad will request
your name, telephone number, and e-mail address, and ask you to create
a password. After you do that, you’ll be asked to choose a monthly plan
(see “The Choice Is Yours”).
43
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
The Choice Is
Yours When signing up
for a data plan, you’ll be
able to see each option
and its pricing.
3G Plans In the United States, you have the option of choosing either
AT&T (GSM) and Verizon (CDMA) for your service provider. Because
each network relies on a different antenna setup, there are different
versions of the iPad for each; as a result, you’ll want to decide which
network you want to use before purchase.
AT&T offers two options for your iPad: 250MB of data for $15 a month,
or 2GB of data for $25 a month. Verizon, on the other hand, provides
four different options: 1GB of data for $20 a month, 3GB for data for $35
a month, 5GB of data for $50 a month, or 10GB of data for $80 a month.
These 3G plans are prepaid and contract-free—that means you pay at
the beginning of the month for your service, and you can disconnect and
reconnect it at any time without penalty. In the United States, however, if
you already have a wireless account with AT&T (say, if you use an
iPhone), you can choose a post-paid plan: Instead of paying at the
beginning of the month, you can incorporate your iPad’s 3G service into
your monthly cellular bill. Unfortunately, if you wish to activate this
option, you’ll have to sign up in an AT&T store or from the company’s
Website—you can’t do it directly from your iPad’s Settings screen.
It’s important to note that while these plans don’t require a contract,
they do rebill automatically every 30 days, so if you only want to sign up
for a month’s worth of service, you’ll have to manually cancel by going to
44
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
View Account -> Add Data Or Change Plan -> Cancel Plan. (We only
provide U.S. pricing here—international readers should check Apple’s
Website in their country for providers and data rates.)
Once you’ve picked your plan, enter your billing information. You’ll have
to agree to your cellular provider’s terms and conditions, confirm that
your billing information, address, e-mail, and data plan selection are
correct, then tap Submit. You’ll be billed immediately for the first month,
and then, assuming there were no problems, you’ll receive a message
saying your data plan was successfully activated.
Monitor Your Usage Once your plan is active, you can change it, add
more data, or check your usage by tapping on View Account within the
Cellular Data pane in Settings. Log in with your e-mail address and the
password you set up to gain access to your account information.
Within Account Overview, you can see your current data plan, how much
of it you’ve used, the remaining amount of time you have in which to use
it (data does not roll over month-to-month), and your monthly billing
period (see “Just the Facts”). This screen also gives you the option to
add data or change your current plan, add an international data plan, or
edit your user and payment information.
Just the Facts The
Cellular Data Account
window displays your
current data plan, as well
as options to add data
or change your plan or
user information.
45
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Your iPad will automatically send pop-up notifications when you’ve hit
the 20 percent, 10 percent, and 0 percent marks for data remaining on
your plan each month, and will give you the option of signing up for
more data at each of these points. Otherwise, you can simply go into
your account and add more data by tapping on the Add Data Or Change
Plan button within Account Overview.
Add International Data If you’re going on a trip outside the country and
want to take advantage of that country’s 3G network to continue your
work, you’ll want to sign up for an international data plan. To do this,
navigate to Settings -> Cellular Data -> View Account. After signing into
your account, tap Add International Plan.
Unlike domestic plans, these plans are only valid for one month, to
prevent accidental charges—you must re-up at the end of each month
spent abroad. Also, you must enroll in a domestic plan before you can
buy any international data.
In the United States, AT&T offers four data options for international
travelers: 20MB for $25, 50MB for $60, 100MB for $120, and 200MB for
$200. Choose one of these plans, enter a start date, and agree to AT&T’s
terms of use; the company will bill you when the plan starts using your
current customer information on file. Unfortunately, Verizon customers
have no such international options—but then again, the CDMA wireless
standard Verizon employs is not as common outside the United States.
3G Data Usage Tips
Since your monthly data is not unlimited, you may find that you go over
your allotment or use it too quickly. Here are a few good ways to conserve data and make sure your plan lasts.
Tune Out Plan on keeping Cellular Data set to Off unless you specifically need 3G access. By continually leaving it on, you allow any background activities that require Internet access (checking e-mail, for
example) to eat up your data. You can, of course, separately disable
those actions, but keeping Cellular Data turned off removes any chance
of accidental usage.
Turn Off Push In Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars, tap Fetch New
Data, and set Push to Off and Fetch to Manually or to a less frequent
schedule (see “Fetch, Boy”). If either Push or Fetch is enabled, your iPad
46
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Fetch, Boy Keep your
background data
slurping to a minimum
by turning off Push, or
by reducing how
frequently Mail checks
for new information.
will regularly receive or retrieve mail and other updates. (Note: If you
turn off Push and Fetch, Find My iPad will no longer work for tracking a
wayward iPad.) Apple automatically prevents the download of large
attachments, but if you receive piles of e-mail each day, you could waste
megabytes having messages pushed to you immediately instead of
waiting to retrieve them at a Wi-Fi watering hole.
View Streets, Not Satellites A single page of Google satellite-view data
in the Maps app consumes about 1MB. In Classic view, which shows only
road outlines, Maps munches data a little less quickly. Tap the page-curl
icon in the corner of the Maps app, and tap Classic in the Maps section.
Avoid High-Maintenance Apps Streaming video from a third-party app
like Netflix (macworld.com/6473) will fast-forward through your
allowable data at the rate of hundreds of megabytes per hour.
47
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Browse the Web
Now that your iPad is connected, you can browse almost everything the
Internet has to offer. Apple’s popular desktop browser, Safari, has been
adapted for mobile use and comes standard on every iPad. While the
mobile version has some limitations (it doesn’t support plug-ins like
Flash or Java), Safari can still usually get you anywhere you want to go.
Safari Basics
A blue compass icon represents mobile Safari. By default, Apple puts the
app in the iPad’s Dock, but you can move it elsewhere if you choose. Go
ahead and tap the icon to open the browser. With the added screen real
estate, the iPad version of Safari looks remarkably similar to its desktop
counterpart. Everything you need to navigate Safari is along the app’s
top brushed-metal bar. From left to right, here’s a breakdown of the
features and options available to you.
A Navigation Arrows Tap either the backward (previous) or forward
(next) button to travel through your current Safari window’s history.
B Multiple Windows The stacked pages icon allows users to open up
to nine different Safari windows for an optimal browsing experience. Tap
the icon to bring up window view; you can remove or add new pages
from this screen by either tapping the New Page option or selecting the
black X in the upper left corner of the window.
C Bookmarks and History To access your device’s history and book-
marks, tap the open-book icon, which will launch a pop-up window
showcasing your device’s favorites—including Bookmarks Bar selections,
if you have them enabled.
D Save and Share The Share icon (represented by an arrow escaping
from a rectangle) allows users to add the current page to their bookmarks, create a Web Clip by adding it to their Home screen, mail the
page link, and print the contents of the page.
A
B C D
E
G
48
F
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
E Enter URLs If you know the Web address of the site you're looking to
access, simply enter the URL in the field. On the right side, a small
circular arrow allows you to refresh the page. You can look up previously
viewed pages and URLs by typing a descriptive word into the toolbar; as
you type, mobile Safari will generate a list of matching results from your
history and favorites. When Safari is loading a page, the circular refresh
arrow will turn into an X. Tap this X (or tap on the URL itself) to stop the
loading process.
F Search the Web or the Page You can search the Web with Google,
Yahoo, or Bing using the text field to the right of the URL field. (To set
your preferred search provider, open Settings -> Safari and tap the
Search Engine option.) You can additionally use this field to search
within the page; underneath the search engine results, you’ll see On This
Page with the number of results for your term on the current page. Tap
Find "term" to go through and see all highlighted matches for your
word(s) within that page. You can also do another in-page search from
this view (see “Seeking Words”).
G The Bookmarks Bar Though it’s not turned on by default (you can
turn it on by going to Settings -> Safari -> Always Show Bookmarks Bar),
this bar—which sits directly below the main toolbar—allows you to
create a horizontal list of favorite Websites for easy access.
Seeking Words To
search the contents of a
page, you can use the
search field on the
toolbar and scroll to the
On This Page section.
49
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Navigate Safari
The iPad has a large, crisp screen; however, as most Websites opt to let
the device load the full-content versions (as opposed to presenting a
mobile version, which you’ll often see on an iPhone or on other small
portable devices), default Website text can sometimes be too small to
read. You can easily fix this using the iPad’s multitouch gestures.
Scroll and Zoom Just like on an iPhone, you can double-tap a paragraph
of text, picture, or other nonlinked area on a page to zoom in, and
double-tap again to reverse. If you want to magnify the page further, you
can use iOS’s pinching gestures and pinch out to expand an area.
You can scroll up, down, left, or right by dragging your finger across the
page in the desired direction. Flick your finger and the page will scroll on
its own with virtual momentum; to stop the motion, tap the screen or let
it come to rest on its own.
Interact with Links You can navigate almost any page by tapping links.
Tapping an e-mail link opens a new message right inside Safari; if you
have more than one e-mail account, your device will use your default
account as your return address, but you can choose a different account
before sending. Tapping a map link opens the Maps app with the destination already specified (see the “Navigate with Maps” section later in
this chapter for more about your device’s mapping features). If you tap a
link to a supported audio file (AAC or MP3 up to 320 Kbps, Audible,
Apple Lossless, WAV, or AIFF format) or video file (H.264 or MPEG-4),
mobile Safari will play the media right from the browser.
To enter text while on a page, tap a text field; Safari will zoom in on it
and bring up the on-screen keyboard. In this text-entry mode, Previous
and Next buttons let you quickly jump between text fields without
having to zoom back out. If you encounter a scrolling box or list on a
Web page, you’ll find that scrolling with one finger won’t do the trick, as
that scrolls the entire page. Instead, zoom in on the box and then use
two fingers to scroll.
Browse Your History If you’re trying to find a Website you’ve visited in
the past, tap the Bookmarks icon in the toolbar. Make sure you’re in the
topmost menu in the resulting pop-up by tapping the named arrow in
the top left corner (tip: if there’s no arrow, you are where you need to
be). Then tap History to get an in-depth view by date of your past
Website visits.
50
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Want to clear your history? You can either clear it from the Bookmarks
pop-up window (by navigating into the History folder and tapping Clear
History in the upper right corner of the window) or by going to Settings
-> Safari -> Clear History. Unfortunately, in either case you have to clear
your entire browsing history, as there’s currently no way to remove
previously viewed Web pages individually.
Add, Manage, and Share Websites
If you repeatedly visit a Website, you may want to bookmark it or create
a Web Clip for easy access in the future.
Add a Bookmark If you’ve found a Web page you can’t live without
regularly visiting, tap the Share icon in the toolbar and then tap Add
Bookmark (see “My Favorite Sites”). This will summon a pop-up window
that asks you to name the page and choose where you’d like to keep it
(if you have any bookmarks folders). If you’ve enabled the Bookmarks
Bar feature within Settings, you can also place the bookmark there by
selecting the Bookmarks Bar folder.
Add a Web Clip Sometimes a Website is so important you’d like to have
a more permanent link to it outside Safari. Web Clips allow you to turn
any page into a faux app on your device’s Home screen—you’ll see an
My Favorite Sites To
add a bookmark, you
simply need to name it,
make sure the URL is
correct, and choose a
place to store it.
51
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
icon and a name for the page, but it will launch in mobile Safari when you
tap it. To add a Web Clip, navigate to the desired Web page and tap the
Share icon, then tap Add To Home Screen. The resulting pop-up will
show a preview of the Web Clip icon and ask you to come up with a
clear, concise name for it.
Manage Bookmarks from Your iPad You can keep your bookmarks
organized and delete those you’re no longer interested in from the
Bookmarks icon in the toolbar or, alternatively, from your computer.
From the Bookmarks pop-up, tap the Edit button in the upper right
corner in any folder to delete or reorder your bookmarks. From here,
you can delete any bookmark or folder—except for the History, Bookmarks Bar, and Bookmarks Menu folders—by tapping the minus sign (–)
next to it. If you want to alter a URL (for example, if you bookmarked a
specific page on a site, but really wanted to bookmark its home page),
tap the bookmark’s title while in Edit mode. The resulting pop-up allows
you to change its name, URL, and location within the Bookmarks folder.
To move a bookmark to a higher or lower position within its current
folder, enter Edit mode and drag the triple gray line icon to the right of
the bookmark’s name up or down. Unfortunately, you can only reorder
bookmarks within the same folder this way; to move it into a different
folder, you must tap the bookmark itself to edit it. You can also create a
new folder while in Edit mode by tapping the New Folder button, which
appears in the upper left corner of the pop-up window.
Manage Bookmarks from Your Computer Although your iPad gives
you most of the tools you need to manage your bookmarks, you can also
use the Web browser on your Mac or PC to edit and organize them.
iTunes will then let you sync bookmarks with the desktop version of
Safari (Mac and PC; Windows users can get Safari at apple.com/safari)
or Internet Explorer (Windows only).
To set up bookmark syncing, plug your device into your computer, then
open the device’s preferences in iTunes. Click the Info tab and scroll
down to the Web Browser section, where you’ll find an option to sync
Safari bookmarks. When this is selected, any changes you make in your
desktop Web browser will be reflected in the bookmarks on your device
the next time you sync, and vice versa. Incidentally, if you have Apple’s
MobileMe service, you can do all of this syncing over the air—no manual
sync required.
52
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Sharing Safari Using
the Share icon, you can
mail a link to or print
the current Web page.
Share a Web Page Found something hilarious or intriguing during your
search that you’d like to share with a friend? You can e-mail or print it
directly from mobile Safari by tapping the Share icon (see “Sharing
Safari”). Select Mail Link To This Page to open up a Mail message with
the name of the Website and the link embedded within it. Just type the
e-mail address of your recipient and tap Send—or tap Cancel if you’ve
decided not to send an e-mail after all—and you’ll be returned to the
Web page you were previously viewing. You can also print the current
page by tapping Print; in the resulting pop-up window, you’ll be asked to
select a compatible printer and the number of copies you want.
Safari Tips and Tricks
Once you’ve gotten the hang of basic browsing, here are a couple of tips
and tricks to really make your browsing experience the best it can be.
Do More with Links and Images By tapping and holding any link for a
few seconds, you’ll get a pop-up that not only shows the link’s full URL,
but gives you the option to open it, open it in a new page, or copy the
link to the Clipboard (see “Option Away”). Perform the same gesture on
an image, and you’ll see an additional option, Save Image, that will
download it to your Camera Roll.
53
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Jump to the Top If you’re midway down a long Web page but need
access to the beginning, tap the top of the Safari toolbar to jump back to
the start.
Use Typing Tricks You might notice that when you’re typing URLs or
e-mail addresses, the keyboard changes to accommodate useful keys,
such as the period (.), slash (/), and .com suffix. In addition, you can tap
and hold the .com button to bring up a variety of alternate address
endings, such as .net, .org, .edu, and, if you have any international
languages installed on your device, those URL country codes.
Master AutoFill Save typing time and brain space by taking advantage
of Safari’s AutoFill feature. To get started, go to Settings -> Safari ->
AutoFill, then turn on the Use Contact Info option and select which
contact you’d like to use as your default. Next, turn on the Names &
Passwords option.
When you enter your login for a Website and tap Submit, Safari will ask
whether it should remember that information. If you tap Yes, the next
time you visit that site, you can simply tap the AutoFill button to insert
your username and password. If you change your login information in
the future, AutoFill will detect when you enter a new password or
Option Away Tapping
and holding on a link or
image will open a
pop-up menu with
additional options.
54
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
username and ask if you’d prefer it to remember this new combination.
Finally, if you want a fresh start, the Clear All button in Settings -> Safari
-> AutoFill will delete all saved login information.
Troubleshoot Like all programs, especially those that interact with the
Web, Safari can occasionally experience slowdowns or display erratic
behavior. To fix these problems, you can try clearing Safari’s cookies and
cache by heading to Settings -> Safari -> Clear Cookies or Clear Cache.
(For more on troubleshooting, see the Troubleshooting Tips chapter.)
Third-Party Web Apps
Safari may be more than adequate for most of your Web surfing needs,
but sometimes you need to call in a specialist. In that case, you’re in luck:
The App Store is right at your fingertips, and sports thousands of
iPad-optimized applications, including plenty that can give your browsing
experience that extra oomph.
Mercury Web Browser Pro If Safari isn’t getting it done for you,
iLegendSoft’s Mercury Web Browser Pro packs a ton of options and
niceties that Apple opted to leave out of its own mobile browser. Unlike
the mobile edition of Safari, Mercury offers browser tabs, customizable
themes, download and unzipping support, unique multitouch shortcuts,
ad blocking, screen dimming, and more. The free light version limits you
to two tabs and displays ever-present ads, but the paid pro version
eliminates those restrictions ($1; macworld.com/7150).
Twitterrific For Twitter aficionados, the Iconfactory’s Twitterrific for
iPad puts your timeline front and center, complete with color-coded
tweets: green for your own, brown for mentions, blue for direct messages. Every tweet in your timeline has controls that let you reply to it,
see other replies to that author, show any conversation, translate the
tweet, e-mail it, or mark it as a favorite. The free version is ad-supported
and only allows one account—if you want to upgrade to multiple accounts and banish the ad, you can only do so via a $5 in-app purchase
(free; macworld.com/5024).
55
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Check and Send E-mail
With the iPad, Apple claims, you can “see and touch your e-mail like
never before.” While that may be technically true—there’s never been a
9.7-inch tablet running Apple’s Mail e-mail client—if you’ve ever used
Mail on an iPhone or iPod touch, the experience will seem quite familiar.
Connect Your E-mail Accounts
In iTunes, you have the option to sync your existing e-mail accounts via
iTunes. On a Mac, you can transfer accounts from Apple Mail. On a
Windows PC, you can transfer account details from Windows Mail
(included with Windows Vista), Microsoft Outlook Express (Windows
XP), or Outlook.
If you skipped this step, or if you’re using Web-based e-mail, you can also
set up these accounts directly on your iPad. Head on down to Settings ->
Mail, Contacts, Calendars and tap Add Account (see “Click and Go”).
Apple has worked with most major e-mail providers to create automatic
Click and Go If you
have a Microsoft,
MobileMe, Gmail,
Yahoo, or AOL account,
you can quickly set up
your e-mail.
56
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
setup for these accounts so you don’t have to remember any complicated settings beyond your username and password; if you use a custom
provider, you’ll have to set things up manually. Note that you’ll need to
have an e-mail account with one of these services or with an ISP before
setting it up on your device.
Automatic Setup If you have a Microsoft Exchange, MobileMe, Gmail,
Yahoo, or AOL account, you can set up your account automatically with
nothing more than a username or password. Just tap whichever provider
you have an account with and you’ll be asked for your name (what you
want to appear on your e-mail messages from this account), e-mail
address, password, and a description (usually just your e-mail address, but
you can name it something clever like “Personal” or “Spam Account”).
Once you’re finished filling out the form, tap Next, and your account
should configure automatically.
If you’re configuring a MobileMe, Gmail, or Exchange account, you’ll be
asked if you want to sync your Calendars and Notes—and in MobileMe’s
case, Bookmarks—in addition to your mail.
MobileMe Alias Support For a MobileMe account, the service gives you
the option to create up to five e-mail aliases—essentially, additional
addresses that redirect to your main e-mail address. For example, if your
official MobileMe address is [email protected], you could set up an
alias of [email protected] to use for mailing lists and another of
[email protected] that you provide when you shop online.
When you link your MobileMe address and account to your iPad, it will
automatically add those aliases as potential From addresses for messages you’re sending. Just tap the From field—your MobileMe aliases will
appear alongside your various e-mail accounts. Choose one to use it as
the From address for that message. (If you configured your aliases
before Mac.com changed to MobileMe, the list shows both the old and
new options for each alias: [email protected] and [email protected].)
Manual Setup If you’re using a different service provider for your e-mail,
or if you want to add an LDAP, CardDAV, or CalDAV account for your
contacts and calendars, tap Other when choosing what kind of account
to set up (see “Advanced Options”).
When setting up a mail account manually, first choose which type your
provider supports—IMAP or POP. Then enter the appropriate information in the various fields. This will include your name, e-mail address, and
57
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Advanced Options Mail’s Settings allows
you to manually set up
any special Mail,
Contacts, and Calendar
accounts you have.
account description, just as with the previous option; the incoming and
outgoing server addresses; and your username and password.
To set up a CalDAV account, you’ll have to know your server, username,
and password; adding a subscribed calendar requires that you know the
URL for that calendar. Once you’ve entered the appropriate information,
the calendar in question will download its events. If you’ve got multiple
calendars on a CalDAV account, such as Google Calendar, you’ll have to
add a separate account for each of them.
To set up an LDAP or CardDAV account, you’ll need to enter the server
address, and a username and password. Your iPad will then attempt to
connect via SSL; if that fails, it will connect in the clear, or unencrypted.
Once your account is set up, you can search the directory from within
the Contacts application. If you’re sending an e-mail, Mail will automatically search the directory for you as you enter a name.
Mail Preferences Tweak your mail display settings and other important
features in Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars. To access specific
e-mail settings, tap your account to bring up the Account Info pane.
Here, tap Account -> Advanced to access more specific settings, such as
enabling SSL security for incoming and outgoing mail, as well as setting
an IMAP path prefix (if your e-mail provider requires it).
58
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
In the Account Info pane, you can also temporarily turn an e-mail account
off by moving the Account slider to Off (if it’s a MobileMe, Gmail, or
Exchange account, slide the Mail slider to Off). Your device won’t check
the disabled account for new mail, and it won’t appear in the Mail app,
until you reactivate it.
Below the Accounts section, you can change various display settings for
the Mail app, including how many messages each inbox displays, how
much of each message you see before tapping it, what font size is used,
and more. The Signature option allows you to change your e-mail
signature from the stock “Sent from my iPad,” or you can omit the
signature entirely. (Unfortunately, unlike many desktop e-mail clients,
Mail for iOS offers only a single signature.) If you’re using more than one
account, you can also choose a default address for sending e-mail when
you’re in other programs.
Work with Mail
Now that you’ve got your Mail accounts set up and working, you can
head on to the app itself (see “Unification”). Tap the Mail icon on your
Home screen to launch the program. If you have more than one e-mail
account, you’ll be able to take advantage of the unified inbox feature,
Unification Mail on the
iPad allows you to
access all your accounts
in one inbox.
59
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
which gives you the option of seeing all your messages in one inbox,
rather than having to check each account for new messages.
Like most iPad apps, Mail offers portrait and landscape orientation. In
landscape, the screen is divided into two columns: The left side contains
your mailboxes and message list, while the actual body of the message
takes up most of the right side. In portrait, your mailboxes and message
lists are accessible only by pop-up menu, with the highlighted message
taking up the majority of the screen. (This guide assumes you’re primarily using Mail in landscape orientation, though most of what we describe
carries over to portrait mode.)
Navigate Your Inbox Tap an account or your inbox along the left side to
browse your mail. Flick your finger up and down to scroll, and tap the
top of the column at any time to scroll the list back up to the most
recent message.
You can search within your inbox or whatever mailbox you have selected
by tapping the Search bar at the top of the column. At the bottom of the
left column, Mail will tell you when it last checked for new e-mails—you
can manually refresh this by tapping the Refresh arrow to the left of this
time stamp.
In the inbox, you’ll see a preview of each message, including the sender,
the time it was sent, the subject line, and, if desired, a few lines of text
(how many lines appear—none to five—depends on your Mail settings).
Unread messages display a blue dot to the left, while mail you’ve replied
to or forwarded has small arrow icons to the left.
Mail displays only a limited number of messages at once—you can
change this by going to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars. If you have
more than that number of messages in your mailbox, scroll to the
bottom and tap the Load More Messages option. (The total number of
messages still on the server will appear below this.)
Tapping the left-arrow button at the top of the screen takes you up a
level; repeatedly tapping this button will eventually return you to the
main Accounts screen. If you want to move or trash several e-mails, tap
the Edit button in the upper right corner of the column. To select
messages, you need only tap them once—at the bottom of the column,
you’ll see a running tally of how many you’ve selected (see “Natural
Selection”). Tap Delete or Move to trash your messages or move them
elsewhere, respectively.
60
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Natural Selection You
can eliminate or move
messages in batches
using Mail’s Edit feature.
Organize Mail by Thread Mail on the iPad offers a way to automatically
group messages that are part of the same exchange or discussion. When
you receive a message in reply to a previous message that’s still in your
inbox, all the messages in the conversation are grouped into a single
entry. This message displays a small numeric badge indicating how many
messages are in the thread. Tap this discussion item and, instead of
viewing the contents of the previewed message, you’ll see a list of all the
messages in that conversation, or at least all that remain in your inbox—
if you previously filed older messages elsewhere, they won’t appear.
The threaded-discussion feature also works with messages filed into
other folders; however, a grouped message thread includes only messages residing in the same folder. If you prefer not to see your conversations in threads, you can turn this feature off for all accounts—it’s an
all-or-nothing setting—using the new Organize By Thread setting in
Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
Read E-mail To view an e-mail message (and thus mark it as read), tap
its title. E-mails appear much like they do in a desktop e-mail program.
However, to conserve screen space, Mail limits the number of headers
that appear at the top of the message: By default, you’ll see only the
From field, subject, and date and time information. To see other header
information, such as To and Cc fields, tap the Details button. Tap Hide to
make this information disappear again.
61
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
While viewing a message, you can quickly go to the next or previous
message in your inbox by tapping the up and down arrows at the top of
the screen, and, although it’s not obvious, you can mark a previously read
message as unread by tapping Details. This reveals a Mark As Unread
option; tap it, and the next time you view your inbox, the message will
display the unread indicator.
View Attachments When you receive an e-mail message with an
attachment, tapping that attachment’s icon will display a preview of the
document, if it’s a file the iPad can display. Alternatively, if you tap and
hold, Mail will present additional options. The first is always Quick Look,
which gives you the same preview as if you’d simply tapped the attachment’s icon. Next is Open In app name, which lets you open the attachment in the installed iPad app that presents itself as the preferred app
for that type of file. The third option is Open In, which presents all the
apps on your iPad that the OS believes can open that type of file (see
“Alternate Apps”). Of course, which options you get—the preferred app
and the apps that appear when you tap Open In—depends on what you
have installed on your iPad. If the e-mail includes multiple images, there
will be an additional option to save all of the images at once. If you don’t
have time to download images, you can disable remote image loading.
Go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars and move the Load Remote
Images slider to Off. (You can still load images manually within a message.)
Alternate Apps If Mail
can’t figure out the
correct app for a
document attached to
an e-mail, you can easily
open it in another
installed application.
62
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Jot It Down You can
create a new message
by tapping the New
Message button; a blank
e-mail will drop down.
You can add pictures
with copy and paste.
Delete Messages There are several ways to delete a message. If you
have the e-mail open, simply tap the trash-can icon in the upper right
corner of the screen. The message will be sucked into the Trash and the
next message will appear. Alternatively, you can batch-delete messages
by tapping the Edit button in the upper right corner of the left column,
then selecting the messages you wish to trash. And you can delete a
message in your inbox, or in any other folder, by swiping your finger
across the message and then tapping the red Delete (or Archive) button.
Send E-mail The simplest way to send an e-mail is to tap the New
Message icon in the upper right corner of the screen. A new message
will pop up, ready for you to enter the e-mail address of the person you’d
like to send it to, the subject of the message, and the body text. Unfortunately, you cannot attach documents or photos from this New Message
screen unless you use copy and paste (see “Jot It Down”).
To reply to an existing message, tap the arrow to the left of the New
Message icon. This will bring up three or four options: Reply, Reply All (if
there was more than one recipient), Forward, or Print. If you forward a
message that originally included attachments, you’ll have the option of
including those files or just forwarding the body of the message.
If you want to send a new message to the sender of an existing message, tap the person’s name in the From field, and then tap his or her
63
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
e-mail in the resulting pop-up window (if the person isn’t in your contacts, you’ll also have the option of adding him or her as a contact).
You can also Cc and Bcc recipients; the latter option will hide those
addresses from other recipients. If you want to remove a recipient
before sending a message, just tap the To or Cc field, tap the recipient
address, and tap the Delete button on the on-screen keyboard.
Once you’ve finished your e-mail, tap Send. If you have multiple
accounts, your message will by default be sent from the account in
which you created it; you can change that by tapping the Cc/Bcc, From
field, and then again on the From field. That will bring up a selector
that allows you to pick any of your addresses.
E-mail Pictures Even though there’s no button to directly add attachments in Mail, you can still add pictures to your e-mails in several ways.
From the Photos app, you can e-mail up to five photos (see “Photos and
Illustrations” in the Multimedia chapter). While this method imposes a
specific photo limit, you can alternatively copy as many as you like and
paste them into an e-mail. You can also copy and paste images from
other e-mails or applications. Tap and hold an image until the Copy
command pops up. Tap it, then return to your e-mail. Tap and hold
anywhere inside the body of your e-mail until the Paste button appears,
then select it to place your image. Repeat until you’ve added all the
images you want, then tap Send. When sending, Mail will offer to resize
your photos (to send them faster)—you can choose between Small,
Medium, Large, or Original Size. (Third-party apps may have options for
you to e-mail other things, such as documents.)
64
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Video Chat with Friends
For times when hearing a friend’s or relative’s voice just isn’t enough,
there’s FaceTime. With FaceTime, not only can you talk to your friends
and family, but you can see them too. So if you want to wave good night
to your kids while you’re on a business trip, or chat with loved ones
across the country, it’s as easy as a few taps.
Note that to use FaceTime, you must be on a Wi-Fi network—it won’t
work over the iPad’s 3G connection. You’ll also need a friend with a
FaceTime device—an iPad 2, an iPhone 4, a fourth-generation iPod
touch, or a Mac—who’s also on a Wi-Fi network. It’s additionally worth
noting that FaceTime is strictly a one-on-one affair—those looking for a
group video calling solution will have to find it elsewhere.
Activate FaceTime In order to use FaceTime, you’ll need to log in with
your Apple ID. Go to Settings -> FaceTime and enter your Apple ID and
password (the same combination you use to buy apps or media). Tap
Sign In. (If you don’t already have an Apple ID set up, you have the option
to create one here.) Once you’re signed in, you’ll need to associate your
account with an e-mail address, if you haven’t already done so. (Note
Alternate E-mails You
can add more FaceTime
addresses from the
Settings app.
65
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Face Off Once you log
in and launch FaceTime,
you’ll be greeted with a
split-screen view of
your iPad’s front-facing
camera and a list of
your contacts.
that if you haven’t used your address with FaceTime before, Apple may
first send you an e-mail to verify that you own the account in question.)
You can also add multiple e-mail addresses for FaceTime; if you do so,
you’ll have the option to choose which address you’d like the call to
come from (see “Alternate E-mails”).
Launch FaceTime Tap the FaceTime icon on the Home screen of your
iPad to get started (see “Face Off”). You’ll be greeted by a two-pane
view that shows a video of yourself on the left and a list of your contacts, pulled from the iPad’s address book, on the right. You can also
view a list of recent FaceTime calls by tapping the Recents button on the
toolbar in the bottom right; you’ll see the name of the contact and when
the call took place. For more information, you can tap on the arrow icon
next to the entry. If you want quick access to certain contacts, you can
tap the Favorites button next to Recents.
Make a Call To actually place a FaceTime call, tap on one of your
contacts’ names to see his or her information. If you’re calling someone
on another iPad 2, a fourth-generation iPod touch, or a Mac, you’ll want
to tap that person’s e-mail address. For contacts on an iPhone 4, you can
tap either an e-mail address or a phone number. If you already know
which e-mail address your contact has associated with FaceTime, you’ll
66
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
see a blue video camera icon to the right of the address. Otherwise,
you’ll have to find out from your friend which address to use, or figure it
out with a little trial and error.
On the Call Once your friend accepts your call (and we’re sure he or she
will), that person’s image should occupy the majority of the iPad’s
screen, with your own mug shot relegated to a small picture-in-picture in
one corner. You’ll also see three controls at the bottom: Mute, End Call,
and the Camera toggle (see “Switcheroo”).
Tapping the Mute icon will silence your audio; you’ll still be able to hear and
see your conversation partner and he or she will be able to see you, but
your screen will dim and you’ll see a big mute icon in the middle. Tapping
the icon again at any time will restore your audio, while tapping End Call, as
you might expect, will terminate your FaceTime call. The Camera toggle
lets you choose whether to show your conversation partner the image
from the iPad’s front-facing camera (presumably you) or the rear-facing
camera (if you want to show what you’re looking at).
If you have a pressing need to return to your Home screen while on a
call, you can do so by pressing the Home button once. You’ll still be able
to speak with your partner, but he or she will see an overlay on their
screen noting that video call is paused, along with a freeze frame, until
you resume the call. In order to resume the call, tap the green bar at the
Switcheroo While on a
call, you can A mute, B
switch cameras, and C
end the call.
67
A
C
B
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
top of iPad’s screen or navigate back to your Home screen and tap the
FaceTime app again.
Add a Favorite If there’s someone you find yourself calling a lot, you
probably don’t want to have to burrow down through your contact list
every single time you’re going to make a call. Instead, add him or her to
your favorites. While viewing your friend’s contact info, tap the Add To
Favorites button at the bottom and choose which phone number or
e-mail address you’d like to add. (You can add multiple numbers or
addresses by repeating this process.) Once you assign a contact to
Favorites, you’ll see a blue star next to that entry in your address book.
Alternatively, tap Favorites on the toolbar and then tap the plus button
(+) in the top right corner. Tap the contact you want to add to Favorites,
and then tap the e-mail address or phone number you’re looking for.
Receive a FaceTime Call Because FaceTime runs in the background
once you’ve set it up, you can get a request for a video chat at any time.
A full-screen preview will take over your screen, showing your live video;
a title bar at the top that says your contact name would like FaceTime,
along with a contact image; and two buttons that allow you to either
Decline or Accept the call.
Third-Party Communication App
If video chat isn’t your thing, you can still talk online using this app.
BeejiveIM for iPad Face-to-face chatting is great, but the moment’s not
always right. Instead, use BeejiveIM for iPad: This text-based chat app
allows you to have multiple conversations with people on AIM, Facebook,
Yahoo Messenger, and more. Plus, you can send pictures and voice
memos, and view links in an in-app browser ($10; macworld.com/7231).
68
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Navigate with Maps
Few things are more frustrating than trying to unfurl a full-size map
while driving or walking around. With Maps on the iPad, you can view,
zoom, and get directions for almost any destination in the world—without the hassle or clutter of toting around paper maps. The 3G iPad even
comes with a built-in compass and GPS receiver.
Get Oriented
Apple’s built-in Maps app uses Google Maps to deliver search results,
driving directions, satellite views, street views, and more, so it’s no
surprise to see the little Google logo in the lower left corner of the
screen when you first open the app (see “Mapped Out”).
If you’re using a 3G iPad, you’re lucky enough to have a Global Positioning
System (GPS) receiver, which lets your device figure out exactly where it
is by triangulating radio signals from satellites in orbit. The iPad uses
Assisted GPS, which essentially means that the device’s search for GPS
Mapped Out The app
uses the entire 9.7-inch
screen for displaying
routes and roads.
69
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
information is assisted by computers at cell phone towers, improving
speed and reliability. (The Wi-Fi–only iPad, while it lacks GPS, can still use
Wi-Fi to get an approximate position if it’s connected to a network.)
Maps is quite robust: It allows you to search in street, hybrid, satellite,
and terrain views; find directions; check traffic; locate your position; and
add bookmarks. You can change the type of map you’re looking at by
tapping the page curl in the lower right corner of the screen. You have
four options from which to choose (see “Topography Tricks”).
Maps allows you to navigate in two modes: Search and Directions. You
can change modes by tapping one of the buttons in the top toolbar.
Search and Discover
By default, Maps starts out in Search mode. In this mode, the toolbar
contains—along the right side—the GPS location arrow, the Bookmarks/
Recents/Contacts pop-up, and a text field for conducting searches.
Find Your Destination Tap the text field to start your search, and the
on-screen keyboard will pop up. (If you’ve used the search bar before, a
list of recent searches pops up below the text field.) As you type, Google
Topography
Tricks You can toggle
different views in Maps
from the page curl:
Classic displays streets
and other geographical
features in a basic
schematic view;
Satellite shows
overhead satellite
imagery; Hybrid is a
combination of these
two; and Terrain
combines street
navigation with
topographical terrain
maps.
70
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
will offer suggestions as to where you might want to go. You can search
for a thing (“beach”), a place (“Zuma Beach”), or a specific address
(“Malibu, CA”).
Once you tap Search, Google will look in your current area (or the area
you specify) for places that match your terms, and will drop a series of
pins on items it thinks may be related. If you find the cluster of pins
visually confusing, you can opt for a list. Next to the search field, you’ll
notice a white-lined gray icon to the right of your search term—tap it to
see all of your results in list form.
Tap any pin, then the information symbol to the right of its name, to
bring up more-detailed information about the location (see “Read All
About It”). You can find its full address, get directions either to or from
the location, add it to your bookmarks, share the location, or add it to
one of your contacts. You can also enter street view (if available) by
tapping the photo of the location within the pop-up window.
Use Bookmarks, Recents, and Contacts You can access saved
addresses, recent searches, and contact addresses through the Bookmarks pop-up in the toolbar. Bookmarks stores any addresses you’ve
added as regular locations, while Recents brings up your latest searches
and directions. You can use any of these locations—in Bookmarks,
Read All About It Tap
a pin to get a phone
number, address, and
more options.
71
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Recents, or Contacts—by simply tapping them. If you want to clean up
your information, you can clear recent locations by tapping the Clear
button in the upper left corner, or edit and delete bookmarks from the
Edit button in the same location. To edit the address for a contact,
you’ll have to go into Contacts.
Use GPS To find your current location, simply tap the location arrow
once. It will turn blue, and after a few moments, you’ll see a little blue
pulsating dot on the main map. While the Wi-Fi–only iPad doesn’t have a
GPS receiver, it will use available Wi-Fi base stations to triangulate its
signal. If it’s unable to get a direct lock, you’ll simply see a larger blue
circle. This means your device’s GPS or Wi-Fi receiver can’t accurately
pinpoint your location, and is locating you in a general area. Tap the dot,
and an address for your current location will pop up, along with two
symbols. The orange circle on the left brings up Street View, while the
information symbol on the right displays your current address, as well as
several options: getting directions to and from your location, adding the
location to one of your contacts, sharing the location with others, or
adding it to your bookmarks.
If you have a 3G iPad, you can also use directional GPS, thanks to the
device’s built-in compass. Once you’ve found your initial location, tap the
blue arrow in the toolbar to activate it. The arrow changes to a smaller
arrow with a shining beam of light, indicating that directionality has been
activated. On the map, your blue dot also gains a beam of light, indicating your general direction on the map. You’ll also see a compass rose in
the top right corner of the map, showing you which direction is north. To
exit from this mode, just tap the location arrow in the toolbar once more
or drag your finger anywhere on the map.
Get Directions
Even though Maps doesn’t feature spoken turn-by-turn navigation, you
can still use it to get from point A to point B. To enter Directions mode,
tap the Directions button in the upper left corner of the toolbar. The
search bar will expand into two different fields—Start and End—with an
s-shaped arrow in the middle. Tapping the arrow at any point will swap
whatever you have in those two fields—useful if you’ve navigated
somewhere and now want to know how to return home.
Tap either field to bring up the keyboard. Directions mode also gives you
access to your most recent searches, but adds a bookmark for your
72
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Recalculating You can
get step-by-step
directions from Maps
once you’ve calculated
your route.
current location to the top of the list, making it easy to find directions
from your present position. Once you fill out both fields, you’ll be able to
tap the Search button.
Although by default Maps searches for driving directions, once you make
your initial directions search, you can select either public transportation
or walking for alternate routes to your destination. When you search for
directions, a small blue bar pops up at the bottom center of the screen.
Tap the car icon for driving directions, the bus for public transportation,
or the person for walking directions.
The middle of the blue bar tells you what kind of directions they are (car,
public transit, or walking), where you’re going, how many miles it is, and
your approximate travel time. On the right side, the blue Start button
provides a step-by-step breakdown of where you need to go. Tap it to
get started (see “Recalculating”).
When you enter turn-by-turn mode, the left side of the blue bar changes
to a single button with white lines on it. Tap it, and the slim blue bar on
the bottom is replaced with a pop-up list on the left side of the screen,
showing all the steps to get to your destination. Tap any step, and the
map zooms in on that point. To exit turn-by-turn mode, simply tap the
rectangle in the upper left corner of the pop-up.
73
Chapter 2
Connect and Communicate
Third-Party Navigation Apps
Google Maps adroitly handles the basics of maps and navigation, but if
you’re looking for turn-by-turn spoken directions or deeper information,
you might need to look farther afield. Thankfully, there are plenty of
map-related apps on the App Store to help fill out your roster.
Google Earth You can go beyond maps with Google Earth, which lets
you zoom around the world, finding points of interest and viewing
close-up satellite pictures. When you’re focused on a specific spot, you
can reuse the search field to look for restaurants, parks, or other nearby
places, all of which then get highlighted. Tapping on any of those
locations exposes a small popover window with the spot’s address and
phone number, along with a Web link to Google’s search listing for the
spot in question (free; macworld.com/4331).
MobileNavigator If it’s directions you’re looking to beef up, Navigon’s
MobileNavigator has a set of strong features, including an excellent
computer-generated text-to-speech voice, the ability to keep a strong fix
on the GPS and refresh streets smoothly, and good 3D animation. It’s
also a universal app, so it works on both the iPhone and the iPad without
requiring that you buy multiple versions. The software pops up several
unobtrusive but useful navigation aids, including lane diagrams on
multilane roads, highway signs to make exit choices clearer, and nextnext-turn indicators, showing the direction and nature of the turn after
the current turn ($35; macworld.com/7232).
74
3
Productivity
Yes, the iPad is fun and entertaining, but it’s also a
practical device that serves as a productivity tool.
You can use the iPad to stay organized with the
included Calendar, Notes, and Address Book apps.
Even though it lacks a physical keyboard, the iPad
makes a great mobile office. Apple has turned its
iWork suite into three iPad apps—Pages, Keynote,
and Numbers—that you can use to read and create
documents directly on your iPad.
Once you have Apple’s iPad software figured out,
you can expand your iPad’s abilities with powerful
third-party productivity apps.
Contents
Get Organized
Page 76
iWork on the
iPad
Page 85
Microsoft Office
and Google Docs
Page 96
Sync Files
Page 99
Print from the
iPad
Page 106
75
Chapter 3
Productivity
Get Organized
The iPad comes stocked with Apple’s basic apps for organizing your life.
Keep on top of your day-to-day activities with the Calendar, use your
iPad as a scratchpad for to-do lists and ideas with the Notes app, and
keep track of all your acquaintances with Contacts.
Calendar
Need to know what’s happening next in your life? The iPad’s Calendar
app lets you see recent and upcoming events, as well as enter new ones.
You can even set alerts in Calendar so you don’t miss a thing. The
Calendar app has a nice embossed background reminiscent of a physical
day planner, but beyond that, it’s very much like Apple’s iCal application
for Mac OS X, except that it’s a little better­—it’s more responsive and
provides more-flexible views of your schedule.
View the Calendar Tap the Calendar app from your Home screen to
bring up the main calendar view. Along the top of the calendar screen are
four buttons that bring up different view options: Day A, Week B, Month
C, and List D. To the right is a Search field E that displays a drop-down
menu of possible event matches as you type search terms. At the bottom
is a slider that lets you jump ahead or back in time, and a Today button to
bring up the current day. Tap the Calendars button in the upper left corner
of the screen F to see a list of all calendars currently synced with your
iPad. You can select one or multiple calendars, or tap Hide All Calendars.
Each calendar is color coded, so you can tell what items belong to which
calendar. An Invitations button next to the Calendars button will display
any event invitations awaiting response.
f
a
b
c
d
e
If you tap Day, you’ll see Calendar’s day view, which displays up to eight
hours of events at a time. You can scroll up or down to see events that
are happening earlier or later in the day. All-day events appear at the top
of the window, even when you scroll. Above the list of events you’ll see
the day and date you’re currently viewing (if you’re viewing today’s
events, that text will appear in blue), as well as a 30-day calendar for
76
Chapter 3
Productivity
Day by Day The
Calendar’s Day view lists
your events in a
datebook-like layout.
easy viewing and navigating throughout the month (see “Day by Day”).
At the bottom of this view there is a slider with forward and back
arrows, which gives you another way to quickly switch between days.
The Week mode shows the days of the week across the top, and each
day divided by hours below. The current time is indicated by a red dot
and a black line that goes across the screen. The current day appears in
blue instead of gray. The slide along the bottom switches from days to
weeks, again to make it easier to navigate through your schedule.
Tap Month to see Calendar’s month view. The bulk of the iPad’s screen in
this view displays a complete calendar for the current month, along with
a month slider at the bottom and arrows you can tap to move forward or
back one month at a time. If a day has any events attached to it, a small
dot and a description of the event will appear beneath the day’s number.
The dot will be in the color of the event’s calendar. The current day will
appear with a blue strip across the top labeled Today.
If you tap List, you’ll see a list of all your upcoming calendar events on
the left and a schedule of the current day on the right. This view displays
the largest number of events at once. To quickly jump back to the
current date in any of the Calendar views, simply tap the Today button
on the bottom of the screen.
77
Chapter 3
Productivity
Add Events To add a new event, tap the plus sign (+) in the lower right
corner of the screen. You can assign each event a title, a location
(although there’s currently no way to tie that location to a Google Maps
address), a date, and a starting and ending time. Tap the Repeat button
to set a recurring event. If you don’t want to miss an important meeting
or event, you can set up alerts. You can also add miscellaneous information in the Notes field. When creating a new event, you can select which
calendar it belongs to. (Pick the default calendar for new events in the
Settings app under Mail, Contacts, Calendars.)
Invitations received via e-mail from iCal, Exchange, and other services
like Google Calendar can be added to the iPad’s Calendar app. iCal and
Exchange invitations will automatically appear in Calendar, while Google
Calendar e-mail invitations will contain an event attachment that can be
tapped and added manually. If you’re a Mac user who uses Apple’s iCal,
your calendar should automatically sync to the iPad; however, your to-do
lists will remain stuck on your computer, unsynced.
Sync Calendars You can sync the iPad with iCal and Entourage calendars on a Mac and with Outlook on a PC. You can also add subscribed
calendars and CalDAV accounts. To sync your calendars directly with
your computer, attach your iPad to your computer, select it in iTunes’
Source list, and then click on the Info button. You can sync all the
calendars in your chosen calendar program, or choose to sync only a
select group. To save space on the iPad, you can also limit how many old
events to sync (that is, items that have already occurred).
To turn on calendar syncing for supported IMAP accounts (such as a
Gmail account), go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Accounts
and add the account. Toggle the switch next to Calendars to On.
Adding a CalDAV account or a subscribed calendar is a bit trickier. On
your iPad, go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Add Account
and choose Other. You’ll have the option to add either a CalDAV account
or a subscribed calendar. Adding a CalDAV account from your iPad
requires that you know your server, username, and password; adding a
subscribed calendar requires that you know its URL. Once you’ve
entered all the information, the iPad will download the calendar’s events.
If you’ve got multiple calendars on a CalDAV account, such as Google
Calendar, you’ll have to add a separate account for each calendar.
If you’re a Mac user who relies on Microsoft Entourage or Outlook 2011
as your calendar or address book program, don’t despair—there is a way
78
Chapter 3
Productivity
to synchronize with the iPad. You’ll need to be using Office 2004 11.3.5
or later, or Outlook 14.1 or later, which may require downloading an
update from Microsoft.
In Entourage, choose Entourage -> Preferences, then click Sync Services.
Check the boxes for Address Book and iCal syncing. You’ll be prompted
to choose whether to replace Sync Services items with Entourage or
Outlook items, replace Entourage or Outlook items with Sync Services
items, or merge all these items together. Your choice will depend on
what data you’ve stored in Address Book, iCal, Entourage, or Outlook.
Unless you want to wipe out the contents of the Mac’s Address Book
and iCal—which might not be wise, especially since Address Book stores
items such as iChat Buddy names—it’s safest to choose Merge. Once
you’ve set up Entourage to sync with iCal, you should be able to sync
those calendars with the iPad through iTunes.
MobileMe users can sync calendars wirelessly using push technology.
With syncing set up, changes you make to contacts, calendars, mail, or
bookmarks on your Mac appear almost instantaneously on your iPad and
vice versa—add an event in iCal, and it appears on your iPad.
Third-Party Scheduling App
The built-in calendar app is a great start, but power planners should take
a trip to the App Store for other options.
Pocket Informant HD Calendar is a solid, simple way to keep an eye on
your schedule, but it lacks a number of features, like geolocation and
tasks, and it isn’t very flexible. When it comes to organization, Pocket
Informant HD is a big step up, as it lets you plot events on a map, view
your schedule in more ways than Apple’s Calendar, and manage tasks in
various modes. You can use projects and subtasks, go all out with David
Allen’s Getting Things Done system, and even view tasks alongside your
day’s events in the app’s calendar views ($15; Web Information Solutions,
pocketinformant.com).
79
Chapter 3
Productivity
Notes
Notes is a straightforward little notepad app, useful for jotting things
down. The main Notes screen looks like a piece of yellow-ruled writing
paper. You can view and edit notes in portrait and landscape mode.
Navigate Notes In portrait mode, there’s a button labeled Notes in the
upper left corner. Tap it to get a drop-down list of any notes you’ve
saved in the past, sorted from newest to oldest. The list indicates what
note you currently have open by circling its name in red.
In landscape mode, this list is always open as a column on the left side of
the screen. Tap a note to open it. Tap the plus sign (upper right corner)
at any time within the Notes program to start a new note.
Tap anywhere on the yellow notepaper to bring up the keyboard. To get
rid of the keyboard, you can tap the keyboard button in the lower right,
select another note (in landscape mode), or tap the Notes button (in
portrait mode). When viewing a note without the keyboard open, use
the arrows at the bottom of the screen to move to the next or previous
note. Tap the envelope icon to insert the note into a new e-mail message. Tapping the trashcan icon gives you the option of deleting the
note. (You can also delete a note by swiping across its title in the note
Take a Note To create
a new note on the iPad,
open the Notes app and
tap on the plus sign A
in the top right corner
of the screen.
80
a
Chapter 3
Productivity
list and tapping the delete button, just as with messages in Mail.) When
you’re typing a new note or editing an existing one, the first line of the
note becomes the title that appears on the main screen. Notes can tell
when text is a phone number or a street or e-mail address. If you click on
one of these items when you’re viewing a note, Notes will call the
number, map the location, or start an e-mail message addressed to the
person shown.
Sync Notes There are a number of ways to sync your notes—with Apple
Mail, MobileMe, or IMAP-based mail accounts. To turn on Notes syncing,
attach your iPad to your computer, select it in iTunes’ Source list, and
click on the Info button. Scroll down to the Other section and select
Sync Notes. The notes will show up on your computer under Reminders
in the Mail application. You can also sync notes back to your iPad from
this application.
If you are a MobileMe member, you can sync notes wirelessly with Mail
on your Mac. Go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars and select your
MobileMe account. In the pop-up window that appears, make sure Notes
is set to On, then tap the Done button. You can also set a default
account for creating new notes by going to Settings -> Notes -> Default
Account, and selecting your MobileMe account.
Notes can also wirelessly sync to IMAP-based mail accounts besides
MobileMe. Go to an e-mail account’s settings screen and flip the Notes
sharing setting to On. If you have sharing set up with an IMAP account,
iTunes will display a warning in the Info screen, informing you that also
syncing with Apple Mail could result in duplicates. Back in the Notes app,
tap the Notes button (in landscape mode) to bring up a list of accounts
set up to share notes, including All Notes and On My iPad. Tap an
account to see a list of its current notes. You cannot move notes between accounts. In portrait mode, tap the Notes button to see a new
Accounts button above the list of notes.
81
Chapter 3
Productivity
Third-Party Notes and To-Do Apps
The Notes app is a clean and uncomplicated way to manage your
scribbles and to-do list; but for more-complex notes, to-do lists, and task
management needs, check out these apps.
Simplenote If you’re looking to get a little more out of your note-taking,
Simplenote adds a few perks without trying to jam in too much. Simplenote has a simple but functional text-editing window. In addition to offering a text-entry field, this window provides buttons for e-mailing a copy
of the note and trashing it. You can sync your notes between multiple
devices and your Mac, as well as a slew of other apps and platforms,
thanks to Simplenote’s support for third-party apps and services. You
can group and filter notes with tags, collaborate on notes with other
users, and even publish notes to share with the world (free; premium
account, $20 per year; simplenoteapp.com).
OmniFocus The OmniGroup’s OmniFocus has long been a taskmanagement powerhouse on the Mac and iPhone, offering a broad,
flexible set of tools for organizing your projects and tasks. The iPad app
streamlines task creation, organization, and review processes, taking
advantage of the device’s portability and multitouch features. The app
allows you to catalog and visualize your tasks not only by projects, but by
context. These can consist of any resource required to complete them,
including the phone, your computer, or a specific location. It’s packed
with a powerful set of features for adding due dates and alarms, attaching voice notes, reviewing overdue and upcoming tasks, and syncing
wirelessly with the Mac and iPhone editions ($40; macworld.com/6592).
Things for iPad Cultured Code’s Things for iPad is a powerful task
manager, bundling a strong set of features into a stylish, approachable
package. It complements the Mac and iPhone versions by syncing with
them over a local Wi-Fi connection, enabling you to manage your tasks
and projects on the go. You can organize your tasks into projects, then
further categorize them with tags—but only if you want. You can assign
due dates, push delayed projects off to the Someday section, and easily
view a list of everything that’s immediately due in the Today area. Things
eschews some of the complexity of other task managers so that you can
get things done right away, instead of spending all your time planning
($20; macworld.com/6140).
82
Chapter 3
Productivity
First Contact Contacts is a hub for all
the names, phone
numbers, addresses,
and personal details
you can use throughout
your iPad apps.
Contacts
Contacts is the iPad’s address book app. You can populate the Contacts
app with contacts from your Mac Address Book as well as Google,
Yahoo, MobileMe, or Microsoft Exchange accounts. It’s also possible to
set up Contacts to sync with an LDAP or CardDav account.
Work with Contacts The Contacts app looks the same in portrait and
landscape modes. On the left side of the screen is a list of contact names
and a tab for each letter in the alphabet. Tap a letter to go to those
contacts. To add a contact, tap the plus-sign (+) button. The resulting
screen has fields for all major contact information. You can even choose
an image from your photo library for each entry and add custom fields.
Tap the Done button after you have entered all the information for a
contact. To edit a contact at any time, tap the Edit button.
Under each contact are two buttons: FaceTime and Add To Favorites.
Tapping FaceTime starts a FaceTime call, while Add To Favorites adds
that contact to the Favorites list in the FaceTime app. Various other
elements in a contact are also interactive. Tap an e-mail address to start
an e-mail to that person in the Mail app; tap an address to bring it up in
the Maps app; and tap a URL to go to that page in Safari.
83
Chapter 3
Productivity
Sync Contacts There are multiple ways to get existing contacts onto
your iPad. You can sync e-mail accounts and contact information over
the air through Apple’s MobileMe or Microsoft’s ActiveSync technologies. Go to the Mail, Contacts, Calendars section of your iPad’s Settings
app. Tap Add Account and select Microsoft Exchange or MobileMe. Enter
your account’s login information. To add an LDAP or CardDav account,
select Other and select the type of account you would like to add in the
Contacts section. Enter your account information and tap Next.
To add your Mac Address Book, or your Google or Yahoo address book
accounts, you will have to sync them from your computer using iTunes.
In iTunes, go to the Info section and scroll down to Sync Address Book
Contacts. You can add all contacts from the Address Book app on your
computer, or choose specific groups to sync. You can also opt to sync
your Yahoo or Google contacts with the iPad; each service requires your
login information.
Connect Duplicate Contacts If you have synced your iPad with multiple
contacts accounts, you will invariably end up with duplicate entries. To
connect the two contacts on your iPad, select Edit, then tap the silhouette icon (looks like a person’s head with a plus sign). Select the duplicate contact, and then select Link. Now your two contacts will appear as
one on the iPad, and any changes made on the iPad will also be made to
the individual contact files and synced back to both originating accounts.
Search Contacts To search for a specific contact, tap the Search bar in
the upper left corner of the Contacts app screen or use the iPad’s
Spotlight search.
84
Chapter 3
Productivity
iWork on the iPad
Some of the most powerful business apps on the iPad are slimmeddown versions of Apple’s office desktop programs. Apple has turned its
Mac office suite, iWork, into three iPad apps—Keynote, Numbers, and
Pages ($10 each). You must purchase these apps individually through the
iTunes App Store.
Navigate iWork Apps
The three iWork apps share a common look and feel. When you first
launch each app, you’ll get a Get Started guide for that app.
In the upper left corner, a button (called My Documents, My Spreadsheets, and My Presentations in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, respectively) gives you access to the Document Manager. Here, you can swipe
through thumbnails of every document that the app has stored on your
iPad. Along the bottom of the screen are four buttons that appear in
each app. The first is for send and upload options A, the second brings
up download options B, the third starts a new document C, and the
fourth is for deleting a document D.
a
b
c
d
In the Document Manager, you can view your current projects; create
new ones; share documents; import them from iTunes, iDisk, or a
WebDAV server; and delete them. Tap New Document in the upper left
corner to start a new project. You can choose from a variety of templates, depending on the app.
Once you’ve created a new document or opened a current project, you’ll
enter the app’s main editing interface. While each app has its own toolbar
peculiarities, the general orientation remains the same throughout: Tools
at the top, with the document laid out below. Some buttons are universal:
You’ll find My Documents—which returns you to the Document Man­
ager—and Undo along the left in every app, while the Info, Tools, Insert,
and Full Screen buttons appear on the right side of the toolbar.
85
Chapter 3
Productivity
Pages
Working in Pages on an iPad isn’t all that different from working in a
desktop word processor: You start with a blank sheet, type in some text,
and then embellish it with typography and graphics. The difference is
that your tools for doing all that on the iPad are somewhat curtailed.
Start a Document You begin with the app’s My Documents browser. You
can either create a new document based on one of Apple’s 16 templates,
or open an existing document you’ve imported or created yourself.
Pages offers a variety of beautifully designed templates that are as basic
as a blank white page, or that include complex tables, images, shapes,
and charts. Unlike Pages for Mac, it doesn’t let you add your own templates to the existing collection. If there’s a document you want to use as
a template, you have to import it into Pages and then use My Documents’ Duplicate button to create a new blank document based upon
your original.
Formatting Pages’ editing screen has a toolbar at the top of the main
document and a keyboard below. When it comes to styling what you’ve
written, you most likely want to see it in portrait mode, which is the way
it will print. Documents will automatically fit to page width in landscape
view. At the top right of the screen are four important icons: Information
(for text formatting), Insert (for inserting tables, media, and other
objects), Tools, and Full Screen.
In Pages, tapping the toolbar’s Info button (i) brings up a list of options
broken up into three sections: Style, List, and Layout. Here you can apply
text styles, format selected text as a list, select text alignment, configure
columns, and specify line spacing. To change a font, you have to tap the
Info menu. If you scroll down to the bottom of the style list, you can also
open a Text Options screen, where you can choose from one of 40-plus
fonts and set the size and color of the type.
On the Tools menu, in addition to standard options (search, help, word
count, and so forth), Pages gives you a Document Setup option; tap it to
go to a screen where you can apply document-wide layout settings.
Many of these same options are replicated in a formatting toolbar that
appears below the standard one in Pages. It has a drop-down style menu
and buttons for character styles (bold, italic, underline) and paragraph
alignment. The only unique setting here is a button that lets you insert
86
Chapter 3
Pages Pages is an iPad
version of Pages for
Mac, offering many—
but not all—of its bigger
sibling’s features.
Productivity
tabs and line, page, and
column breaks. Below all of
those options, there’s a
ruler you can use to set
margins and indentation for
your document.
Pages also lets you format a
document’s background,
change the size of its
margins, add footer or
header text, and add
watermarks or other
background images. You
can easily change paragraph alignment using
Pages’ ruler, and it’s easy to
create, move, and change
tab stops by tapping the
ruler, tapping and dragging an existing tab, or double-tapping a tab to
change how the stop behaves.
Work with Text You get even more editing tools by selecting and
tapping words. Pages uses many of the same selection standards as
other iPad apps: Tapping a word twice selects it; a pop-up menu enables
you to cut or copy a word, replace it with one that’s close in spelling,
paste previously copied text, or look up the word’s definition. Tapping
three times on a word selects the whole paragraph and brings up other
options. No matter how much text you’ve selected by tapping, you can
select more or less using the drag handles in the corners of the selection
box. A magnifying glass appears above the text as you drag the handles,
showing you where the selection point is.
Documents in Pages have up to 200 levels of persistent undo. Even after
you close a document, when you reopen it, you can still undo the
changes you’ve made. Pages also helps you avoid document disasters by
saving changes as you work.
Work with Objects Pages makes simple work of inserting and manipulating images, tables, charts, text boxes, and other objects. Images come
from your iPad’s photo library, while tables, charts, and other objects are
part of Pages’ built-in object library. Tap the Insert icon in the top
toolbar to get started.
87
Chapter 3
Productivity
To delete images, objects, and charts, tap twice on the elements. A table
requires you to tap once, and then tap a small circle that appears at the
upper left of the table to reveal the delete option.
The last version of iWork for the Mac added the option to link Numbers
tables to charts and tables in Pages. If you import a Pages document
that contains a linked Numbers Chart, Pages will retain the chart and its
current underlying data, but the link to Numbers breaks. So when you
export the document again, you’ll have to repeat the process of creating
links and charts.
Navigate the Pages App If you touch and hold on the right side of the
Pages screen, the Navigator appears; it lets you move through pages in
your document quickly, showing page numbers and previews as you go.
What’s Missing While Pages has many of the most essential word
processing tools, it doesn’t have them all—for instance, it lacks the
extensive proofreading tools found in the desktop version. You can’t add
complex document elements, such as tables of contents or footnotes,
and it has fewer fonts and styles than Pages for Mac OS X. But it does
include a lot of the essential features you’d want for working with basic
text documents.
Compatibility The Pages iPad app can import the following file formats:
Pages ’09 desktop version, Microsoft Word, and plain text files. It can
export files in Pages ’09, Microsoft Word, or PDF formats. (Note: If you
import Word or Pages documents that contain tracked changes or
comments, you’ll lose all comments, and Pages for iPad will automatically accept any tracked changes.)
Numbers
Given the identical naming of Numbers (for iPad) and Numbers (in iWork
’09), you may be expecting the iPad version of Numbers to be a clone of
its desktop counterpart. While it replicates many of the features of the
desktop version, Numbers on the iPad is a ground-up rewrite of the
application that is focused on creating and working with spreadsheets
directly on the iPad.
Start a Spreadsheet Numbers automatically opens to its spreadsheet
browser, which shows all of the spreadsheets on your iPad. You can
create as many as you’d like, until you run out of RAM on your iPad. You
88
Chapter 3
Productivity
flip through your sheets with a finger flick, and each screen contains a
preview of the sheet, its name, and a time stamp showing when it was
last modified. The spreadsheet browser is also where you share your
spreadsheets; you can send them via Mail, share them via iWork.com, or
export them to Numbers or PDF format. Once you’ve exported a
spreadsheet, you can access it from the Apps tab in iTunes (with your
iPad connected to your Mac or Windows machine) and transfer it.
A prominent New Spreadsheet button brings up Numbers’ template
chooser, where you’ll find 15 new templates designed to focus on
expected uses of Numbers on the iPad. For example, there’s a simple
checklist template, a loan comparison template, an auto log for tracking
car mileage and maintenance, a team organization template for coaches,
and some templates targeted at educational use—GPA tracking, a stats
lab, and an attendance form.
Work with Spreadsheets The spreadsheet interface is easy to understand. Tabs along the top of the screen show each sheet; you can flick
the tabs to see the sheets that are currently off-screen. Above the tabs,
a minimalist toolbar contains buttons that let you return to the spreadsheet browser; undo or redo your last 200 actions, even after you close
a spreadsheet; format items; insert new media, tables, charts, or shapes
on the current sheet; find text in your spreadsheet; view help; and check
spelling (see “Take a Number”).
The last button in the toolbar toggles Numbers into full-screen mode,
which provides an interface-free view of your worksheet. You can’t do
much in full-screen mode, with one exception: You can select a cell or
range of cells, and Numbers will display a floating window with some
basic stats about your selection, including sum, minimum and maximum,
average, and count. Flick this small floating window once to see a graph
of the selected cells.
Tap a cell in a table once to select it. Tap the vertical or horizontal bar
that appears above a table after selecting a cell to select the entire
column or row. Once you’ve sel­ected it, you can resize the column or
row by dragging a small resize widget in the header of the selected area,
move the column or row by dragging anywhere else in the header area,
or select more cells by dragging the blue dot on the edge of the selection.
The first tap on a cell in Numbers selects that cell; a double-tap brings
up the cell editor, where you can enter text, date and time values,
89
Chapter 3
Take a Number Numbers is a ground-up
rewrite of its Mac
counterpart, focused on
creating and working
with spreadsheets in a
multitouch-based
environment.
Productivity
figures, or functions
(over 250 are available). Each of these
input modes has its
own customized
keyboard, greatly
easing the data input
task.
A bigger limitation on
text is that you can’t
control the font face
or size for text in
tables on a sheet—
you can add bold,
italic, underline, or
strike-through, and
you can change the
color, but not the
face or size. (You can
control fonts in text
boxes and charts, just not in tables.) You can format cells in tables in a
number of ways, including a star rating format (zero to five stars).
though you won’t find steppers, sliders, or pop-up menus in Numbers for
iPad. Still, for its intended use, it offers a good amount of control over
the appearance and behavior of cells.
Work with Objects Like its desktop cousin, Numbers for iPad supports
multiple objects per worksheet. You can easily add photos, tables,
charts, and objects to a sheet. Numbers offers multiple versions of
tables, charts, and objects to choose from, and you can customize your
selection. Add a shape, for example, and you can change its fill color and
opacity; border color, style, and thickness; and type of shadow (or opt
for no shadow). This degree of control makes it possible to create some
very nice-looking spreadsheets, as a quick tour of the provided templates will show. You can resize one object to match another by beginning a resize drag, and then tapping the other object with another finger.
Work with Forms A new feature in Numbers for iPad, forms are
designed to make it easier to enter data in your spreadsheet. To use
Forms, you first design your table (or tables) and then tap the plus sign
on the tab bar. A pop-up menu lets you choose a new form or new
sheet; choose a form, and you’ll see a page that shows all the tables on
90
Chapter 3
Productivity
all your sheets. Select one table from that list to instantly create a form
from that table.
A form is really nothing more than a different view of an existing table
on a sheet. For instance, if you create a form from a six-row, sevencolumn table, the resulting form will contain six separate “pages” (table
rows) that you can flip through. Each page will take its title from the first
column in the selected table, and below that, the remaining six columns
in this example will appear as six single-line inputs.
At the bottom of the form, arrow buttons let you flip between pages, as
well as add or delete them. Delete a page, and you’ll delete the corresponding row from the original table. That’s because the form is directly
linked to the table you selected when you created it—the associated
table instantly reflects any changes made on the form. The big advantage to this method is that it’s much simpler to enter data using a form
than it is to try to tap into each cell and type in the original worksheet.
One downside of forms is that they won’t survive a round-trip to and
from your Mac—if you export a worksheet to your Mac, edit it there, and
reimport it to your iPad, any forms you created will be gone. The good
news is that re-creating a form takes only a couple of taps, so it’s not a
huge amount of lost time.
Compatibility The Numbers iPad app can read the following file
formats: Numbers ’09 (desktop application; .numbers), Microsoft Excel
(.xls, .xlsx, .xlt, .xltx, .xlsm, and .xla) and comma-separated values (.csv).
It can export files from Numbers ’09 into Microsoft Excel (.xls) and PDF
file formats.
Font support on Numbers for iPad is limited to the 40 or so fonts
available on the iPad; you can’t import fonts with your spreadsheet, and
Numbers will substitute any missing fonts with the closest available
ones. The iPad version is missing a few Numbers for Mac features as
well: You can’t use merged cells, pop-ups, steppers, sliders, or conditional formatting (and a number of other minor items). As a result, you may
have to rework the formatting of spreadsheets you move onto the iPad.
91
Chapter 3
Productivity
Keynote
You can use Keynote to create visually stunning presentations on your
iPad, complete with drop-shadow text, movies, animations, tables,
charts, and graphics. Keynote for the iPad has more quirks than the
other two apps, but in many ways, it’s also the iWork app that’s best
suited to the tablet.
Start a Presentation To create a new Keynote presentation on your
iPad, tap the New Presentations button and select from the app’s list of
presentation templates. From there you can go through the presentation’s
placeholder text and images, and replace them with your own words and
illustrations, charts, or photos. You can add slides by tapping the plus sign.
Work with Slides The one quirk you’ll notice immediately is that
Keynote works in landscape mode only. The assumption (logical enough)
is that presentation slides are in landscape mode.
The wider aspect ratio also provides room at the side for scrollable
thumbnails of the slides in a presentation. Within that sidebar, you can
rearrange the order of slides by tapping and holding the one you want to
move, and then dragging it wherever you want. Tap the plus sign at the
bottom of the sidebar, and a sheet pops up with several sample slide
layouts (prepopulated with dummy text and graphics) in your chosen
template (see “Unlocking Keynote”).
Over in the editing screen on the right, you’ll see three of the usual four
buttons (Info, Insert, and Tools), which do pretty much the same things
they do in Pages and Numbers. But there are two new ones: Animation
and Play. If you select an object and tap Animation, you can select and
customize build-in and build-out animations; there are 13 choices,
including Appear, Cube, Swoosh, and Twirl. You can specify the timing,
direction, and order in which those animations occur. You can also tap
any object on a slide to select it, and then move it around with your
finger. With two fingers, you can change its orientation or size.
Of course, Keynote for iPad doesn’t have all the tools of a full-fledged
desktop program. You can’t implement animations based on user input, for
example, or print out speaker’s notes. But because presentations are
inherently graphical, with relatively simple text input, and because the iPad
itself is a useful platform for delivering presentations, as the next section
discusses (you can use its video-out port to run presentations on an external
display), Keynote is probably the iWork app that works best on the tablet.
92
Chapter 3
Productivity
Make a Presentation with Keynote
Keynote for iPad lacks a few of the snazzier features found in the
desktop version of the product. But it’s still possible to give impressive
presentations from your iPad‚ and perhaps even leave your laptop
behind‚ if you prepare well and know what to expect.
Get Your Presentation Ready Keynote on the iPad can import presentations made in Microsoft PowerPoint or in Keynote for OS X, but in
both cases you’re likely to lose a great deal during the import process.
Say good-bye to some fonts, transitions, and builds that aren’t available
on the iPad, along with audio and more. (Presenter notes are supported,
however, whether created on the iPad or imported from a PowerPoint
or Keynote for Mac presentation.) Therefore, when it’s feasible, you
should create your presentation directly on the iPad. If you intend to use
graphics in your presentation, prepare them in advance on your Mac
(Apple recommends PNG format), and then sync them to your iPad
using iTunes.
If you do use Keynote on a Mac, be sure to read up on Apple’s best
practices for creating a presentation on a Mac for use on an iPad, which
guides you in selecting compatible templates, fonts, and other features
(macworld.com/6074). The easiest way to move the presentation onto
your iPad is to open iTunes, select your iPad, click on the Apps tab, and
Unlocking Keynote One of the best mobile
iWork apps with which
to show off the iPad’s
capabilities, Keynote
lets you create, edit, and
give presentations with
your device.
93
Chapter 3
Productivity
select Keynote. Drag your presentation to the Keynote Documents list.
Then open Keynote on your iPad, go to the Document Manager (if it’s
not already visible), tap the folder icon in the upper right corner, and tap
your presentation. (For more transfer tips, see the “Sync Files” section
later in this chapter.)
Use an External Display If your audience is very small—perhaps you’re
showing your portfolio to a potential client or giving your boss a quick
demo—you could show your presentation on the iPad itself, albeit
without the help of presenter notes. But you’re more likely to hook up
your iPad to a projector or some other display. To do so, you’ll need an
appropriate adapter.
You’ll get the best results and the highest resolution using a display or
projector with either the $39 Apple Digital AV Adapter (for displays with
HDMI inputs) or the $29 Apple VGA Adapter (for displays with VGA
inputs). If you’re connecting to a television with neither HDMI nor VGA
inputs, you can instead use the $39 Apple Component AV Cable or the
$39 Apple Composite AV Cable, as appropriate, although both offer
lower resolution than the Digital AV and VGA adapters (see the Accessories chapter for more information).
With an iPad 2, both the Digital AV or the VGA adapter let your iPad
mirror everything from its internal screen onto the external display,
which may be useful if you want your presentation to include demonstrations of other iPad apps or content that’s not within Keynote itself.
However, note that on the original iPad, where mirroring is unavailable,
or when using component or composite cables, Keynote itself produces
no external video signal until you tap the Play button. Don’t let this
confuse you when you’re setting up your presentation and initially see
no video on your external display.
If possible, when using an iPad with an external display, set your iPad on
a lectern or table and keep it stationary during the presentation. It’s
cumbersome to hold an iPad that’s tethered to a display, and if you get
too animated with your hand gestures, you may pull out the cable or tug
at the display accidentally. If that’s not possible, try to use an extra-long
VGA cable to maximize your range of movement.
Control the Presentation Once you tap Play, you can use your iPad to
control the presentation as well as provide extra hints for yourself (a
cheat sheet, if you will) that the audience won’t see.
94
Chapter 3
Productivity
To change what’s on the iPad’s screen when using an external display,
tap the Layouts icon and then one of the following buttons: Current (the
current build of the slide as shown on the external display), Next (the
next build, which may or may not be the next slide), Current And Next
(current and next builds side by side), or Current And Notes (current
build and any accompanying presenter notes). This final layout is the
only one to display presenter notes, but you can supplement it by
tapping the button in the top left corner to display a list of slide thumbnails, which can aid in navigation (tap a thumbnail to jump to that slide).
Presenter Notes In the Current And Notes layout, you can see presenter notes underneath your slides (see “Cheat Sheet”). The thumbnails on
the left are optional. To advance to the next build or slide, tap once
anywhere, or swipe toward the left. To go back, swipe toward the right.
One nice extra in Keynote for the iPad is a virtual laser pointer: Touch
and hold on the iPad’s screen to show a red dot, which moves with your
finger on the main display. Lift your finger and the dot disappears. This is
very useful when you want to call attention to a particular area of a slide.
To end the presentation (and turn off Keynote’s video output), tap the
Close icon.
Cheat Sheet In the Current And
Notes layout, you can
see presenter notes
underneath your slides.
The thumbnails on the
left are optional.
95
Chapter 3
Productivity
Microsoft Office
and Google Docs
If you’re using your iPad for almost any kind of business, there is a good
chance that you’ll need to work with Microsoft Office files or Google
Docs in some capacity. Fortunately, there are plenty of options for
editing and viewing Office files. And thanks to Google’s frequent updates to Google Docs, it’s become a fairly useful Web app on the iPad.
Microsoft Office
Unlike the iPhone and iPod touch, the iPad was designed with the needs
of typists in mind. The screen size, the large virtual keyboard in landscape orientation, and the support for external keyboards make the iPad
a natural choice for working with Office documents on the go. For many
people, that means reading, editing, and saving Microsoft Word, Excel, or
PowerPoint documents. Even though there’s no iPad version of the
Microsoft Office suite, you can work with these documents on your iPad
if you’re willing to accept a few compromises.
Read Only Often you just need to read your important Word, Excel,
or PowerPoint documents. This is easy enough to do on the iPad
even without a third-party app. All you have to do is get the relevant
documents onto your iPad. For example, you can e-mail documents
to yourself as attachments, or use an app designed for transferring
and viewing documents, such as Avatron Software’s $10 Air Sharing
HD (macworld.com/6707), Good.iWare’s $5 GoodReader (macworld
.com/6136), or Readdle’s $5 ReaddleDocs for iPad (macworld .
com/6654).
Editing these documents is a bit trickier. No matter which method you
use to import Word documents, some elements of your document
(especially formatting) may get lost in translation.
Edit Documents with iWork Apps Pages for the iPad can import
documents in Word format, Numbers can import Excel spreadsheets,
and Keynote can import PowerPoint presentations. The iWork suite
96
Chapter 3
Productivity
offers most of Office’s major features. For example, in Pages you’ll find
paragraph styles, lists, columns, tables, charts, shapes, imported graphics, headers, and footers.
However, some formatting may get lost in the transition to the iPad and
Apple apps. For example, Pages on the iPad doesn’t support footnotes
or endnotes, hyperlinks, tracked changes, or comments, so it will remove
any of those items from a Word document when you import it, and it will
alter some other elements (such as fonts, grouped objects, and multipage tables) as necessary. The iWork apps will also replace fonts that
aren’t available on the iPad with the closest match from the device’s
40-plus included ones (Helvetica is the default).
Google Docs
Google Docs, the office component of the Google Docs Web application
(docs.google.com), is a natural fit for the iPad. You can view all Google
Docs in a browser on your iPad, and edit Google Docs text documents
and spreadsheets.
When you access the site in Safari on the iPad, Google delivers a mobile
version of Google Docs that lists your documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms, and drawings. You can also switch to desktop view if you
prefer the traditional format—editing works in both modes. Currently, only
documents and spreadsheets are editable on mobile devices, but you can
view all file types as read-only. Google is considering expanding mobile
editing abilities to other file types in the future.
To edit a document, tap its title, and then tap the Edit button. If you’re
working on a shared document, any changes you make to the text will
appear in near–real time to collaborators, and any changes they make will
show up right away on your iPad’s screen.
Spreadsheets are editable in list view. Open the spreadsheet you want to
work in and tap a cell or the Edit link to the left of a line. You can add lines,
sort by columns, and move from cell to cell using Previous and Next
buttons. When you are done working in a cell, tap the Submit button to
save your changes, or Cancel to revert the cell to its original text.
If you need to make more-advanced edits or work offline, one option is
to export your Google Docs files into formats that you can edit with the
iWork apps. Then you can add charts to spreadsheets and advanced
97
Chapter 3
Productivity
formatting to documents.
Third-Party Word Processing Apps
Take advantage of the powerful Dropbox cloud-storage system with
these compatible word processing apps.
Doc2 HD and Office2 HD These third-party app connect directly to your
Google Docs account and provide a native iPad editing interface. Doc2
HD offers editing for Google documents, and the company’s slightly
pricier $8 Office2 HD (macworld.com/6708), also lets you edit Google
Spreadsheets on your iPad. Both apps give you control over font, size,
style, color, and alignment. They support bulleted and numbered lists, let
you insert and manipulate tables and graphics, and include search, undo,
and redo features. They also let you save documents to Google Docs
format, as well as share them via Wi-Fi, send them as e-mail attachments, and save them to other cloud-based storage systems such as
Apple’s MobileMe ($6; macworld.com/6708).
Elements Elements is a basic, no-frills text-editing application designed for your iPad. What’s neat about this app is that it syncs your
changes to Dropbox and makes them available on any of your other
computers or iOS devices. It doesn’t offer any bold or italic text,
images, or paragraph styles—just plain text that you can read and revise
in most word processing applications. Elements also offers word,
character, and line counts; the option to e-mail your document from
within the app; and your choice of any font available on your iPad ($5;
secondgearsoftware.com).
Documents To Go Premium This ambitious app enables you to create
and edit word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation documents in
standard Microsoft (.doc, .docx, .ppt, .xls) formats. You can sync them
with your computer via Wi-Fi by using a simple program, either for the
Mac or Windows, that you can download for free from developer
DataViz. You can sync using cloud-based storage services such as
Dropbox, iDisk, and Google Docs. You can also easily e-mail any of your
documents and also share them with a variety of other iPhone and iPad
apps ($17; dataviz.com).
98
Chapter 3
Productivity
Sync Files
The first step in making your iPad into a real work device is to master file
sharing—getting those important work documents on and off the iPad,
or setting up a cloud-based system so you can access your documents
from anywhere.
First, you’ll need to fill your iPad with productivity apps that have sharing
capabilities, like Pages, Keynote, GoodReader, or Stanza. The first thing
you need to do is learn how to get documents from your Mac onto the
iPad. Then, after you’ve edited them or created new ones on the iPad,
you need to get them back onto your Mac. There are a few ways to do
this: through iTunes, over the Internet, or with a third-party app.
Sync with iTunes
For apps that use Apple’s File Sharing—such as Apple’s iWork apps,
Stanza, or GoodReader—you can use iTunes as a conduit to get files on
and off the iPad. When your iPad is connected to your Mac and iTunes is
open, select your iPad in iTunes’ Devices section, and then click on the
Apps tab. Scroll down to the File Sharing section. (If you have no apps
that support file sharing, this section won’t appear.) You’ll see a list of
apps installed on your iPad that can share files through iTunes. Click on
one in the Apps list and you’ll see any files you’ve already added to, or
created on, the iPad on the right, along with their creation date and size.
Add and Delete Documents From here, you can add documents to
your iPad in two ways. Click the Add button, navigate to a document
in the Open dialog box that appears, select the document, and then
click Open. When you click Sync, the file will copy to your iPad (see
“Secret Sharing”). Alternatively, select the appropriate app in iTunes’
File Sharing Apps list, and drag a file onto the documents list for that
app. This copies the files immediately; you don’t need to click Sync.
To delete files, select them in the file list and press the Delete key.
You can only find files in the app to which you copied them in iTunes.
Even if you upload a file that is compatible with other apps, you won’t be
able to access it in those apps without adding the file to each app’s File
Sharing section in iTunes. If you delete an app on the iPad that has
shared files, you will lose those files.
99
Chapter 3
Productivity
Secret Sharing iTunes
can act as a gateway for
transferring files to and
from your iPad with
familiar drag-and-drop
procedures.
Import iWork Documents When you’re working with the iWork apps—
Pages, Numbers, and Keynote—just getting the document onto your
iPad isn’t quite enough. You’ll also need to import the files before you
can view and edit them. To do this, open Pages (or any other iWork app)
on your iPad and tap the folder icon in the toolbar. You’ll see a list of
available documents. Tap a document to import it. It’ll now show up in
your My Documents list, where you can work with it.
Avoid Import Problems with Files Note that iWork for iPad apps can’t
import files with special characters in their titles, such as the forward
slash (/). Remove any special characters from your file names before
you try to transfer the files. Unfortunately, importing isn’t always a
smooth process—not all fonts and document elements will come
through. If you’re using Keynote, see Apple’s support document for tips
to avoid iPad import problems with Keynote (macworld.com/6074).
Pages users should read Apple’s Pages for iPad FAQ (macworld.com/
6277). Numbers users should see Apple’s Numbers for iPad FAQ
(macworld.com/6278).
Export iWork Documents Once you’re done editing a document on
your iPad, you must export it before you can move it onto your com­
puter using iTunes. Tap My Documents (or My Presentations or My
Spreadsheets). Open the document and tap the Send button. Tap
Export, and then choose a file format. If you’ve been working with a
Pages document, for example, you’ll want to save it in that format.
100
Chapter 3
Quick Copy Copying a
file from your iDisk into
an iWork app for editing
couldn’t be easier.
Productivity
If you’ve made changes to a
document you imported using
iTunes, you’ll see a dialog box
asking if you want to replace
the original. Tap Replace to do
this. When the app exports the
file, you can copy it from iTunes
back to your Mac.
Note that other iPad apps may
not require this somewhat
complicated import-export
procedure. For ­example, the
GoodReader app displays a
number of file types, including
PDFs, Microsoft ­Office files, and
text files—it just requires that
you add files via iTunes. E-mailing yourself attachments is an easy workaround for some files.
Copy Documents onto Your Mac To copy documents from the iPad
onto your Mac using iTunes’ file-sharing feature, connect your iPad to
your computer and open iTunes. Select your iPad from iTunes’ Devices
and then click on iTunes’ Apps tab. Scroll down to the File Sharing
section and select the appropriate app. Select the file in the list and click
Save To. In the Open dialog box that appears, navigate to a folder on
your Mac where you’d like to save the file, and then click Open; iTunes
copies the file. You can also click on a file in the documents list and drag
it to a Finder window to copy it.
Sync with MobileMe and WebDAV
All three iWork apps also support transferring documents to and from
the iDisk feature that’s a part of Apple’s MobileMe service ($99 per year;
me.com). Users without ­MobileMe aren’t completely out of luck, though:
the apps can also transfer files to servers running WebDAV.
Set Up To set up your iDisk or WebDAV server to work with an iWork
app, tap the open file icon (it has a right-pointing arrow) at the bottom
of the main documents screen in the app (see “Quick Copy”). Tap the
Copy To iDisk option and enter your MobileMe login information. If you
tap the Copy To WebDAV option, you’ll need to enter the server address
101
Chapter 3
Productivity
and login information. Tap the Sign In button, and you’re ready to start
transferring your files.
Share Files If you tap Copy To iDisk or Copy To CalDAV again, you’ll be
able to choose a file to upload. Select the folder where you’d like to save
the document and tap the Copy button. A copy of that document is now
stored on your iDisk or CalDAV server. If you tap the download button
and then the Copy From iDisk or Copy From WebDAV button, you’ll be
presented with a list of available documents that you can import. Tap
the document you want to copy to your iPad; it will open in the
­appropriate iWork app.
Use iWork.com
iWork.com is not a collaborative online productivity tool like Google
Docs. You use it to share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations
online from Pages, Numbers, or Keynote, respectively. But the people
with whom you share those documents can only view, download, and
comment on them; they can’t actually edit them. All that said, iWork.com
is a convenient way to share iWork documents, particularly when you’re
sharing with people who don’t run iWork themselves.
Work with Files on the iPad When looking at a document in any of the
three iWork apps—Pages, Numbers, or Keynote—in the main page, tap the
Share button. At the bottom of the screen, select the Share Via iWork.com
option. You’ll be asked to sign in with your Apple ID if you haven’t done
so already. Press on that button from any active document, and you’ll be
asked to enter the e-mail addresses of the people with whom you want
to share it. You can add an optional message and specify whether the
recipients can comment on the document, download it, or both. Tap
View to open the document you just uploaded immediately on iWork.com
in Safari. The recipients on your To list will get an e-mail. When they
follow the link in the message, they’ll see your document in their browser.
Work with Files Online When viewing an online document, you see an Add
Comment button at the top of the screen; you or your sharers can highlight
some text, click that button, and then add a comment about the selected
text. Sharers can also leave notes about the document in general, which
everyone else can see. There are no Edit buttons or any other tools on
iWork.com that let sharers actually change a Pages text, Numbers
spreadsheet, or Keynote presentation: It really is just a tool for viewing
and sharing. And you can’t sync viewers’ comments or notes back to the
102
Chapter 3
Productivity
iWork in the
Cloud You can sync
iWork documents
through iTunes or skip
the computer and use
iWork.com.
original iWork document; they’re stored in the online version only. To see
them locally, you have to download a copy of the commented document
from iWork.com.
Store Files in the Cloud
Another option for file synchronization is storing your files in “the
cloud.” The Dropbox service (basic version, free; dropbox.com) offers its
iPad (and iPhone) app for free, and if you use this file-sharing tool on
your desktop, you may find it the ideal way to get files onto your iPad. To
use Dropbox, download the software and set up an account. (You’ll need
to get a Mac version as well, from the Dropbox Website.) Use the same
e-mail address and password on both your Mac and your iPad to link the
two versions. Here are two ways to use Dropbox.
Move Files or Folders From Your Mac Dropbox’s app makes it a cinch
to view any files that are in an iOS-friendly format, including Word and
Pages documents, PDFs, text files, and images. Even better, Dropbox
offers you the option of opening your synced files in their iPad-compatible
apps; you can, for example, use the Dropbox app to send a word processing document to Pages. When you put your files or folders in your Mac’s
Dropbox folder, you’ll also see them in the Dropbox app on your iPad. If
you have Dropbox installed on multiple Macs (or PCs), the files will get
copied automatically, but on the iPad only a list of files you can down-
103
Chapter 3
Productivity
load shows up at first. Tap a file to open it in Dropbox. Tap the Send icon
in the toolbar to choose an application that can open the file. To view a
Word file in Pages, tap the file to view it with Dropbox, tap the Send icon
in the toolbar, and then tap Pages. Dropbox will transfer the file to
Pages, and Pages will import it.
Get Documents Off the iPad Because of limitations on how iOS
operates, cloud storage apps are a one-way street on the iPad. It’s
simple to get files from Dropbox into an app, but you can’t send them
back to Dropbox when you’re done. To get the document off the iPad,
you’ll either need to use the method described above for iWork apps, or
send the document by e-mail.
There is one workaround: In apps that support WebDAV—such as
Pages—you can use DropDAV (free for 2GB; dropdav.com) to access
your Dropbox folder. DropDAV lets you interact with your Dropbox files
via a traditional WebDAV connection. Since Pages lets you open files
from a remote WebDAV server, you can get your document and edit it
on your tablet. Just remember that you’re working on a local copy.
When you’re ready to save, you must manually publish your document
back to the DropDAV-created WebDAV server.
E-mail Files to Yourself
Unless and until Apple allows developers to build full two-way sync into
their apps, the next best thing is e-mail. With e-mail you’re just sending
copies of your file back and forth, and you have to be careful that you’re
always working on the latest version. But e-mailing offers a couple
distinct advantages over the iTunes syncing model.
First, you don’t have to connect your iPad to your Mac. Second, e-mail
messages include date stamps, so you don’t need to guess whether
you’re working with the most recent version of a file; you can see
precisely when you sent it to yourself. If you plan to rely on e-mail file
transfers a lot, it may be worth creating special rules in your mail client
of choice to handle these special messages. For example, in Gmail you
can create a filter that looks for messages that are both from you and to
you, and that contain attachments. Those messages get a Files tag and
are archived; this way, the Mail app on the iPad shows them neatly
tucked into a folder with the same name.
104
Chapter 3
Productivity
Transfer over FTP
FTP is another option for transferring files to and from your iPad. The
benefit of using FTP from the iPad is that it ensures that you can work
on just one copy of a given file at any given time. There are plenty of
iPad FTP clients in the App Store, including FTP On The Go Pro ($7;
ftponthego.com), FTP Deluxe HD ($1; macworld.com/7270), and FTP
Write ($5; macworld.com/7271). These apps let you connect to a remote
FTP server, and then edit the files stored there.
If you have access to a remote FTP server (through your Web hosting
company or other means), both your Mac and iPad can connect to it. But
that means you’ll need to download files to your Mac whenever you
want to work on them. You might instead choose to configure your Mac
itself as an FTP server. To do so, go to the Sharing preference pane and
make sure that File Sharing is turned on. Then click the Options button
and put a checkmark by Share Files And Folders Using FTP. You will see
the FTP address for your Mac in the pane. Note that unless your home
has a static IP address and your router is configured properly, it may be
difficult to connect to your Mac as an FTP server when your iPad isn’t on
the same Wi-Fi network.
Third-Party File-Reading App
Opening files in iWork apps, viewing them as e-mail attachments, and
looking at them online aren’t the only options for viewing files on the iPad.
GoodReader Accessing a myriad of file types isn’t as easy on the iPad as
many users would like—there’s no single folder where you can just drop
them all. Luckily there’s Good­Reader, one of the best all-purpose readers
for the iPad. It can handle PDFs, most Office documents (.doc,
.xls, .ppt, and more), iWork ’08 and ’09 files, HTML and Safari Web
archives, and the most popular image, audio, and video formats.
GoodReader can also open and cruise through large files, like big PDFs.
You can even annotate PDFs with a simple set of drawing tools. In
addition to supporting Wi-Fi syncing with your computer, GoodReader
also supports syncing over the Internet with convenient cloud-storage
services like MobileMe’s iDisk, Google Docs, and Dropbox. The PDF
Reflow feature can distill a PDF to just the necessary text for easier
reading, and you can easily snap back to your place in a document after
following a series of Web links ($5; macworld.com/6136).
105
Chapter 3
Productivity
Print from the iPad
The process of printing from an iPad has improved since the device was
first released with no built-in printing functions. Several printer companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Epson, Kodak, and Brother, took it upon
themselves to release apps that allow photo printing from an iOS device
to specific printer models when both are connected to the same wireless network. There are also some third-party apps for printing, but they
can be expensive, and many require downloading and running software
on a host Mac to which a printer must be attached.
AirPrint
Apple has attempted to solve the printing dilemma by adding a wireless
printing feature called AirPrint to the iPad operating system. With this
feature, iPad users can print Web pages, e-mail messages, and photos
directly to an AirPrint-enabled printer.
iPad Printing AirPrint
in iOS cuts the cord for
printing from an iPad.
106
Chapter 3
Productivity
Requirements To use AirPrint, an iPad must be running iOS 4.2 or later
and must be connected to a wireless network. The printer must also be
AirPrint compatible. At the time of publication, the only printers that
work with AirPrint are a handful of HP printers. The app you wish to
print from must also have built-in support for AirPrint. For example,
Apple’s own Calendar and Contacts apps still do not feature AirPrint in
the latest iOS version as of this writing (iOS 4.3.2). However, all the
iWork apps have been updated to support AirPrint, as have third-party
apps like Calculator HD for iPad and FeedMe News.
How to Print Once you have connected your iPad to a wireless network,
you should see a new entry titled Print when tapping the Sharing menu
icon in Mail, Safari, and Photos. Third-party apps that support printing
might place this command elsewhere. Tap the Print button and a Printer
Options menu will appear, allowing you to select your printer and
choose the number of copies to print.
If you’ve already chosen a printer, its name will appear. Otherwise, tap
Select Printer, and AirPrint scans your wireless network for a compatible
printer. Select the printer you want and the number of copies you need,
and tap Print. From there, it just works. You can view or cancel your
pending print jobs and even receive a notice when a printer is running
low on ink.
A Print Center icon will appear in the iPad’s multitasking bar. Tapping the
Print Center button brings up a Print Order pop-up window showing the
print jobs in your queue. Tap a print job to get a job’s full summary,
including the document name, the printer it is going to, the number of
copies, whether it’s double-sided, print time, and status. There’s also a
large red Cancel Printing button.
The Future of AirPrint The smooth yet limited functionality of AirPrint
just makes users want more—more compatible printers from different
vendors, more apps with printing services, the ability to print from an
iPad to a printer shared on the network by a host Mac, and more control
over print quality. The ability to print in grayscale to save ink would also
be welcome.
You won’t necessarily have to purchase a new printer to use the AirPrint
feature. HP offers firmware updates for a number of its older models,
and other companies may follow its lead, so check with your printer’s
manufacturer. All in all, AirPrint is a good start to Apple’s promise of
cross-platform wireless printer sharing.
107
Chapter 3
Productivity
Get More from AirPrint with Printopia
If you can’t wait for the future of AirPrint, you can enhance what your iPad
can do with the feature using a third-party utility such as Ecamm Network’s
Printopia ($20; ecamm.com). A plug-in for your Mac, Printopia allows you
to use AirPrint with any printer connected to your computer. It also
introduces features that go beyond paper, such as printing to specific
applications (for example, you can send an photo you are printing on your
iPad to an image editor like Photoshop). You can even create “virtual
printers,” folders on your Mac or in your Dropbox account into which you
can send files from your iPad. These virtual printers can also perform
automated tasks with those files, such as uploading them to a documentsharing service or importing them into iTunes.
First you’ll need to download Printopia from Ecamm’s site (a free trial is
available) and install it on the Mac to which your printer is connected.
Then open the Printopia preference pane to customize your printer, add
printable applications, and specify folders on your Mac or in your Dropbox account as virtual printers. Any printers already connected to your
Mac should appear automatically in Printopia’s preference pane, ready to
receive AirPrint commands.
Click the plus-sign button to begin adding your own applications and
services to Printopia. Once you select an application or virtual printer, it
gets added to the master list and enabled by default. To toggle a serPrintopia This pane in
System Preferences
significantly expands on
what you can do with
AirPrint and your iPad.
You can print to virtually
any printer brand and
model that Mac OS X
supports, print to a
specific application or
file on your Mac
(instead of a sheet of
paper), and even set a
password to prevent
other people from using
your printers.
108
Chapter 3
Productivity
vice’s availability on or off in Printopia, simply click the checkbox next to
it. If you want to add a password to Printopia to prevent other people
from printing to your Mac’s printers or virtual printers, click the gear icon
and choose Setup Password.
Finally, to temporarily disable Printopia altogether, click the On/Off
slider button on the left side of the pane. All printers, applications, and
virtual printers will be unavailable to your iPad (and anyone else’s
devices) until you toggle Printopia back on.
Google Cloud Print
If you’re using Google Docs in a browser on your iPad, you can print to a
printer in your house or your business with Google’s recently announced
Cloud Print feature. Once you set up your printer by following the
instructions at google.com/cloudprint, you can tap the print option at
the top of documents in Google Docs (text documents, for example,
display it under a menu next to the edit button) to print them wirelessly.
Google Cloud Print offers a couple of advantages over Apple’s AirPrint.
First, it supports more printers (almost any printer, really) than the
handful of HP printers AirPrint supports. Also, Google Cloud Print also
does not require that your iPad be on the same wireless network as your
printer or the computer that is sharing that printer. Once you set up a
printer with Google Cloud Print, you can wirelessly print your document
even if you’re halfway around the world from that printer.
109
4
Multimedia
The iPad’s 9.7-inch screen is great for viewing
photos and video, reading, playing games, and
creating finger-painted masterpieces. Add some
photos from your computer or the iPad’s built-in
camera, and you can instantly create a classy
slideshow to show family and friends. With the
iPad 2, you can create, share, and interact with the
world, as well as stream video and audio on the go.
In this chapter, you’ll learn how to best sync, work
with, and enjoy your media files.
Contents
Sync and Load
Page 111
Music
Page 121
Videos
Page 127
Photos
Page 132
Books and
Reference
Page 139
Games
Page 142
Share and
Stream
Page 145
110
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Sync and Load
Before you can enjoy your music, photos, videos, books, and games, you
must first get them onto your device. There are two ways to do this: You
can either sync with iTunes, or download media from the iTunes app on
your iPad.
Sync with iTunes
Like most people, if you have any kind of media collection, you probably
keep most of it on your computer. To get your music, videos, and books
onto your iPad, you’ll have to import it into iTunes. (If you’re trying to
import a file that’s not compatible, see “Make Content iPad-Friendly”
later in this chapter.) For photos, you can sync with a folder or application: Mac users can use iPhoto 4 or later or Aperture 3 or later; Windows
users can use Photoshop Elements 3 or later.
Connect your iPad to your computer and open iTunes to adjust your
preferences (see “That Syncing Feeling”). From there, it’s just a matter
of clicking on the tab for the content you want to sync.
That Syncing Feeling When you connect your
iPad to your Mac or PC,
iTunes lets you choose
which types of content
to sync, and provides
individual categories for
customized syncing.
111
Chapter 4
Multimedia
After you finish making changes, remember to click the Apply button in
the lower right corner of the window before going elsewhere in iTunes;
otherwise, you’ll lose all the changes you’ve just made.
Sync Music To add music to your iPad, click the Sync Music checkbox
under the Music tab. iTunes lets you choose between two options:
copying your entire music library; or copying selected playlists, artists,
albums, and genres. (You also have the option of including or excluding
music videos and voice memos.)
If you’re wary of sticking your whole music library on your iPad, you can
preemptively see how much space it will take up by looking at the
Capacity bar. When you select the Entire Music Library option, iTunes
estimates how much space the files will take up and adjusts the bar
accordingly. You can also see how many songs you’ll be loading in the
upper right corner of the pane.
If you decide to pick and choose, iTunes will load a complete list of these
subgroups for your perusal (see “Music Sync”). Under the Include Music
Videos and Include Voice Memos options, you’ll also be asked if you’d
like to fill any remaining free space with randomly selected music. Mix
and match your categories by selecting the appropriate checkboxes.
Music Sync The Music
tab lets you choose
what tunes to sync with
your iPad, either
everything or selected
playlists, artists, albums,
and genres.
112
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Sync Movies When you click on the Movies tab, you’ll see a grayed-out
list of all the movies you have loaded into iTunes—represented by their
name and a movie poster or selected screenshot. Click the Sync Movies
checkbox, and you’ll be able to automatically include all videos, selected
ones, playlists, or those most recently uploaded or unwatched (see
“Movies Sync”). If you have rented movies from the iTunes Store on your
computer, you’ll see them at the very top of the screen; you can transfer
a movie to your iPad by clicking on the Move arrow. To transfer it back to
your computer, click on the arrow a second time.
Sync TV Shows As with the Movies tab, you’ll see a list of your television shows, grouped by series in the TV shows tab. Click on a show, and
in the right column, you’ll see a list of the show’s episodes, organized by
season. When syncing manually, you can only choose individual episodes
or seasons of selected shows. You can also copy over playlists that
include TV episodes. If you choose to sync automatically, however, you
can copy over an entire series (or your entire television library). You can
also filter within that series to sync only unwatched or newly added
episodes. If you have rented TV shows on your computer from the
iTunes Store, you’ll see them at the very top of the TV Shows tab;
transfer one to your iPad by clicking on the Move arrow. You can transfer
it back to your computer by clicking on the arrow a second time.
Movies Sync The
Movies tab gives you
the option to sync all
movies, specific movies,
and playlists with
movies in them.
113
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Sync Podcasts The Podcasts pane presents you with a list of all your
subscribed podcasts, grouped by series. Clicking a podcast will display a
list of the show’s episodes, organized by date in ascending order. You
can choose to sync your podcasts manually or use iTunes’s automatic
options, which offer syncing for the most recently uploaded or unplayed
episodes for selected shows or all shows.
Sync Books, PDFs, and Audiobooks In the Books pane, you can sync
ePubs, PDFs, and audiobooks. The first two are located at the top of the
pane, where you can load all or selected e-books and PDFs (see “Books
Sync”); the Audiobooks section is below that.
Sync Photos and Personal Video Unlike your other content, your
photos and personal video files are only linked through iTunes, rather
than stored in the program. To sync, go to the Photos pane and choose
which application or folder you’d like iTunes to pull these files from. If
you have iPhoto or Aperture installed (or, on a PC, Adobe Photoshop
Elements), you’ll also see those programs listed. If you choose one of
these programs, you can sync images according to how they are organized in that application. Otherwise you’ll only be able to select your
Pictures folder or a custom folder of your choice. Unfortunately, you
can’t sync your iPad with more than one program or with multiple
folders: You have to choose one. As with all the other media panes, you
can sync your entire photo library to the iPad, or choose selected
albums, projects, and (in iPhoto’s or Aperture’s case) Events, Faces, or
images with certain star ratings.
Books Sync The
Books tab handles
syncing of books from
the iBookstore, your
own ePub files, PDFs,
and audiobooks.
114
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Purchase Content on the Go
Sure, you can sync your media from your computer, but what if you want
to download something while you’re out and about? The desktop
version of the iTunes Store may be a one-stop shop for your purchased
content, but the iPad has three separate apps, each designated for
specific types of media.
Get More Apps The App Store is designed to let you browse, view
screenshots and ratings, download updates, and purchase apps—all on
the fly. Due to 3G carrier restrictions, you’ll have to connect your iPad to
a Wi-Fi network to download apps bigger than 20MB. (For more on the
App Store, see “Find More Apps” in the Get Started chapter.)
Find Music, Movies, TV Shows, and More To download new content,
you’ll want to head to the iTunes app on your iPad. Tap it, and you’ll see
an iPad version of the iTunes Store on your computer. Along the bottom
of the screen are buttons for each category in the store: Music, Movies,
TV Shows, Ping, Podcasts, Audiobooks, iTunes U, and Downloads.
Select Music, Movies, or TV Shows, and three buttons appear at the top
of the display: Featured, Top Charts, and Genius (see “What’s in Store”).
Genius uses the information you’ve sent to Apple from iTunes to make
What’s in Store You can purchase and
download music—as
well as TV shows and
movies—directly on
your iPad.
115
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Machine That Goes
Ping The Ping feature
lets you follow people
and see the music
they’re buying and the
bands they like.
media recommendations based on the contents of your iTunes library.
When you select a specific item‚ a window will pop up, presenting you
with information about the item (title, genre, length, summary, and cost).
You can also browse user reviews, view previews, and purchase the item.
The window also includes a Tell A Friend link that, when tapped, produces an e-mail message promoting the item. Just fill in an address and
tap Send. Additionally, on the Music, Movies, and TV Shows pages, you’ll
see a Genres button that, when tapped, produces a pop-up menu from
which you can choose a genre of your liking. Do so and you’re taken to a
page devoted to that genre. The Podcasts and Audiobooks pages have a
Categories button that serves a similar purpose. The Downloads tab
displays any content currently being downloaded to your device. You can
view time remaining, pause or resume the download, and even delete it
from the queue if you’ve had second thoughts.
At the bottom of each screen is a Quick Links section you can use to
move around to different areas of the iTunes Store that Apple has
curated—in Movies, for example, you’ll see links to a collection of All HD
Movies or Pre-Order Movies. Unlike the iPhone or iPod touch, the iPad
can download HD content directly­—there’s no need to download the
media to your computer first and then sync.
Play with Ping If you want to see what your friends are listening to, tap
the Ping button, located on the bottom of the page (see “Machine That
Goes Ping”). Apple’s venture into social media, Ping lets you browse your
116
Chapter 4
Multimedia
friends’ latest likes and downloads using the Activity tab, find new
followers by tapping People, or look at your own Ping profile.
You can Like or add a comment to a song, album, or user action. If you’re
following anyone who has an Artist page, you can use the Concerts feature
to view his or her concert itinerary and even get a direct link to buy tickets.
Read More Books As the desktop iTunes Store has no section yet for
purchasing books from Apple’s iBookstore, you’ll have to do all shopping
directly from the iBooks app on your iPad. Although it’s a free app,
iBooks does not come preloaded on your device; head to the App Store
on your device or on your computer to download it.
To browse and purchase new books, open the iBooks app and tap the
Store button in the upper left corner. This section is similar to the iTunes
app: Banners at the top of the page greet you, along with a New &
Notable section and other smaller icons. Tap Categories in the upper left
corner to narrow your selection type. You can jump from Arts & Entertainment to Parenting, or over to Sports & Outdoors by way of Fiction &
Literature‚ with a detour to the land of Sci-Fi & Fantasy.
Along the bottom of the app, five icons sort books into various categories for viewers: Featured showcases content that Apple’s store editors
have deemed notable; the NYTimes tab shows best sellers from the
newspaper’s list in both fiction and nonfiction; Top Charts displays the
top paid and free books that users are currently downloading; Browse
allows you to browse by author or category (for either paid or free
books); and finally, Purchases shows all the books you’ve downloaded
with your currently signed-in Apple ID. (If you ever lose your downloaded
books, you can always come back to this tab to download them again.)
Search for books using the Search field in the upper right corner. As with
the iTunes app, you’ll receive a list of suggestions as you type. Tap Enter
to see a paginated list of results. To find out more about a book, tap its
icon, and a window will pop up with detailed information.
You can download a free sample of any book: Just tap Get Sample to
start downloading the first few chapters. This is useful if you want to
browse the content, check out the table of contents, or see how it reads
on the iPad. If you decide you like the book and want to purchase it, you
can do so from within the sample itself via a Buy button in the upper left
corner, next to the Library and Table Of Contents buttons. This will take
you back into the iBookstore to make your purchase.
117
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Make Content iPad-Friendly
While the iTunes Store has a decent selection when it comes to new
content, maybe you’d like to add something on your iPad that you
already own or that you created yourself. In the event that you have a file
that’s not iTunes-friendly, there are a couple of ways you can go about
converting it.
Convert Music If you’ve spent every spare musical minute within the
confines of the iTunes window, you might believe there are only five
audio formats: MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, and Apple Lossless. It turns out,
however, that when you waltz around the Internet, you come upon a
variety of other audio formats, not all of which play nicely with your iPad.
Windows Media files (WMA) are commonly found, but there are others.
Many audiophiles favor Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files for their sound
quality, although those formats are not as common as WMA, MP3, and
AAC. Regrettably, iTunes doesn’t support any of these file types natively.
But with a little conversion magic, you’ll have them playing through your
iPad’s speakers in no time.
The Windows version of iTunes can convert WMA files, but the Mac
version can’t. A few free converters are available, such as NCH Software’s Switch (nch.com.au/switch). With it, you can batch-convert a load
of WMA files to a host of formats, including MP3, WAV, and AIFF (unfortunately, there are no options for AAC or Apple Lossless). Once you’ve
run your WMA files through Switch, toss them into your iTunes library
and copy them to your iPad. (Note that this method won’t work with
DRM-protected WMA audio files.)
To convert Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files directly into an iPad-friendly
format, use a program like Stephen Booth’s Max (free; sbooth.org/Max)
or tmkk’s X Lossless Decoder (free; http://tmkk.pv.land.to/xld/index_e
.html), aka XLD.
Convert Video The Web offers many kinds of video, and likely your
home collection does as well; unfortunately, iTunes is an incredibly picky
eater when it comes to accepting formats. You can solve most of these
problems using a program such as HandBrake (free; handbrake.fr), which
handles DVD ripping and video encoding.
Before you dive in, keep in mind that this is a gray area, legally speaking.
Because ripping commercial DVDs circumvents the copy-protection
118
Chapter 4
Multimedia
HandBrake Help An app such as
HandBrake can help you
easily convert video for
playback on an iPad.
system employed on these discs, the legality of using this type of
software is questionable‚ even if you own the DVD and are ripping it only
to watch it in another form. You’ll have to assess the risks yourself; if you
decide to take the plunge, read on.
HandBrake offers a simple preset for iPad owners looking to convert
their video (see “HandBrake Help”). In the program, click on Toggle
Presets in the toolbar to see the various built-in presets, then click the
drop-down triangle next to Apple. Among the other iOS offerings, you
should see an iPad preset. You can use it to encode video to your heart’s
content. (If you don’t see the iPad preset, you may need to update your
list by clicking on the Tool icon at the bottom of the presets pane, then
choosing Update Built-in Presets.)
Convert e-Books Chances are, you have several documents floating
around that you might want for reference on your iPad. iTunes will sync
PDFs and ePub e-books; to read anything in iBooks on the iPad, you’ll
want to export to one of those formats.
PDFs are the easiest to create, though they lack some of the finesse that
the ePub format offers iBooks users, such as the ability to increase text
size from within the app. But anything you can print, you can make into a
PDF. On a Mac, simply click on the program’s Print option from the File
menu, and when the dialog box opens, click on the PDF button in the
lower left corner. From there, choose Save As PDF from the pop-up
119
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Make Me a PDF You
can create a PDF from
almost any file on your
computer, and then
sync it to your iPad to
bring along.
menu, and you can give the file a name and choose where to save it (see
“Make Me a PDF”). Once you’re done, just drop the PDF file on the
iTunes icon in the Dock, and it will import into iTunes.
Unfortunately, ePubs are more difficult to create, even though it’s an
open-source format. There are a variety of open-source tools; one
such option is Kovid Goyal’s Calibre (free; calibre-ebook.com). However, most suffer from clunky, inscrutable interfaces, often written in
cross-platform technologies like Java. Storyist ($59; storyist.com), a
writing tool for screenwriters and novelists, offers easy ePub export,
but at a price. In the end, unless you specifically want something in
ePub format, it may be easier to just export it as a PDF.
120
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Music
The iPad can serve as your virtual boom box, piano, worldwide karaoke
joint, or online radio station. Organize your iTunes content in the iPod
app, listen to streaming music using apps from the App Store, or, better
yet, create music of your own.
The iPod App
When you open the iPod app, it’s obvious that it has taken a few visual
cues from iTunes. The app sports a Source list (labeled Library), displaying entries for Music, Podcasts, Audiobooks, iTunes U, and Genius Mixes,
as well as smart and standard playlists you’ve synced or, in the case of
standard playlists, created with your iPad.
Section Controls At the top of the screen are play controls, a scrubber
bar, volume control, and a Search field. Below that is a two-pane view
showing your library. Tap Music, and you’ll see Songs, Artists, Albums,
Genres, and Composers buttons along the bottom center of the screen
for displaying your tracks in these various views (see “Music Tastes”).
Music Tastes You can
view your music by
songs, artists, albums,
genres, or composers.
121
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Podcasts are arranged in a list with thumbnail art. Below the show title is
the number of episodes on your iPad. Tap a show to see a list of episodes; tap an episode, and it plays. Episodes you haven’t played have a
dot next to them. If you’ve listened to part of a podcast, the dot is
half-filled. Audiobooks are presented in a list. Tap an audiobook, and a
screen appears with chapters listed. Genius mixes display the same
four-album-cover collage they do in iTunes. Unlike iTunes, the iPod app
doesn’t give you the option to rename Genius mixes or rearrange their
position on the iPad’s screen.
Playlists In the lower left of the display is an Add button, labeled with a
plus sign (+), for creating a new standard playlist on the iPad. You can’t
create a smart playlist on your device, though it will play those you’ve
created in iTunes. Next to the Add button is a Genius button for creating
a Genius playlist based on the currently playing track. If you want to
switch on Sound Check (the feature that attempts to balance volume
among playing tracks), muck with EQ, configure a volume limit, or turn
on lyrics and podcast info, head over to Settings: iPod.
To create a new playlist, tap the Add button (see “Playing Around”). This
brings up a box‚ similar to the one you get when prompted to enter a
Wi-Fi password‚ asking you to name the playlist. Enter a name, then tap
Save. The playlist displays briefly in the sidebar, then a list of all your
Playing Around The
iPad lets you create
playlists on the device
itself, and later edit or
add to them.
122
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Just Peachy Tap the
iPad’s screen when
playing a song, and you
get additional controls.
songs pops up. Each song has a blue plus-sign icon to the right; to add a
song to the playlist, just tap the icon next to its name. To choose from a
different source of content, tap the Sources button at the upper left to
pick a library (Music, Podcasts, and so on) or another playlist from which
to fill your new playlist. You can always add songs to, or delete songs
from, your playlist later.
Play Music While the browsing experience may be similar to iTunes,
playing media on the iPad is akin to doing so on an iPhone or an iPod
touch. When you play a track, your device’s screen fills with that song’s
album artwork. Artwork you’ve acquired from the iTunes Store scales
beautifully, but album art you’ve downloaded yourself can look mighty
pixelated if it’s a low-resolution image.
Tap the screen to bring up basic playback controls (see “Just Peachy”).
Additionally, you’ll see a scrubber bar, along with Repeat and Shuffle
buttons. At the lower left of the screen is a back-arrow icon that, when
tapped, returns you to the main iPod interface, with the album artwork
taking up residence in the lower-left corner. Centered beneath the
artwork is a Genius button. Tap it, and the iPad will create a 25-track
Genius playlist based on the currently playing song. To the right is a
Track List button, a circle with several horizontal lines. Tap it, and all the
tracks in the currently playing album or playlist will appear.
123
Chapter 4
Multimedia
When playing an audiobook or podcast, tap the screen, and you can
e-mail a link to a podcast, scrub through the audio by dragging the
playhead in the scrubber bar, and change the speed of the audio (to
normal, double, or half speed). At the bottom of these audiobook and
podcast screens is a 30-second repeat control. Tap it, and the audio
rewinds 30 seconds and plays.
To silence the iPad in a hurry, you can either flick its mute switch if
you’ve chosen to use it that way, or press and hold on the bottom of the
volume rocker switch.
The iPod app supports background audio, which means you can listen to
your songs while performing other tasks or working in another app on
your iPad. To change the song or to pause your music, you don’t have to
reenter the app—simply double-click the Home button to bring up the
multitasking shelf, then swipe right to access the iPod controls.
GarageBand
GarageBand ’11 ($5; macworld.com/7054), part of Apple’s iLife suite, is
a versatile application. With it, you can play and record virtual instruments, record real instruments plugged into your Mac, create iPhone
ringtones, record and assemble podcasts, create movie soundtracks,
play and record your guitar through modeled amps and effects, and
string together audio loops. Wonderful as the Mac-based GarageBand
is, far too many people ignore it completely, or open it once to see
what all the fuss is about and never do so again. They do this because
they perceive GarageBand as a musician’s tool.
Anyone‚ from musicians to tin-eared newbies‚ can use it, no talent
required. GarageBand on the iPad eschews the podcast, ringtone, and
movie-soundtrack elements and instead focuses on making it easy to
create and record music. The app includes a variety of “smart” instruments, enabling you to play pleasing notes, chords, and beats on virtual
keyboards, guitars, basses, and drums.
In addition to its smart instruments, this eight-track recorder includes a
wide variety of virtual instruments (synthesized and sampled) that you
can play and record (see “Player Piano”). It lets you record real instruments jacked into a compatible audio interface, as well as sounds
recorded with the iPad’s microphone or a compatible external mic. It
includes modeled guitar amps and stompboxes for guitar players; offers
124
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Player Piano With
GarageBand on the
iPad, it’s easy to feel like
you’re playing an actual
instrument.
a couple different ways to create drum tracks; and even provides a
sampler instrument with an onscreen keyboard for playing back sounds
recorded with a microphone.
Regardless of your musical skill, GarageBand has something to offer.
With very little effort, you can strum the chords to a favorite song on
the Smart Guitar instrument. If you need a funky beat to get you out of
bed in the morning, you can assemble it with Smart Drums. If you want
to do nothing more than piece together a podcast theme with loops
and a voiceover, it’s easily done. And if your nine-year-old is getting
antsy in the back seat, pass along the iPad and suggest that she play
with the Sampler.
125
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Third-Party Music Apps
With third-party apps, you no longer have to rely solely on your iTunes music
library to get through the day. You can do everything from tuning in to online
radio, subscribing to a streaming plan, and even creating your own music.
Pandora Radio With Pandora, users can pick a song, artist, or genre
they’d like to hear, and then create a radio station based on similar
content. The app has a simple interface, effortless navigation, and a
thumbs-up or thumbs-down button that helps determine how a listener’s
station will evolve. Users can bookmark any song or artist, as well as
purchase songs from the iTunes Store. Pandora is ad supported, but you
can turn the ads off (and gain access to higher audio quality) by subscribing to the $36 per year Pandora One (free; macworld.com/6022).
Sonos Controller If it’s streaming music you want, Sonos Controller for
iPad can stream from Internet radio stations and subscription services
like Rhapsody, Napster, and Sirius FM (free; macworld.com/7233).
Magic Piano If you want to use your iPad to create, rather than merely
tune in, Smule’s Magic Piano lets both musicians and musician wannabes
tickle the virtual ivories in a solo setting, as well as play in concert with
others around the world ($1; macworld.com/6711).
Looptastic HD More-advanced audiophiles may take interest in an app
like Sound Trends’ Looptastic HD, which lets you mix and piece together
tracks from a handful of audio loops ($15; macworld.com/6712).
126
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Videos
Slim and light, the iPad is the perfect device for watching movies or
television while you’re sick in bed, or for enjoying a video on the plane.
You can watch content from your iTunes library, rent TV shows or
movies from the iTunes Store, browse the YouTube app for moments of
brilliance, or stream online video from one of many third-party apps.
Watch Videos
Offline, the best way to watch video is using the built-in Videos app,
which pulls from content you’ve synced from your iTunes library. The
Videos app is tasked with sorting your videos into rentals, movies, TV
shows, video podcasts, music videos, and videos from iTunes U. If you
have applicable videos, you’ll see a button for the respective category
along the top center bar.
Tap one of the category buttons to see an icon-view list of that section.
Movies and TV shows you’ve purchased display only the artwork associated with them­. There’s no title information, so if you’re unfamiliar with
the artwork or have no artwork, you’ll need to tap the artwork or the
gray box to learn what the video is. (Homemade videos exported to
iTunes from iMovie‚ with no embedded artwork‚ will display the title of
the film in place of the icon.) Podcasts, music videos, and iTunes U
content provide the title of the item below the artwork.
You can’t rearrange the order of items on these screens, but you can
delete them by simply tapping and holding the respective clip until you
see an X icon in its upper left corner (similar to the one that appears
when removing apps).
Tap a video’s artwork to see more details about it. For movies or rentals
downloaded from the iTunes Store, commonly presented information
includes the film’s rating, studio, year made, whether it’s presented in HD
(720p) or SD (480p) quality, a summary, actors, directors, producers,
and‚ possibly‚ screenwriters. You can switch from the Info pane to the
Chapters pane‚ to view the film by chapter‚ by tapping the respective
button in the upper right corner of the column. Music videos and
home-converted video will show the year of creation or release (often
Unknown); the clip’s length, dimensions, and file size; and the codecs
127
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Tickle Me iPad Tap a
video while it’s playing
to bring up extra
controls.
used for the audio and video in it. TV shows, podcasts, and iTunes U files
skip most of these details, offering only the show’s title, rating (if
applicable), year of release, and whether it’s in HD or SD. Below these
details, you’ll see a list of episodes currently on your device, as well as a
link below to Get More Episodes. Once you’re finished reading about the
video, you can tap the Play button to start it.
Videos on the iPad can play in either landscape or portrait orientation.
When in a video, tap the screen, and standard playback controls appear,
along with a volume slider (see “Tickle Me iPad”). At the top of the
display is a Done button and a scrubber bar. If you want to navigate
through a video’s chapters, tap the Back button to return to the previous
screen, where you can select a chapter, use the Previous or Next buttons
to move back or forward by chapter, use the controller on a compatible
set of headphones, or use the scrubber bar to scrub to the scene you
want to view.
You’ll also find a button for toggling between widescreen and full-screen
display. Each is a compromise. When viewing videos formatted for
widescreen display, you’ll see large black bars above and below the
video. Switch to full-screen mode, and the picture will fill the screen, but
you’ll lose some of the left and right sides of the video. (If the video was
originally formatted for 4:3 standard definition, the screen toggle button
won’t show up.)
128
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Watch YouTube Videos
Although you can access most content from streaming video sites like
YouTube (youtube.com) and Vimeo (vimeo.com) using mobile Safari,
your iPad also comes with a built-in YouTube app for quick browsing
access. The app is divided up into seven sections: Featured, Top Rated,
Most Viewed, Favorites, Subscriptions, My Videos, and History (see “On
the Tube”). You can search for a specific video at any point and in any
category by tapping the Search bar in the upper right corner.
Featured, Top Rated, and Most Viewed all show a page of videos on
launch, though you can tap Load More to get more from your category.
Featured videos are those YouTube deems interesting, while Top Rated
and Most Viewed are, respectively, the highest rated and most viewed
videos on the site. You can sort these by time frame: Choose Today, This
Week, or All. Favorites, Subscriptions, and My Videos all involve your personal YouTube account (if you have one). Tap any one of these categories, and you’ll be prompted to enter your username and password. You
can’t sign up for an account from the app, but you can sign in by tapping
the Sign In button in the upper left corner of these categories or by
tapping a different, account-required category. Favorites displays those
YouTube videos you’ve tagged as interesting or playlists you’ve built,
while Subscriptions shows the YouTube channels to which you’re
On the Tube A built-in
app lets you watch
YouTube’s finest right
on your iPad.
129
Chapter 4
Multimedia
currently subscribed (you can add to or edit any of these by tapping the
Edit button in the upper left corner). If you’ve uploaded videos to your
account, you can view them by tapping the My Videos category. Finally,
History shows what videos you’ve viewed in the past. (To clear them, tap
the Clear button in the upper left corner.)
To view a video, just tap it. This automatically launches it in full-screen
mode, with controls to play, pause, scrub, and exit to the YouTube
browser (which you can also do by tapping Done in the upper left
corner). If you exit, you’ll be brought to the videos page, which shows a
smaller version of the video, followed by some descriptive information
about it, related videos, more from the creator or user, and comments
people have made about the video.
iMovie
Apple’s iMovie ($5; macworld.com/6303) allows you to cut surprisingly
complicated clips together, providing a legitimately worthy tool for
editing on the go. A look at Adobe Premiere or Apple’s Final Cut shows
you just how complex video editing can be—this app makes that process
not only accessible, but touchable, too.
The app’s multitouch gestures provide a variety of new ways to work with
clips and the timeline. You can zoom in and out; jump through the timeline; move, split, skim, and rotate clips; and open the Precision Editor for
more specific tweaks. That tactile interactivity makes video editing more
engaging. You’re assembling the movie directly using your fingers, instead
of at a distance via the mouse on a computer. Without a doubt, when it
comes to editing, the large iPad screen is a big improvement over the
smaller ones on the iPhone and iPod touch.
You can export the movie directly to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and
CNN iReport, as well as to the iPad’s Camera Roll. iMovie offers HD
exports in addition to Web-friendly files.
You can layer up to three tracks of simultaneous audio and an optional
background track over the clip audio (up from the previous version’s
single non­adjustable track). Unfortunately, while you can view audio
waveforms on the iPad, there’s no way to individually adjust or split
audio clips; you’re stuck with a master volume control for each clip and
an on/off button. Nor can you separate audio from a clip‚ though you
can switch off audio entirely.
130
Chapter 4
Multimedia
On the whole, the iMovie app provides a great user experience. While
desktop applications have sought for years to imitate the experience of
flatbed editing, the app on the iPad is the first to feel a bit like the real
thing. When it comes to video editing, there’s something to be said for
working with your hands‚ physically swiping down to cut a clip instead of
pressing a key.
Third-Party Movie Apps
If you want even more video-streaming options, Netflix and Hulu both
provide additional content for the iPad‚ for a monthly fee.
Netflix Subscribing to DVD rental service Netflix (netflix.com) allows
you to receive DVDs of shows and movies in the mail, but the company
also has an in-depth online streaming service called Netflix Watch
Instantly. For $8, you can subscribe to the company’s Watch Instantly
Unlimited service (no DVDs), and every DVD-rental plan starting at $10 a
month includes unlimited streaming as well. Either way, you can download the Netflix app and have access to every single one of the company’s
streaming titles on the go (free; macworld.com/6473).
Hulu Plus Hulu is also a subscription service, but for television. The $8
per month service (hulu.com/plus) gives users access to full episodes of
television and older film collections. However, since the Website uses
Flash, you can’t access it using mobile Safari—you’ll need to download
the Hulu Plus app (free; macworld.com/6471).
131
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Photos
The iPad makes a fantastic electronic photo album. You can pass it
around to friends curious about your latest vacation, hook it up to your
television for some large-screen viewing, or turn on Picture Frame mode
and create an instant slideshow. But its abilities don’t stop there: The
iPad 2 has two cameras for snapping low-resolution images and shooting video. And with Apple’s Camera Connection Kit, you can import
photos from your camera and edit them with third-party iPad apps.
Use the iPad 2’s Cameras
The iPad 2 has not one but two built-in cameras: a 0.3-megapixel VGA
front-facing camera, and a 0.7-megapixel camera located on the rear of
the tablet. To shoot still images or record videos with these cameras,
launch the Camera app by tapping its icon on the Home screen.
There are several buttons and toggles on this screen (see “Start Shooting”): The Camera button A snaps a photo or starts and stops a video
recording. You’ll hear a shutter-click sound effect when your device
captures a still image. Within moments, the camera is ready to take the
d
E
Start Shooting The
iPad 2’s built-in Camera
app can be used to
capture video or still
images from the front
or back camera.
132
b
a
c
Chapter 4
Multimedia
next shot. To quickly see the photo or video you just captured—and
other photos you’ve taken with your device—tap on the Camera Roll
button B. This will launch the gallery of photos and videos you’ve taken.
The Photo/Video toggle C allows you to switch from still images to
video; the Swap Camera button D switches views from the back camera
to the front (and vice versa).
By default, the camera autofocuses on the scene you’re shooting;
however, you can tap on the touchscreen to make it focus on a particular
object E. If that object is in a darker or lighter area of the frame, the
camera will also adjust to make sure that location is properly exposed,
even if that means other areas will be blown out or left in darkness.
View Photos
The iPad is perfect for showing off photos, and Apple’s built-in Photos
app is a slick tool for displaying them. Any photos and videos you
capture with the iPad 2’s cameras—along with any images you’ve synced
to the device—are viewable in Photos. When you open the app, you’ll
see some or all of these tabs at the top, offering you up to five different
ways to view your synced and saved pictures: Photos, Albums, Events,
Faces, and Places (see “Picture the Options”).
Photos The Photos tab brings up thumbnails of all the images stored on
your iPad. It’s also where you can directly send and share images. Tap the
Share arrow in the upper right corner. Here, you can e-mail, copy, print,
or delete multiple photos. Tap the photos you wish to send, then tap
Email in the upper left corner to create an e-mail message with the
images attached. E-mail is unfortunately limited to five images at a time‚
but you can get around this limitation by tapping the Copy button and
pasting the images into a message instead.
You’ll notice the Delete button is sometimes grayed out or‚ in some
instances‚ missing altogether. That’s because the iPad won’t let you
delete photos you’ve synced with your computer; you can only delete
those images you’ve personally saved to your device or exported from a
third-party program.
To view an individual photo, tap its thumbnail once. You’ll be greeted by
a menu bar and content scroller at the top and bottom of the image, but
that will fade away. Tap the screen once to bring it back.
133
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Picture the Options The Photos app
organizes your images
in up to five categories:
Photos, Albums, Events,
Faces, and Places. If you
don’t have any photos
with tagged Faces or
Places, or images
gathered in an album or
event, these tabs won’t
show up.
When you are viewing an image full-screen, the menu bar shows a link
back to the album’s thumbnails you were looking at in the upper left
corner, a count of how many photos are in the album, a button to cycle
through a slideshow of the photos in that album, and a Share button for
sharing individual images. Tap the button, and you’re greeted with a
pop-up menu, giving you the option to e-mail the photo, send it to your
MobileMe gallery (if you have one), assign it to a contact in your Address
Book, use it as your wallpaper, print it, or copy it. To view the photo in
greater detail, you can either pinch out to zoom in, or double-tap it.
Return to thumbnail view by pinching in on the screen.
Along the bottom, the content scroller has tiny thumbnails of all the
photos in the present album. Tap and drag along it to preview full-screen
images of other pictures; release your finger to stop on a specific one.
You can also flick your finger to the left or right on the screen to go
photo by photo within the album.
Albums and Events If you’ve created albums or events within the
photo program on your computer, they’ll show up here. In the Albums
tab, the first one you’ll see is Saved Photos, which is where any picture
you save or export from a third-party program will end up. Pinch to
zoom in on an album or event and preview some of the photos contained within, or simply tap to open it in thumbnail view.
134
Chapter 4
Multimedia
More to Map If you
have synced photos
that include geotagging
information, the Places
tab will appear in the
Photos app and show
you on a map where the
photos were taken.
Faces If you use iPhoto or Aperture, you may be familiar with the
Faces feature in those programs, which allows you to tag images with
the names of the people in them. Sync either application’s pictures
with the iPad, and these tags will carry over, creating little miniature
albums containing pictures of each respective person. In the Photos
app, you can view any of these tagged images under the Faces tab. As
with albums and events, you can pinch to zoom for a preview, or tap to
open it.
Places Most modern cameras (and camera-equipped gadgets) support
geotagging. This feature adds location data to your photo, telling you
where you were when you snapped it; with the iPad, you can see these
photos on a map of the world. If you have any geotagged photos, you’ll
see red pushpins on the map representing their locations. Tap a pin to
bring up a preview of the photos taken there (see “More to Map”); tap
the photos themselves to enter thumbnail view.
Slideshows In thumbnail or single-photo view of an album, face, place,
or event, you’ll see a Slideshow button in the upper right corner of the
screen. Tap it to see several options for creating a slideshow. Choose
whether to play music from your iPad’s music library, select one of five
transitions, then tap Start Slideshow to begin. You can stop a slideshow
at any point by tapping the screen, which freezes on the photo you’re
currently viewing and brings you into single-photo view.
135
Chapter 4
Multimedia
To control how long each image is displayed in a slideshow, you must leave
the Photos app and go to Settings. Choose Photos from the list of apps on
the left, and you’ll see the Play Each Slide For option. Make your choice and
return to Photos. You can also turn your iPad into a picture-frame slideshow from the Lock screen. Tap the Picture Frame button (to the right of
the Unlock slider), and a slideshow of photos from your library will begin to
play. You can change options for this slideshow in Settings: Picture Frame.
Import and Export Photos
There are many ways to get images onto your iPad in addition to capturing them with the built-in cameras. You can save photos from e-mail
messages or pages in Safari to your Camera Roll by tapping and holding
on each image and selecting Save Image from a pop-up menu. You can
also import them onto the iPad from your computer, from a camera, and
from a memory card.
Import from a Computer To load your iPad with photos from your computer, you will need to sync it with your libraries using iTunes (for more
information, see the “Sync and Load” section earlier in this chapter).
Export to a Computer Although you can’t download synced photos
from your device to a computer, you can download the photos you’ve
taken—assuming you have software on your computer that can pull
images from a memory card (which is how these programs classify your
device). For example, when you plug your iPad into your Mac, and it
contains new pictures taken with the camera, you can use iPhoto or
Image Capture to import those pictures.
On a Windows PC, when you plug in the iPad and it contains new
pictures, Autoplay will appear and ask what you’d like to do with your
device’s pictures. One of the options is to import them. In Windows Vista
Home Premium, the pictures are imported into Windows Photo Gallery.
From a Camera or Memory Card What if you want to upload some
pictures while you’re on the road, but don’t want to bring your computer
and SD card reader? With Apple’s iPad Camera Connection Kit ($29;
apple.com), you can move photos and videos from your camera onto the
iPad. The kit connects to your iPad’s dock and is made up of two pieces:
an SD card reader and a companion USB connector (see “Make the
Connection”). If your camera shoots on an SD card (or, with an adapter,
a mini-SD card), you can just pop the card out of the camera and put it in
136
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Make the Connection Apple sells the $29 iPad
Camera Connection kit
for photographers who
want to upload images
directly from a camera
or memory card to
an iPad.
the reader. If you shoot on
something else‚ CompactFlash, or
even an iPhone or a 4G iPod
touch‚ just plug the device’s USB
cable (or, alternatively, a USB
multiple-card reader) into the
USB connector.
When you make a connection, the
iPad’s Photos app launches immediately and displays thumbnails for
every image on the memory card. You’ll notice that a new tab labeled
Camera appears along the menu bar. This tab will remain in place as long
as there’s a device connected to your iPad through the kit.
Once connected, the iPad handles a variety of file formats with equal
ease. You can import JPEG, raw, and even movie files. If you’ve
already imported some photos from your camera, you’ll see a green
checkmark on the thumbnails for those photos. If you shoot
Raw+JPEG, a label denoting that pairing will appear across the
bottom of the image. (Even though both files end up on the iPad, you
will only see one thumbnail.)
You can browse all of the thumbnails on the card without importing
anything, but to see bigger versions of the images, you have to transfer
them. You can tap the Import All button in the upper right corner, or
just tap the photos you want, then tap Import Selected. When you
transfer images, Photos will create two new albums: Last Import and
All Imported. The first will only show the latest media you’ve transferred, while the latter will show everything you’ve imported. Unfortunately, you can’t organize or tag your photos here‚ you’ll have to sync
back to iPhoto or Aperture for that.
Photo Booth
The iPad 2’s cameras aren’t high-resolution enough to snap any fine-art
photographs, and the iPad’s form factor makes it a pretty inconvenient
point-and-shoot camera. However, one fun use for these cameras,
outside of video chatting, is taking pictures with the Photo Booth app.
This new app is an iPad version of the classic OS X application that
works with iSight cameras. Tap once on the app and you are greeted
with nine live previews of the front or back camera’s view with real-time
effects including thermal vision, X-ray, twirl, and mirror. Once you
137
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Fun with Photo
Booth The iPad 2’s
Photo Booth app is a
fun way to use the
built-in cameras on your
device.
choose an effect, you can move between the front and back cameras by
tapping the toggle in the lower right corner. Tap and drag anywhere on
the image to alter the effect’s centerpoint (see “Fun with Photo Booth”).
To return to Photo Booth’s effects menu, just tap the icon in the screen’s
lower left corner.
After you take a picture in Photo Booth, it will appear in a tray along the
bottom of the screen. Tap once on one of these thumbnails to preview
the image. You can also e-mail, copy, and delete the images from within
the Photo Booth app. Any photos you take here will also appear in the
Photos app and in the Camera Roll.
Third-Party Photo App
If you want to edit your photos on the iPad, here’s a great option.
Photogene for iPad Omer Shoor’s Photogene offers a vast array of
editing options, including controls for adjusting levels, and for cropping,
rotation, filters, and digital photo frames. Once you’re finished editing,
you can e-mail your photos; upload them to Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr;
and send them back to the Photos app ($4; macworld.com/6575).
138
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Books and Reference
Reading, viewing PDFs, and skimming news on the iPad is a snap thanks
to a variety of both built-in and third-party programs. Apple’s iBooks
(with its attached iBookstore) provides clean, simple e-book and PDF
reading, while other apps offer different catalog selections, free books
from Project Gutenberg, RSS feeds from news sources, and Wikipedia
articles. You’re never too far from some good reading.
Read Books
The iPad version of iBooks offers a very pleasant reading experience for
both ePubs (a popular e-book format) and PDFs, with both portrait and
landscape modes. In landscape, the iPad splits the text across two virtual
facing pages; in portrait, it limits text to a single page at a time. To keep
your iPad’s virtual pages from constantly shifting orientation while
you’re reading in bed, double-tap the Home button and swipe right to
bring up Orientation Lock, or use the hardware switch, depending upon
how you’ve configured that switch in the Settings app.
iBooks offers a host of options for navigation and for tweaking your
book’s look. Single-tapping anywhere on the text hides most of these
interface elements; tapping again brings them back. On the bottom, a
small indicator tells you where you are in the current chapter. The app
also offers great features for exploring and annotating the books you
read. You can search the full text of the book for words or phrases in
seconds, and jump straight to those passages. You can add bookmarks,
highlight sections, and add notes‚ all of which are then easily discoverable from the book’s table of contents. You can tap and hold a word or
phrase to look it up using the built-in dictionary, Google, or Wikipedia.
You can choose from six fonts, including Georgia (see “iBooks Display
Options”). iBooks also lets you pick one of 11 font sizes; the app also lets
you disable full justification, although you must jump over to the Settings app to toggle that preference. iBooks lets you choose a white
background with black text, or a sepia background with dark brown text.
And you can adjust the brightness‚ a must for nighttime reading.
If you want access to books not available in the iBookstore, or you
already own a dedicated e-reader, third-party apps may be able to give
139
Chapter 4
Multimedia
iBooks Display
Options iBooks lets
you control the font, its
size, and the page color
tone as you read.
you the reading you seek. For those who want to browse Amazon’s
catalog of e-books, there’s the company’s Kindle app (free; macworld
.com/6020). It offers numerous text display options, links to Amazon’s
massive Kindle bookstore, and syncs with other Kindle apps and the
hardware Kindle device.
140
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Third-Party Reading Apps
On the iPad, you’re not limited to e-book enjoyment—after all, you have
access to the entire Internet. A variety of third-party apps outside mobile
Safari can supplement and organize your Internet reading.
Reeder for iPad If you follow more than a couple blogs or online news
sources and use Google Reader to organize them, an app like Silvio Rizzi’s
Reeder is essential. Borrowing a few design tricks from Apple’s Photos
app, it organizes your Google Reader categories into paper piles, which
you can pinch open to reveal the news sources contained within. When
articles contain only summaries, you can tap the Readability button (or
pinch the summary text) to expand the full article without needing to go
directly to its associated Web page ($5; macworld.com/6300).
Instapaper At its core, Instapaper is a service for delayed, distractionfree reading of long-form Web content. The idea is that as you surf the
Web and encounter lengthier articles that you’d rather read later, or on a
better-suited device, you save those articles to Instapaper. The service
then grabs the article’s text (and any inline images) and saves them, and
you can revisit them at any time via the Web or in the iOS app ($5;
instapaper.com/iphone).
Flipboard For those readers more interested in a mix of social media
news and blogs, Flipboard offers a personalized newspaper-style look for
your favorite feeds. You can create up to nine sections that pull from
Twitter, Facebook, top blogs, and other sources—Flipboard offers more
than 60 different section options (free; macworld.com/6465).
141
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Games
When talking about entertainment on the iPad, it would be remiss to
overlook gaming. The iPad 2’s accelerometer makes driving and action
games interactive, while its multitouch screen provides you with several
angles to control and engage. You can even connect with others and join
a multiplayer campaign, thanks to Apple’s Game Center.
Connect with Game Center
Game Center allows you to connect with friends and strangers alike,
according to your game-playing habits. You can challenge your friends
and allow them to challenge you, compare scores, discover new games
they’re playing, and get matched with other iPad users. Furthermore,
you can stay connected to your gaming circle with notifications, streaming video, leaderboards, and stats.
You’ll find Game Center on your Home screen, installed by default. The
first time you launch the app, an interface that resembles a green poker
table, scattered with clusters of apps, will greet you. Game Center will
ask you to enter your Apple ID and password‚ the same one you use to
purchase music from the iTunes Store. If you don’t have an Apple ID, you
can create one directly within the program. You’ll also get to pick a
username, which will identify you on the service.
Once you’ve signed in, you’ll be greeted by your profile, which includes
your username and friend count, the number of Game Center–enabled
games you have on your iPad, and your number of achievements.
There’s also space to write a short blurb, and beneath that a button
showing your Apple ID account. You can tap this button at any time to
view or sign out of your account, if you’re sharing an iPad with siblings
or a significant other. Tap View Account to access important Game
Center settings. These include allowing invitations from friends and
strangers, allowing people to find you by e-mail, and choosing what
e-mail addresses you want to associate with your account. You can
also edit your nickname, change your account information, and change
your region here.
Along the bottom of the app are four tabs: Me, Friends, Games, and
Requests. When you start the app, you’ll load the Me tab, which show-
142
Chapter 4
Multimedia
To the Games You can see a list of all
your Game Centercompatible games
under the Games tab.
cases your aforementioned profile information. Friends lists your current
Game Center contacts; to add a contact, tap the plus-sign button in the
upper left corner of the screen. You can add a friend by username or
e-mail address, and include a short message, if you like.
Under the Games tab, you’ll find all your currently installed game titles
(see “To the Games”). Each game title shows its icon, the last time you
played, and your current Game Center ranking. You can tap a game to
access its Leaderboard. In addition to providing a link to play the game
143
Chapter 4
Multimedia
directly (in the upper right corner), the Leaderboard shows your rank
among your friends and overall, what achievements you’ve managed to
get, a list of who among your friends has recently played, and a Tell A
Friend button for e-mailing someone about it. Tabs give you access to a
full Leaderboard that keeps scores for the day, for the week, and for all
time. On the left side, you’ll see your friends’ scores (if they’ve played);
on the right, you’ll see the list of players and their respective scores.
If you don’t currently have any games compatible with Game Center, tap
the Find Game Center Games tab. This will launch a special section of
the App Store just for supported games.
Third-Party Game Apps
Whether you like playing something entertaining or strategic, there are
plenty of great iPad games in the App Store.
Angry Birds HD In Chillingo’s hugely popular Angry Birds HD, little green
pigs have stolen the eggs of some flightless—but skilled—birds, and now
the birds want revenge. Clear stages by flinging birds in a slingshot to
destroy the pigs ($5; macworld.com/6713).
Plants vs Zombies HD In PopCap Games’ Plants vs Zombies, it’s your job
to build an army of attacking plants to fend off waves of zombie hordes
($10; macworld.com/6714).
Strategery Affogato’s Strategery takes cues from the popular board
game Risk, allowing you to play against friends (or the computer) on a
massive map filled with colorful dots ($2; macworld.com/6163).
Words with Friends HD If you’re more of a Scrabble fan, you may take
delight in Zynga’s Words with Friends, a competitive crossword experience similar to the iconic board game. Play against friends in person or
online, match up randomly, and even enjoy an in-game chat smackdown
with your opponent ($3; macworld.com/6147).
144
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Share and Stream
In addition to watching local content stored on your iPad, there are also
ways to stream content from your computer to your iPad, as well as
share the music and video from your iPad on a large HDTV screen (both
wired and wirelessly). Here are some of your options.
Use Home Sharing
Introduced in iTunes 9, Home Sharing was initially designed to allow you
to share music and copy files between iTunes on different computers
over a local network. But with iTunes 10.2, you can now use Home
Sharing to stream content to iOS devices as well. Here’s how it works.
iTunes Setup To start with, you need to activate Home Sharing in
iTunes on each of the Macs (and Windows PCs) whose libraries you
want to share. To do this, go to the Advanced menu in iTunes and choose
Turn On Home Sharing (see “Sharing Is Caring”). You’ll be prompted to
enter your Apple ID and password. This is where the Home Sharing
feature has its limits: Only computers that share the same iTunes
account can use Home Sharing. If each of your family members has a
different account, you’ll have to choose just one for Home Sharing.
Once you’ve activated Home Sharing, any user can listen to or view
content in another user’s library. In addition, you can copy items from
other libraries: Select any item, then click the Import button to add it to
your library.
Sharing Is Caring With Home Sharing,
you can stream content
from iTunes directly to
your iPad—no syncing
necessary.
145
Chapter 4
Multimedia
Set Up Your iPad Head to Settings –> iPod on your iPad, and, under
Home Sharing‚ enter the Apple ID and password of the account you used
to enable Home Sharing on your computer.
Stream Away Once you’ve enabled Home Sharing, you can stream your
music and videos over your local Wi-Fi network with ease. Tap Library in
the iPod app to access any available Home Sharing library. You’ll find any
available videos from Home Sharing in the Videos app: Tap the library in
question to view its contents, then tap a movie or TV show to watch it.
Stream with AirPlay and More
Your iPad can take advantage of AirPlay, Apple’s live streaming technology. With AirPlay, you can send music or video from your device to any
AirPlay-compatible output. Whenever you’re listening to music or
watching video in an app that supports AirPlay, you’ll see the AirPlay
icon (an HDTV-shaped rectangle with a triangle punching its way
through the button) on the playhead. Tap it, then tap the name of
whatever AirPlay-compatible device you’d like to send your content to.
Alternatively, if you have the technical savvy to set up a media server,
apps like InMethod’s Air Video ($3; macworld.com/6133) and Zecter’s
ZumoCast (free; macworld.com/6710) can stream music and video
content directly to your iPad over Wi-Fi or 3G, even if you’re across the
country from your media source.
Output Your Video
You can also send video from your iPad to your television via video out
using one of the iPad’s video adapter cables. Apple’s $39 Digital AV
Adapter (macworld.com/7234) offers an HDMI port and supports audio
and video, so you’ll be able to get 720p HD video and Dolby Digital
5.1-channel surround sound through a single cable to your TV. The $29
VGA Adapter (macworld.com/7235) also supports 720p movie output,
but doesn’t carry audio. Both cables can also mirror the contents of your
iPad 2’s display on your TV, so you can view apps, slideshows, Keynote
presentations, and more.
146
5
Troubleshooting
Tips
It’s a fact of life: Computers crash. Unlike a desktop
or laptop, however, the iPad is fairly easy to triage,
even if you’re not tech savvy. This chapter will walk
you through some of the basic steps to get your
device back up and running again after a slowdown
or a crash, attempt to answer some of the most
common iPad support questions, advise you on
when to seek outside help, and, finally, offer some
tips on protecting and securing your data.
Contents
Quick-Fix Tools
Page 148
Common iPad
Questions
Page 153
Seek Outside
Help
Page 159
Security Tips
Page 161
147
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
Quick-Fix Tools
It doesn’t happen often, but on occasion, things get wonky. The app
you’re in won’t respond. Or maybe your iPad just shut down, and you
can’t get it to turn on again. Whatever the case, you can use any one of
these tools to get yourself back to surfing and playing games in no time.
To Force-Quit or Not to Force-Quit
Uh-oh: You’re surfing the Web, when all of a sudden mobile Safari stops
scrolling. You try tapping any of the on-screen buttons, but you can’t get
a reaction. The app has become utterly unresponsive.
This kind of situation is called an app freeze or crash. For whatever
reason, the app has encountered an error it can’t recover from, so rather
than get itself further into trouble, it’s stopped doing everything while it
tries to figure out what the problem is and solve it (if it even can).
If you don’t want to wait for the app to try to fix itself, you can tell it to
force-quit. There are two ways to do this. If the app’s not completely
frozen, and you can get to the Home screen, you can double-click the
Home button to bring up the multitasking shelf. Find your app’s icon and
tap and hold it; after a moment, the icons will start to wiggle and a little
minus button (–) will appear in the upper left corner of each app (see
“Do the Wiggle”). Tap the minus button of the unresponsive app, and it
will shut down. You can then safely relaunch it from your Home screen.
Do the Wiggle Unlike
a computer, the iPad
normally automatically
manages whatever
programs are open, so
you don’t have to quit
each manually when
you’re done with it;
however, if your device
is feeling sluggish, you
can always try forcequitting applications to
speed it up.
148
If your app is totally frozen and you can’t get to the Home screen, hold
down the Power button on the iPad until the Slide To Power Off slider
appears. Then release Power and hold down the Home button until the
app exits.
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
Move to Restart
If your problem is limited to one app, force-quitting will usually do the
trick. However, if your entire system is affected, you might want to think
about restarting your device. Perform a normal restart by holding down
the Power button until you see the Slide To Power Off slider, then shut
down your device by sliding the red bar across the screen. Wait a few
moments, then restart by holding down the Power button.
On rare occasions, your iPad may be so gummed up that it won’t even
show you the Slide To Power Off screen, at which point you’ll need to
perform a forced restart. Hold down both the Power and Home buttons
until you see a blank screen, followed by the silver Apple logo. This
signals that the device has properly rebooted.
Reset Your Settings and Content
If after a restart (regular or forced), your iPad is still acting weird, it
might have fallen victim to some corrupted information. Reset your
device’s settings, content, and network settings by going to Settings ->
General -> Reset (see “A World of Reset”).
A World of Reset This preference pane
lets you reset settings,
content, the network,
the keyboard dictionary,
the Home screen layout,
and location warnings.
Apple makes a distinction between settings and data. Data consists
mainly of the information that gets synced with your computer, such as
music, photos, and contacts, whereas Settings contains the choices
you’ve made regarding the iOS interface and its native apps—for example, the cities you choose in the Weather program. In theory, tapping the
149
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
Reset All Settings button reverts your settings to their original values,
while leaving your data untouched. In practice, however, some settings—
such as wallpaper selection—may not reset. Tap Erase All Content And
Settings, however, and you’ll get rid of both your settings and data,
returning your device to its stock configuration. Do this, and you’ll need
to manually go in and redo each of your settings. (Your content will
resync to your device the next time you sync it to your computer. Of
course, if you’re nowhere near your computer—you’re on a trip without
your Mac or PC, for instance—invoking this option may not be the best
idea.) If it’s just an issue with your iPad’s 3G or Wi-Fi, you can tap Reset
Network Settings to clear the device’s network information.
If you just have specific content that seems corrupt—for instance, there
are black spaces in the Photos app where your photos and videos should
appear—connect your iPad to your computer and open iTunes, select the
iPad in iTunes’ Source list, then choose whatever category is misbehaving
(in this case, it might be Photos or TV Shows). Uncheck the sync option
for that item and click Apply. When the iPad has finished removing all the
data, feel free to re-enable the media options you unchecked.
Update Your Software
If trying to fix things on the device itself has done you no good, it’s time
to turn to iTunes. The first thing to check is whether you’re running the
latest version of iOS; often, important bug fixes and security patches will
be delivered in the form of an OS update. You can see for yourself what
version you’re running by opening iTunes and clicking on Devices in the
left sidebar; in the Summary tab, under your iPad’s name and capacity,
you’ll see the software version number. (On the iPad you can find the
version number by launching the Settings app, tapping General, and
then tapping About. Look at the Version entry.) But unless you know
what number is current, this won’t help much; you’ll instead want to see
if any newer updates have been posted. If iTunes has told you at some
Missed Updates If you’ve missed an
update, clicking on
Check For Update will
let you know; otherwise,
you’ll see a message
telling you that you’re
running the current
version of iOS.
150
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
time in the past that an update is available, you’ll see an Update button
in the Summary tab. If, on the other hand, iTunes believes you have the
latest version of the iOS, it still offers you the option to check for the
latest version, in the form of a Check For Update button (see “Missed
Updates”). Click this button, and iTunes will let you know if your iPad’s
version of iOS is current or needs updating.
The Dreaded Restore
If, for whatever reason, all else fails and you’re completely at odds with
your iPad, you’ll want to do a restore from iTunes, which deletes its
settings, content, and operating system, wiping the entire device clean
before reinstalling its factory settings. You can restore in one of two
ways: from a backup or from scratch.
If you want to keep your third-party programs and data, make sure to sync
your device one more time and let it make a full backup. This will allow
you to save any of the data you’ve stored with your third-party programs.
(If your device is corrupted and you can’t back it up immediately before
restoring it, you’ll still have the option to restore from an earlier backup.)
Next, to start the restore process, connect your device to your computer, open iTunes, and select your iPad from the Source list under the
Just Being Safe iTunes often doublechecks with you about
important decisions
regarding your iPad or
your media using dialog
boxes like this one.
151
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
Devices heading. In the Summary screen that appears, click Restore, and
iTunes will ask if you really want to restore the device (see “Just Being
Safe”). If you click Restore And Update in that dialog box, your iPad will
download the latest software update for your device if you haven’t
downloaded it previously. (If you’ve previously downloaded the update,
it’s stored on your computer, and iTunes will use it to restore your iPad.)
This update contains—among other things—the latest version of iOS.
When the initial stage of the restore process is complete, your device
has its original factory settings. At this point, a dialog box asks if you
want to set up your iPad as new or restore all the data and settings from
a backup. Unless you believe your backup contains corrupted data, you
should opt to restore from it.
When you choose to restore from a backup, the music, videos, photos,
calendar items, contacts, and apps you’ve previously synced to your iPad
will be copied to the device once again. Once the sync has finished, your
iPad should be restored to its full glory (with the exception of e-mail and
Wi-Fi–network passwords, and photos taken with your device).
Recovery Mode
Your device will automatically go into Recovery mode (signified by the
Connect To iTunes screen) if it runs into an error so impassable that it
can no longer start up and work properly. However, you can also force
your device into Recovery mode—useful, for example, when it no
longer shows up in iTunes, or when it doesn’t get past the Apple logo
during reboot.
To force a recovery, hold down the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons—as
you would do for a forced restart—but continue holding them down
after the restart begins. After about 25 to 30 seconds, the Recovery
mode message should appear. You can now connect to iTunes successfully and restore your device to its normal state.
If you decide not to do a restore from Recovery mode, you can exit by
holding down the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons for 6 to 10 seconds.
No data will be erased during a forced recovery.
152
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
Common iPad Questions
Even the best-designed device can run into trouble, and the iPad is no
exception. Here are answers to some of the most common problems you
may encounter. If you’re experiencing one that’s not on this list, Apple’s
troubleshooting assistant may be able to help solve your issue (apple
.com/support/ipad).
Apps, Apps, Everywhere
Questions about malfunctioning apps? You’ve come to the right place.
My App Has Frozen Check out “Quick-Fix Tools” earlier in this chapter
for help with force-quitting an app or restarting your iPad.
Why Are My Apps ­Wiggling? Tapping and holding an app on your Home
screen will bring your apps into Edit mode, where you can move them,
arrange them into folders, or delete them. Occasionally, you can accidentally press and hold an app, which will bring your icons—seemingly out of
the blue—into Edit mode. To fix this, simply click the Home button. This
will return your device to its normal state. If you see those shimmying
apps in the multitasking shelf, you can stop their motion by simply
tapping on the iPad’s display.
Wait, Wait, Do Tell Me To prevent accidental
deletions, your iPad will
always ask you to
confirm before it gets
rid of an app.
I Accidentally Deleted an
App When you’re in Edit
mode, you can delete
programs by tapping the X in
the upper left corner of the
app’s icon. The iPad tries to
prevent accidental deletion
with a dialog box asking you
to confirm your decision (see
“Wait, Wait, Do Tell Me”), but
things can still happen.
Thankfully, you can recover your lost app in several ways: You can resync
with your computer and restore the missing app, or you can redownload
your app for free from the App Store. To resync, just connect your iPad
to your computer, go to the Apps tab, and select the app in the scrollable
153
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
list. Alternatively, you can go to the App Store on your iPad or on your
computer to redownload your lost program for free.
Note that if you’ve created new files with the app—a couple of word
processing documents with Pages, for example—and haven’t backed up
those files by syncing your iPad, when you delete the app, the documents you created with it will be gone for good.
My App Won’t Update If you use the App Store on your iPad to download app updates instead of downloading them from iTunes on your
computer, there’s a small chance that the app, while downloading, will
experience a glitch and refuse to download or display a gray icon with
the word Waiting beneath it. First try tapping the downloading app—
sometimes all you need to do is pause and restart the download. If that
doesn’t work, you can try restarting your iPad, and if that fails, sync your
device with iTunes.
What Apps Have I Bought? Since you can delete and redownload apps
for free at any point, it helps to be able to remember which apps you’ve
actually purchased in the past. You can check this list through iTunes on
your computer by going to iTunes Store -> Account -> Purchase History.
I Don’t Want This App (It Doesn’t Work) While the App Store Terms
and Conditions state that “all sales and rentals of products are final,” it’s
sometimes still possible to get a refund for an app that simply doesn’t
work (or is falsely advertised) by filling out a support ticket on Apple’s
Website (expresslane.apple.com). If you’re looking for a price adjustment, however, you’re out of luck: The terms expressly state that neither
Apple nor the developer provide “price protection or refunds in the
event of a price ­reduction or promotional offering.” All refunds are given
at Apple’s discretion.
Rated G You can
restrict app purchases to
specific age ratings, allow
all apps, or not allow
users to purchase any.
154
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
Can I Stop My Kids From Buying Apps? Using Restrictions (Settings ->
General -> Restrictions), you can remove the ability to purchase apps
entirely or limit it to specific rating levels (see “Rated G”). Additionally,
you can disable in-app purchases. Note that if purchases are enabled, the
App Store does ask repeatedly for your Apple ID password, so other
parties are required to know it before they can buy anything. Alternatively, you can set up an allowance account from iTunes on your computer, or give apps as gifts.
iTunes Won’t Play (Nice)
Sometimes iTunes and your iPad just don’t get along. Here are a couple
of common problems you may encounter when trying to connect the
two, and their solutions.
My iPad Won’t Show Up First check to make sure you have the latest
version of iTunes installed (you can do this on a Mac by clicking the
iTunes menu while in the program, then selecting Check For Updates
from the drop-down menu). If your software is up to date, check your
hardware: Is the USB cord plugged in properly to both your computer
and your iPad? (To make sure your iPad actually charges, always plug its
cord into the computer itself, instead of relying on something like a USB
port on an external keyboard.) If the iPad’s still not appearing, try a
different port on your computer. At worst, you can try a restart of both
your computer and the iPad; if that doesn’t work, try reinstalling iTunes.
My iPad and iTunes Disagree There may be times when your iPad
and iTunes simply don’t see eye-to-eye—the iPad won’t sync properly
or iTunes refuses to update your iPad. If you’ve tried reinstalling iTunes
and restoring your iPad and met the same unsatisfying conclusion, try
restoring your iPad on a different computer platform—a Windows PC
if you have a Mac, for example. Then take it back to your Mac and
restore it there. This will sometimes put an iPad back in business.
I Get Weird Error Messages during Sync Occasionally, your iPad will
disagree with iTunes about something, which may provoke an error.
Some error messages explain themselves, while others require some
sleuthing. For example, if you get any kind of numerical error code
without a detailed explanation, the problem is most likely in one of your
sync categories; try unchecking everything, syncing your device, then
rechecking all the sync boxes and syncing. At worst, try a backup and
restore to get rid of pesky error messages.
155
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
Swap Meet You can
add files to and remove
them from your iPad
inside iTunes.
What Does “Connect to iTunes” Mean? If when you turn on your
device, it displays the message “Connect to iTunes,” your device has
gone into Recovery mode. What this means is that something has gone
terribly wrong, and your iPad needs to connect to iTunes for an OS
restore. Most times you can get away with doing a backup and restore,
but there’s always the possibility that your device will require a clean
install of the operating system.
How Do I Back Up My iPad? iTunes automatically creates a backup of
your device’s settings and details every time you connect it for syncing.
(Make sure to keep it plugged in while syncing and properly eject it each
time.) However, iTunes does not keep a backup of your purchased apps
or music; you can manually back up these by going into Finder -> User
Account -> Music -> iTunes, and copying the iTunes folder to an external
hard drive, cloud sharing service, or other backup solution. (To learn
more about various ways to back up your content, visit macworld.com or
hints.macworld.com.)
How Do I Share Files? Some third-party apps take advantage of iOS’s
File Sharing feature, allowing you to add and remove content from those
programs. To see what apps allow File Sharing, in iTunes, go to your
device’s Apps tab and scroll down (see “Swap Meet”). To learn more, see
“Sync Files” in the Productivity chapter.
156
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
Charging and Screen Woes
If you can’t get your iPad to charge, or you’re not seeing anything on
the iPad’s screen when looking through sunglasses, this may be the
section for you.
Why Does My iPad Say “Not Charging”? Your device requires at least
10W of power to charge properly. USB 1.0 and 2.0 ports on older
computers may not be able to deliver that amount of power, so when
you connect your iPad through one of those ports, it can’t receive the
amount it needs to begin a full charge. However, if you put it to sleep,
your iPad will begin to charge (albeit slowly). For optimal charging, Apple
recommends connecting the iPad to its USB 2.0 wall adapter.
Temperature Warning Like animals and small children, your iPad does not
relish being placed in direct sunlight. The device’s operating temperature is
somewhere between 32 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit (0 and 35 degrees
Celsius). If it overheats, it will bring up the Temperature error message (see
“Too Darn Hot.”). To speed up your iPad’s recovery time, turn it off and store
it somewhere cool for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes, then attempt to
reboot it.
The iPad’s Screen and Your Sunglasses If you wear polarized UV
sunglasses, you may encounter what looks like a blank screen while
looking at the iPad. This is because the device’s LCD screen has a specific
kind of polarized filter; when combined with another polarized filter—like,
for instance, the one found in your sunglasses—the two cancel each other
out, and the iPad’s screen appears to go blank. Take your specs off!
Too Darn Hot If you
leave your iPad in direct
sunlight or in a car on a
warm day, it will bring
up this warning as a
safety precaution while
it tries to cool down.
157
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
I Can’t Connect
Are you having troubles getting online? Check out these common
connection problems to find some relief.
My iPad Won’t Connect to Wi-Fi If you can’t see any networks, make
sure your iPad is within range. Sometimes you may need to renew your
device’s IP address; do this by going to Settings -> Wi-Fi, tapping the
blue arrow next to the network you’d like to join, and then tapping
Renew Lease (see “Send an SOS”). If that fails, try turning Wi-Fi off, then
back on. As a last resort, try rebooting your device.
My iPad Won’t Connect over 3G First, make sure you’re currently
signed up for a plan with a cellular provider. If you’re somewhere with
good coverage but you can’t get a signal, try going to Settings -> Cellular
Data and flipping the switch for Cellular Data off, then back on. If that
doesn’t work, go to Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Network
Settings to wipe your device’s 3G settings and fetch them again.
My iPad Can’t Connect to My Apple TV 2 using AirPlay For the most
part, AirPlay, Apple’s wireless media-streaming technology, is supposed to
“just work.” If it doesn’t, make sure that both your iPad and Apple TV are
running the latest software, that all devices are logged on to the same
local network (and that network doesn’t have a firewall), and that AirPlay
is enabled on your Apple TV (check the Apple TV’s Settings -> AirPlay configuration). Turn off Bluetooth if necessary, and check that your iPad is the
only device attempting to stream content to your Apple TV.
Send an SOS Sometimes your iPad may
retain old connection
data if you’ve used a
Wi-Fi access point in
the past. Tap Renew
Lease to generate new
data for the network.
158
My iPad Can’t Find a
Printer The number of
printers the iPad works
with is limited to a
handful of HewlettPackard models.
However, with the aid
of the $20 Printopia 2
(ecamm.com), Mac
users can print to any
printer on their local
network. In order for
this to work, the Mac
that hosts the software
must be running.
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
Seek Outside Help
As you’ve seen, you can troubleshoot many basic software issues yourself. However, there are times—especially if the problem involves hardware—when you’ll want to call in the experts. Here are a few ways to
identify these issues and figure out whom to call if they happen.
iPad Hardware Issues
There are some problems that go beyond software. Here’s a rundown of
the big ones, and some ideas on where to go.
DOA If your iPad won’t turn on, and you’ve tried everything suggested in
“Quick-Fix Tools,” take it to an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service
Provider, or call Apple­Care. Your iPad is covered under a limited warranty for 90 days of phone support and one year of in-store coverage
(or two full years of both if you purchase Apple’s extended coverage
option), so if you’re having problems, it’s best to get them checked out
immediately. Going to see an Apple Genius or a technician at an Apple
Authorized Service Provider in person is recommended, but if you live
out of reach of these options, AppleCare’s phone service is available
during business hours.
I See Dead Pixels Your LCD screen is made up of tiny lit dots called
pixels. Occasionally one of those lights will go out, resulting in a small,
oddly colored dot on your screen. One or two dead pixels is nothing to
worry about, but if you start to see a large concentration of them while
your iPad is still under warranty, you’ll want to take your iPad to an Apple
Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider, or call AppleCare. This issue
isn’t usually covered under warranty unless you have more than four dead
pixels in a screen, but it’s always a good idea to check with professionals.
Shattered Screen Whether your iPad experienced an untimely drop, or
something mistakenly sailed its way, shattering its screen, this is an
unfortunate and dangerous situation. The iPad’s warranty does not cover
accidental damage, but you may be eligible for a discounted replacement.
Liquid Damage Spills are never fun—and especially not when they
involve electronics. If you get your iPad wet, the best thing to do is to
power it down, dry it off, and lay it flat in a temperate place (out of direct
159
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
sunlight). If you’ve gotten water in a port, prop up the iPad so that any
trapped liquid might conceivably escape (if, for instance, you’ve flooded
your device’s headphone jack, prop up the iPad with the jack upside
down). If either of the device’s liquid sensors—little white tabs on the
interior of the headphone jack and the dock connector port—have been
triggered, they’ll turn pink, and your iPad’s warranty will become null and
void. Liquid damage doesn’t always mean disaster, but when your device
isn’t powering on or starts behaving oddly, a trip to the Genius Bar might
be in order. While your limited or AppleCare-enhanced warranty doesn’t
cover damage from liquids or spills, you may be eligible for a reduced
replacement cost.
Talk to an Expert
Want to get your iPad looked at professionally, or just learn more about
it? Here are a couple of places you can go and people you can talk to.
Look Online If you have a question to which you haven’t been able to find
the answer, there are many helpful places to look on the Web. The Mac
OS X Hints community (hints.macworld.com), while it’s primarily Mac
oriented, also covers iOS, iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad solutions, and
contains a vast network of people willing to pitch in and help. Other sites
such as Apple’s own support desk (support.apple.com/ipad) offer hundreds of articles on common problems and fixes.
Go to the Apple Store As mentioned above, when your iPad comes
down with some hardware trouble, the best people to talk to are the
Genius Bar folks at your local Apple Store. You can make an appointment
by going to apple.com/retail and typing your zip code; the Website will
bring up a map of the nearest stores. Click on an individual store to go to
its page, then, in the Make Reservation pane, click on Reserve under the
Genius Bar icon.
If you’re looking for someone to teach you about your new iPad, the
Apple Store also offers group workshops and private One to One sessions ($99; available with the purchase of any new Mac).
Find Third-Party Professionals If you live too far away from an Apple
Store or prefer to deal with repairs locally, there are Apple Authorized
Service Providers scattered all over the globe. You can find the ones
nearest to your city, state, province, or country by checking the list Apple
maintains on its Website (support.apple.com/kb/ht1434).
160
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
Security Tips
Your iPad may be in fine condition when you first remove it from the
box, but if you don’t take measures to protect it, you could be in for
some trouble down the line. These suggestions can help keep your
device secure from would-be intruders, thieves, or Internet snoops.
Set a Passcode
Password? What
Password? Assign a
simple (four-digit
numeric) or an alphanumeric passcode—one
you can remember—
and choose security
settings.
To protect your iPad from prying eyes (or overcurious children), you can
set a passcode in Settings -> General -> Passcode Lock. You can choose
between a simple passcode (a four-digit number) or one that includes
alphanumeric characters. Once you’ve set a passcode, you can change
it; tell your device when to require you to enter it (immediately, after 1
minute, after 5 minutes, after 15 minutes, after 1 hour, or after 4 hours);
choose whether to show the picture frame on the lock screen; or set
your device to erase data after 10 failed login attempts (see “Password?
What Password?”).
If you forget your passcode,
you’ll have to restore from
an older backup of your
iPad to access your data.
Connect your device to
your computer, open
iTunes, and click Restore to
proceed with the reinstall.
Find Your Lost iPad Thanks to the iPad’s location services, it knows where it is—to a greater
or lesser extent, depending on whether it’s a Wi-Fi + 3G model (which
has GPS circuitry built in) or a Wi-Fi–only iPad, which relies on nearby
Wi-Fi hotspots to determine its whereabouts. Apple has leveraged this
talent so that you can more easily find a misplaced or stolen iOS device.
The means for doing this is the iPad’s Find My iPad feature.
To set up your iPad to use it, just go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts,
Calendars and tap the MobileMe entry. If you have an Apple ID and
161
Chapter 5
Troubleshooting Tips
password, enter it in the resulting sheet. If not, tap the Create Free
Apple ID entry and you’ll be walked through the process of creating a
free MobileMe identity (one that doesn’t require MobileMe’s $99 annual
subscription fee). Finally, you’ll be prompted to allow MobileMe to access
your location. Agree and you’ll see a Find My iPad entry in a MobileMe
sheet. Switch it on and you can trace your iPad using the free Find My
iPhone app or Apple’s MobileMe Website (me.com).
Use a VPN
While the idea of setting up a VPN account on your iPad may seem intimidating, it’s actually pretty simple, if you have the correct information. For
example, for a Cisco VPN appliance, you open up Settings -> General ->
Network -> VPN. If this is your first time setting up a VPN, you’ll be prompted
to create one of three kinds of VPNs. For this example, you’d tap IPSec.
From there, you’ll need to enter a description for the VPN account, the
TCP/IP address or DNS name for the server, the account name (aka
username), and the password (your personal password, and it’s really a
good idea to leave this blank—entering the password manually when you
connect is a more secure way to set up a VPN).
If you’re using a certificate, you’ll have to move the switch to On, then tap
the certificate setting to navigate to the one you’ll be using (if you aren’t
using a certificate, you’ll need a group name for your VPN account). Finally,
type the group password or shared secret, which goes in the Secret field,
and choose what kind of proxy setting you’ll need (if you aren’t sure, go
with the default).
This may seem fairly complicated, but the person or organization controlling the VPN can give you all this information, or send you a configuration
file via e-mail or on a Website that will set all this up automatically. Once
you’re done entering the required information, tap Save and you’re done.
To use the VPN, just open the Settings app. Right below Wi-Fi, you’ll see
VPN. Tap the On/Off button to turn it on, and wait a few seconds for the
connection to your VPN to initiate. You should be able to work as usual—
the only noticeable difference will be a slight slowdown in network speed
due to VPN overhead. The status bar at the top of the iPhone screen
displays an indicator to remind you that you’re connected to the VPN.
When you want to disconnect, go back into Settings and tap the On/Off
button again to turn the VPN off.
162
6
Accessories
When you purchase an iPad, Apple gives you a few
basic accessories to get started, including a power
adapter and a USB dock-connector cable. But
there are plenty of other useful accessories that
Apple doesn’t offer.
Whether you’re looking for a Bluetooth keyboard,
a protective case, high-quality headphones, or a set
of speakers for listening to music out loud, you’ll
find scores of add-ons that let you do more with
your device.
Here are our picks for some of the most useful
types of accessories for the iPad. For reviews of
the latest gear, go to macworld.com. For details on
which types of older accessories will work with the
iPad 2, check out macworld.com/7264.
163
Contents
Cases
Page 164
Headphones
Page 168
Speakers
Page 172
Other
Accessories
Page 176
Chapter 6
Accessories
Cases
The sleek design of the iPad makes you want to show it off, but it’s still
vulnerable to scratches and scuffs. To minimize the risk of damage,
consider using a protective case. Here’s a rundown of the most common
types, along with examples of some of our favorites. Whichever case
you choose, make sure it doesn’t block the bottom-mounted speaker
and microphone—unless, of course, the case is designed so that you
take your iPad out of the case to use it.
If Apple’s offerings aren’t to your liking, there are hundreds of third-party
iPad cases on the market, and scores specifically for the iPad 2. When
shopping for a third-party case, here are a few quick tips: First, keep in
mind that the original iPad and the iPad 2 have slightly different shapes,
so a case for one may not fit the other. Similarly, when shopping for an
iPad 2 case, be sure to check the bag’s specs with Apple’s iPad specifications, or e-mail the vendor, to confirm that the shipping product actually
fits the iPad. Some vendors started making their iPad 2 cases and bags
before the iPad 2 was even shipping, and not all fit perfectly. Finally, if
you see a bag that claims to be perfect for both iPads and netbooks, be
doubly careful. Most of the bags that claim to fit both classes of products end up being a poor fit for the iPad—the iPad is much thinner than
the typical netbook and will swim around inside.
Apple Smart Cover
Apple’s in-house protector for the
newest iPad can’t really be called a
case—as its name implies, the Smart
Cover (polyurethane, $39; leather,
$69; apple.com) is really just a cover,
and one that protects only the iPad
Apple Smart Cover
2’s screen at that. But oh, what a clever
cover it is, containing a slew of cleverly arranged magnets that let the
Smart Cover’s hinge attach, perfectly oriented, to the edge of the iPad;
adhere to the iPad’s screen; and automatically sleep and wake the iPad
when you close and open the cover, respectively. The Smart Cover also
rolls up into a triangular shape to act as both a typing and a viewing
stand. (Note that if you want to use the Smart Cover with another case,
make sure the latter leaves room for the Smart Cover’s attachment.)
164
Chapter 6
Accessories
Shells and Shock-Absorbing Skins
Shells and silicone skins generally cover the
back and sides of your iPad, but not the
screen, offering moderate protection while
letting you use the iPad in its case. They
range from thin, soft-silicone coverings to
polycarbonate-and-rubber protection to
chunky, molded-grip gaming jackets. A shell
or skin made for the original iPad won’t fit the
iPad 2, and vice versa.
Examples: Griffin Technology Standle ($35;
Standle
griffintechnology.com/products/standle; rigid shell
with built-in stand), Incase Perforated Snap Case ($40; goincase
.com; rigid shell), Marware Microshell iPad 2 case ($40; marware.com).
Sleeves
Sleeve cases protect your iPad inside another bag, such as a backpack,
briefcase, or messenger bag. Some are simple slide-in designs, while
others zip closed or sport a flap closure for added security. Most fit both
the iPad 2 and the original iPad.
Recommendations: Be.ez LA robe iPad Allure
($30; be-ez.com; zippered), Belkin Pleat Sleeve for
iPad ($25; belkin.com; zippered), Sena Cases
Executive iPad Sleeve ($100; senacases.com; flap),
STM Jacket iPad ($25; stmbags.com), Targus
Crave Slipcase for iPad ($35; targus.com; zippered), Waterfield Designs Smart Case and iPad
Slip Case ($59 and $29, respectively; sfbags.com).
165
LA robe iPad Allure
Chapter 6
Accessories
Folio Cases
Folio-style cases offer allover protection for your iPad,
but flip open for easy access to the screen without
requiring you to remove the device. If you’re looking for
stylish protection, this is where it’s at. A folio case made
for the original iPad won’t fit the iPad 2, and vice versa.
Notebook Style
iPad 2 Case
Examples: Portenzo Notebook Style iPad 2 Case ($60;
shop.portenzo.com), RadTech STM skinny ($40;
radtech.us), Cygnett Lavish ($60; cygnett.com).
Bags and Backpacks
A bag or backpack lets you carry your iPad
along with a bit (or a bunch) of other gear. And
you can use it to tote your daily stuff even
when you aren’t carrying your iPad with you.
Harlem Sling
Recommendations: Cocoon Harlem iPad/
Netbook Sling ($55; cocooninnovations.com), Timbuk2 Freestyle Netbook Messenger ($65; timbuk2.com), Tom Bihn
Ristretto for iPad ($110; tombihn.com).
Carrying Packs
Travel Kit Plus
Sometimes you want to carry more than
just your iPad, but you don’t want a bulky
bag or backpack. A carrying pack protects
your iPad while also accommodating
cables, a charger, and even Apple’s
Wireless Keyboard.
Recommendations: Incase Travel Kit Plus ($60; goincase.com) WaterField Designs iPad Wallet and iPad Travel Express ($69 to $101, depending on options; sfbags.com).
166
Chapter 6
TIP
Find More Goods
For more detailed
reviews and recommendations, check out
our reviews of iPad
folios, shells, skins,
sleeves, zippered
sleeves, and bags and
packs at macworld
.com/7265.
Accessories
Body Films
Body films protect your iPad’s sides and
backside from scratches and scuffs
without adding bulk—they’re simply a
iPad 2 Clear Skins
thin layer of superprotective material that
adheres directly to the iPad. Most types can be removed without leaving
behind sticky residue.
Recommendations: BodyGuardz iPad 2 Clear Skins ($30, bodyguardz
.com), BodyGuardz iPad 2 Armor Carbon Fiber ($30; bodyguardz.com),
Zagg invisibleShield Apple iPad 2 Skin ($40; zagg.com/invisibleshield),
Wrapsol Back Films for the iPad 2 ($30; wrapsol.com).
Screen Films
Screen films are designed to protect the
iPad’s screen from scratches without affecting
touchscreen performance; a few also aim to reduce
screen glare. Unfortunately, many of these films are
difficult to apply, and some actually make glare and
fingerprints worse, but if you’re patient and have a
steady hand, these are the best options.
invisibleShield
Recommendations: BodyGuardz ($20, $30 bundled with body film;
bodyguardz.com), Zagg invisibleShield ($30, $40 with body film; zagg
.com/invisibleshield), Moshi iVisor AG ($30; store.moshimonde.com).
167
Chapter 6
Accessories
Headphones
Unlike iPods and the iPhone, the iPad doesn’t come with a set of earbuds, so you’ll need to add your own for private listening. Apple’s white
earbuds will work, and they’re pretty good as far as earbuds go—the
iPhone version even features an inline microphone along with control
buttons. But there are better models available that will let you enjoy
your iPad’s full sonic potential. Here are the different types of headphones on the market, along with a few of our recommendations. We’ve
noted which models include an inline remote/mic module.
Earbuds
Earbuds sit loosely in your outer ears. Although no
earbuds produce outstanding sound, they’re compact
and relatively inexpensive.
Recommendations: Maximo iM-290 iMetal ($30;
maximoproducts.com), Sennheiser MX 580 ($50;
sennheiserusa.com).
MX 580
In-Ear-Canal Headphones
These headphones, also known as canalphones, fit
snugly—and fairly deep—in your ear canals. Like
earplugs, they block most external noise, so they’re
great for travel and noisy environments. They’re also
capable of producing stunning audio quality. On the
other hand, some people find them uncomfortable,
and the best ones come with a stunning price tag. (For
more information on in-ear-canal headphones, visit
macworld.com/2709.)
Recommendations: Etymotic Research hf3 ($179;
etymotic.com; inline module), Etymotic Research
mc3 ($99; etymotic.com; inline module), Shure SE210m+ ($170; shure
.com; inline module), Future Sonics Atrio ($199; futuresonics.com),
Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10 ($420; ultimateears.com; inline module).
mc3
168
Chapter 6
Accessories
Canalbuds
Halfway between earbuds and in-ear-canal
headphones, canalbuds don’t block out as
much external noise as the latter and can’t
match the performance of better in-ear-canal
headphones. But canalbuds tend to be more
comfortable than true in-ear-canal models—
because they don’t sit so deep and don’t fit so
tightly in your ear canals—and are less expensive.
iP-595 iMetal
Recommendations: Nuforce NE-7M ($49; nuforce.com; inline module),
Maximo iP-595 iMetal ($80; maximoproducts.com; inline module),
Ultimate Ears MetroFi 200vi ($40; ultimateears.com; inline module),
Sennheiser MM 70i ($139; sennheiserusa.com; inline module).
Lightweight
Headphones
These portable and mostly reasonably
priced headphones generally use larger
KSC35
drivers (speakers) than earbuds and
canalphones, and their earpieces rest against the outside of the ear.
Some have a thin headband that goes over or behind the head; others
use a small plastic or flexible clip for each ear. For easier traveling,
many of these models fold up. Although most lightweight headphones
produce mediocre sound, there are some standouts.
Recommendations: Koss KSC35 and KSC75 ($45 and $20, respectively;
koss.com), Sennheiser HD 238i ($170; inline module), Sennheiser PX
100-IIi ($120; sennheiserusa.com; inline module), Grado iGrado ($50;
gradolabs.com).
169
Chapter 6
Accessories
Full-Size Headphones
If you don’t mind some extra bulk, good full-size
headphones, which often fully surround your
ears, sound better than good lightweight models.
Some are also much more comfortable. These
headphones fall into two categories: closed
P5
models, which block out some external noise,
and open models, which some users prefer
sonically, but which also let more noise in and out. One caveat: To reach
their potential, many full-size headphones require more juice than an
iPad’s headphone jack provides; our recommendations work well with
portable devices.
Recommendations: Sony MDR-XB300 ($50; sonystyle.com; only for
bassheads; closed), Beyerdynamic DT 235 ($58; north-america.beyer
dynamic.com; closed), Grado SR60i ($69; gradolabs.com; open), Shure
SRH440 ($125; shure.com; closed), Sennheiser HD 448 ($130; sennheiserusa
.com; closed), Denon AH-D1001 ($150; usa.denon.com; closed), Bowers &
Wilkins P5 ($300; bowers-wilkins.com; closed, inline module).
Noise-Canceling Headphones
If you’re not a fan of in-ear phones, but you want
something that can filter out external noise such as
airplane engines, train rumblings, or the hum of a
crowd, invest in a good pair of noise-canceling
headphones. These headphones—which come in
both lightweight and full-size models, with the latter
offering better noise isolation—sample outside
sound and then pipe in an inverse audio signal to
cancel out a good deal of monotonous noise.
ATH-ANC7b
Although they don’t usually sound as good as comparably priced in-ear phones, they are easier to put on and take off, and
they still let you hear what’s going on around you.
Recommendations: Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7b ($220; audio-technica
.com), Monster Beats Studio by Dr. Dre ($300; beatsbydre.com; inline
module), Bose QuietComfort 15 and QuietComfort 3 ($300 and $350,
respectively; bose.com).
170
Chapter 6
Accessories
Bluetooth Stereo
Headphones
If you think being tethered to your iPad is a
drag, consider going wireless. The iPad can stream
BackBeat 903+
stereo audio to Bluetooth (A2DP) headphones, and
when you’re running iOS 4.2 or later on your iPad, you can even control
music playback using the Play/Pause, Back, and Forward buttons on the
Bluetooth headphones themselves.
Recommendations: Plantronics BackBeat 903+ ($100; plantronics.com;
behind-the-neck), Etymotic Research ety8 ($159; etymotic.com; in-earcanal), Sennheiser MM 100 ($200; sennheiserusa.com; behind-the-neck),
AKG by Harman K 830 BT ($250; harmanaudio.com; over-the-head).
171
Chapter 6
Accessories
Speakers
Your iPad is a great music player, but sometimes you need a break from
direct-to-brain listening, or you want to share your music with others. A
good set of speakers will help you cut the (headphone) cord with your
device. Here are the various types of speakers out there, along with
some of our recommendations for each type. For each, we’ve indicated
whether it has a true iPad dock cradle, an iPhone-size dock, or a standard audio connection. (Newer speakers with the “Made for iPhone”
designation exhibit less interference when used with a 3G iPad that’s not
in Airplane Mode.)
CableJive dockXtender
Cable
There aren’t many speaker systems that
accommodate the iPad’s large size. But you’re
not entirely out of luck—CableJive’s dockXtender
dockXtender
cable ($26; cablejive.com) lets you use the iPad with
any dock-connector speaker system (including that older iPod or iPhone
speaker dock you’ve got sitting around). Just plug one end of the cable
into the iPad’s dock-connector port, and plug the other end into the
dock connector on your speakers. (Keep in mind that iPhone and iPod
speaker systems will charge the iPad very slowly, if at all.)
Portable Speakers
iMainGo 2
If you want to pack your speakers in your
luggage, laptop bag, or backpack, you need
something small, light, rugged, and battery
powered. You sacrifice some sound quality
for such convenience.
Recommendations: Portable Sound Laboratories iMainGo 2 and iMainGo X ($40 and $70, respectively; imaingo.com; audio jack), Nuforce Podio
PS-106 ($59; nuforce.com; audio jack), Altec Lansing inMotion Classic
($130; alteclansing.com; iPhone dock, audio jack), Logitech Rechargeable
Speaker S715i ($150; logitech.com; iPhone dock, audio jack).
172
Chapter 6
Accessories
Transportable Speakers
If you just want to be able to move
your music from room to room, or
to the backyard, beach, or park, you
don’t need ultimate portability. A
transportable system will give you
better sound and louder volume in a
larger, slightly heavier package that
can still run off batteries.
Fidelio DS8550
Recommendations: Harman Kardon Go +
Play Micro ($299; harmankardon.com; iPhone dock, audio jack), Altec
Lansing Mix Boombox iMT800 ($230; alteclansing.com; iPhone dock, audio
jack), Philips Fidelio DS8550 ($300; philips.com; iPad dock, audio jack).
Desktop Speakers
PadDock 10
If you’re looking for something compact to put
on your desk, kitchen counter, or dresser, but you
don’t really need portability, desktop speakers
are the way to go. Thanks to their AC power and
larger enclosures, these systems offer surprisingly good sound but are compact enough to fit
on a bookshelf. Some desktop speakers even
offer alarm-clock or radio features.
Recommendations: PadDock 10 ($100; pdstand.
com; iPad dock), Klipsch iGroove SXT (iPhone dock, audio jack; $150;
klipsch.com), iLuv iMM747 (iPad dock; $150; i-luv.com), iHome iA100
($200; ihomeaudio.com; iPad dock), Boston Acoustics Duo-i Plus ($250;
bostonacoustics.com; iPhone dock, audio jack), Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Mini ($300; bowers-wilkins.com; iPhone dock, audio jack), Geneva Lab
Geneva Sound System Model S ($300; genevalab.com; iPhone dock, audio
jack).
173
Chapter 6
Accessories
Computer Speakers
If you don’t need the integrated dock-connector
cradle commonly found on speakers designed
specifically for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod,
traditional computer speakers will work fine
with your iPad. You simply plug an audio cable
into the iPad’s headphone jack or into the
audio-output jack of Apple’s iPad Dock accessory.
Expressionist Bass
Recommendations: Altec Lansing Expressionist Bass ($80; alteclansing
.com), Creative GigaWorks T40 Series II ($150; us.creative.com), Acoustic
Energy Aego-M ($200; acoustic-energy.co.uk), Razer Mako ($300;
razerzone.com), Bowers & Wilkins MM-1 ($500; bowers-wilkins.com)
Studio Monitors and
Powered Bookshelf
Speakers
If you’re looking for something closer
in sound quality to a traditional home
Audioengine 2
stereo, a number of vendors make
powered bookshelf speakers and
studio monitors that you set up across the room. Just connect an iPod
dock cradle, such as Apple’s own iPad Dock, and you’re good to go with
big, high-quality sound.
Recommendations: Audioengine 2 ($199; audioengineusa.com),
M-Audio Studiophile AV 40 ($229; m-audio.com), Audioengine 5 ($349
to $449; audioengineusa.com)
Bluetooth Speakers
Like Bluetooth headphones, Bluetooth
speakers let you cut the cord—or dock—
between your iPad and your speakers. If your
iPad is running iOS 4.2 or later, you can
control music playback using Play/Pause,
Back, and Forward buttons on the speakers
themselves. (Most Bluetooth speakers are portable.)
174
Z515
Chapter 6
Accessories
Recommendations: Logitech Wireless Speaker Z515 ($100; logitech
.com), Soundmatters FoxL v2 Bluetooth ($199; soundmatters.com),
Creative ZiiSound D5 ($300; us.store.creative.com), Philips Fidelio
DS8550 ($300; philips.com).
AirPlay Audio Systems
AirPlay-enabled audio systems take
advantage of Apple’s AirPlay (formerly
AirTunes) technology to let you stream
music from your iOS or Mac OS X devices,
over your local wireless network, to the
speaker system. Unfortunately, although
plenty of AirPlay systems have been announced,
few are actually available.
Zeppelin Air
Recommendations: Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air ($600; bowerswilkins.com; desktop dock speaker with AirPlay).
175
Chapter 6
Accessories
Other Accessories
Of course, sound and protection are just the beginning when it comes to
outfitting your iPad with cool accessories. There are a number of tasks
this device can perform with the right equipment. Here are a few of our
favorite add-ons.
Apple iPad 2 Dock
If you want a stable cradle to hold your iPad while it’s charging or
syncing, Apple’s simple iPad 2 Dock ($29; apple.com) will do just fine. In
addition to keeping your iPad upright—alas, in portrait orientation
only—the Dock offers a dock-connector port for charging, syncing, or
(with the appropriate cable) outputting video, as well as a stereo-audio
output for connecting to powered speakers or a stereo system.
Stands and Mounts
Many iPad cases include a modest stand that lets
you prop up the player for better video viewing
or for more comfortable typing. But if you want
more stability, more angle options, and perhaps
adjustable height, consider a dedicated iPad stand
or wall mount.
Recommendations: Bweasel iPad Stand ($30;
bweasel.com), Griffin Technology Loop ($30;
Twelve South Compass
griffintechnology.com), Original Kitchen iPad Rack
($30; kitchenipadrack.com), Twelve South Compass
($40; twelvesouth.com), Rain Design iRest Lap Stand for iPad ($50;
raindesigninc.com), Luxa2 H4 iPad Stand ($60; usa.luxa2.com).
176
Chapter 6
Accessories
Bluetooth Keyboards
If you plan to use your iPad for serious data input or extended typing
sessions, you’ll want a physical keyboard. The iPad supports any
standard Bluetooth keyboard, but finding one that’s travel friendly yet
not cramped can be a challenge. (Apple sells a $69 Keyboard Dock,
but it’s not a great fit for the iPad 2, and it’s quite limiting: It doesn’t
accommodate an iPad in a case, it works only with an iPad in portrait
orientation, and it’s too heavy and bulky for travel.) Thankfully, there
are a few good options. You’ll just need a compact stand—or an iPad
keyboard case with a built-in stand—to keep the iPad propped up.
Apple Wireless Keyboard: If you like
the iPad Keyboard Dock’s keyboard,
but don’t want the bulk of the weighted Dock, Apple’s Bluetooth Wireless
Keyboard ($69; apple.com) is exactly
what you’re looking for. It’s essentially
the same keyboard except that it’s
missing
a few of the special iPad-speApple Wireless Keyboard
cific keys—you get brightness, playback, and volume controls, and the Eject key serves to show and hide
the iPad’s onscreen keyboard, but the other Fn-keys are simply, well,
Fn-keys.
Other Bluetooth Keyboards: Any
Bluetooth computer keyboard
should work with the iPad,
although models designed for use
with the Mac—such as Macally’s
BTkey ($70; macally.com)—are
preferable, because they provide
Mac-specific keys (1, Option,
Control, brightness and volume
BTKey
buttons, and so on) that the iPad automatically recognizes. Some vendors have even released Bluetooth keyboards specifically made for the iPad—for example, the Targus Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard for iPad ($60; targus.com) is small and light
and includes many of the same iPad-specific buttons as the iPad
Keyboard Dock.
177
Chapter 6
Accessories
Keyboard Cases
Zaggmate
The other option is one of the many
keyboard cases for the iPad. These accessories combine a Bluetooth keyboard with
a protective case, aiming to provide better
portability or more convenience than the
Apple Keyboard Dock or a separate Bluetooth keyboard.
Recommendations: Zagg Zaggmate ($100; zagg.com), ClamCase iPad
Keyboard Case ($150; clamcase.com), Adonit Writer (adonit.net), and
innumerable folio-style keyboard cases such as the Padacs Rubata ($80;
padacs.com). However, since these products include form-fitting cases,
be sure to buy a model specifically made for the iPad 2.
Touchscreen Styluses
Whether you’re looking for a better
sketch tool than your finger, a digital pen
to sign your name or take handwritten
Pogo Sketch
notes, or a way to use your iPad’s touchscreen when bundled up in cold weather, a stylus can be a good thing.
These simple accessories take the shape of a pen, pencil, or brush
handle, and sport a capacitative tip—usually a rubbery nib, but sometimes an actual brush for better artistic control—that works as well as a
fingertip for interacting with your tablet.
Recommendations: Ten One Design Pogo Sketch ($15; tenonedesign
.com; pen/stylus), JustMobile AluPen ($20; xtand.net; pen/stylus),
NomadBrush ($24; nomadbrush.com; brush), Wacom Bamboo Stylus
($30; wacom.com; pen/stylus)
Camera Connection Kit
Apple’s Camera Connection Kit ($29;
apple.com) is a must-have accessory for
any iPad-toting photographer. Instead of
having to connect an iPad to a Mac to
load the device with your photos and
videos, you can move this content directly
178
Camera Connection Kit
Chapter 6
Accessories
onto an iPad from a camera using one of the two dock-connector
dongles included in the kit: You use the SD-card dongle to transfer
media from a camera’s SD card (or mini-SD card with an adapter); if you
shoot with a camera that uses a different type of media card, such as
CompactFlash, you instead use the USB dongle, connecting your camera’s USB cable, or the cable from a USB card reader, plugged directly to
the connection dongle.
When you make a connection, the iPad’s Photos app launches and, in a
new Camera tab that appears, displays thumbnails for every image on
the memory card. You choose which images to import. Once the process
is complete, you’ve got a backup of those photos, as well as a better way
to preview them than using your camera’s tiny LCD.
As a bonus, the Camera Connection Kit also supports—unofficially—lowpower USB microphones for use with many audio-recording apps.
(Unfortunately, Apple’s older iPod Camera Connector was made only for
particular iPod models, and it doesn’t work with the iPad.)
Chargers
Just because the iPad uses the same
dock-connector port as the iPhone
and iPod doesn’t mean you can
charge the iPad with any iPhone or
PowerBlock Plus
iPod charger—or even a standard USB port
on your computer. The iPad has heftier charging requirements than
iPods and iPhones, which means that some USB ports—especially
those on older computers and most USB hubs—don’t provide enough
power to charge the iPad during use. That doesn’t mean lower-power
USB ports can’t charge the iPad at all. It just means that whether they
can charge the iPad’s battery—and how quickly—depends on how
you’re using the iPad.
For the fastest charging, use the iPad’s included iPad 10W USB Power
Adapter (also available separately for $29; apple.com). This will fully
charge the iPad in a few hours, even if you’re using the iPad at the same
time. Alternatively, you can use any third-party AC adapter or charger
that sports the Made For iPad badge, which means it meets Apple’s
specifications for iPad charging.
179
Chapter 6
Accessories
When connected to a high-power USB port—such as the ones on recent
Macs and the one on the iPhone power adapter—the iPad will charge,
even during use, but more slowly. Some third-party powered USB hubs
also provide higher-power USB ports, but many don’t.
Finally, when connected to lower-power USB ports—those on older
Macs, most Windows PCs, and most USB hubs (powered or unpowered)—the iPad’s battery does not charge while the iPad is awake, but
does charge (albeit very slowly) when the iPad is asleep. Confusingly, the
message “Not charging” will appear in the menu bar when the iPad is
awake, which might lead you to assume that the offending USB port can
never charge your iPad. Rest assured, once you put the iPad to sleep, the
battery will indeed charge.
Recommendations: Griffin Technology PowerBlock Plus ($35;
griffintechnology.com), Incase Combo Charger ($40; goincase.com),
Kensington PowerBolt Duo Car Charger ($30; us.kensington.com),
Scosche ReVive II Dual USB Home Charger for iPad ($30; scosche.com).
Video Cables
The iPad’s screen is great, but there may be times when you want to
enjoy the advantages of a larger display. With the right cable, you can
connect your iPad to a TV or other display, but your connection and
output options differ depending on the cable you’re using.
Apple Digital AV Adapter ($39; apple.com) lets you
output HD video from within supported apps on the
original iPad and the iPad 2, as well as mirror the iPad 2’s
display, via an HDMI connection. The HDMI connection
also provides stereo audio.
Apple VGA Adapter ($29), formerly called the iPad
Dock Connector to VGA Adapter, lets you output
video over a VGA connection—at 1024 by 768
resolution with a 720p scan rate—from compatible
apps on both the original iPad and the iPad 2, as well
as mirror the iPad 2’s screen. For outputting audio
while using the Apple VGA Adapter, you’ll need a
separate audio cable that grabs the audio signal from the iPad 2’s
headphone jack.
180
Chapter 6
Accessories
Apple Component AV Cable ($39) outputs video from
compatible apps on either iPad model at 480p or
576p resolution. It also includes left and right analog
audio output.
Apple Composite AV Cable ($39)
outputs video from compatible apps
on either iPad model at 480i resolution. It also
includes left and right analog audio output.
If you plan on watching high-definition video on an external display, you’ll
need to use either the Digital AV Adapter or the Component AV Cable.
iTunes-purchased HD videos include HDCP (high-bandwidth digital
content protection) and require an HDCP-compatible connection, which
these two accessories provide. Otherwise, you’ll need to sync the
standard-definition (480p) versions of your iTunes-purchased videos,
which will play over the VGA adapter or composite cable.
You can also use third-party video accessories that include the necessary Apple-approved circuitry, which should include most certified
Made for iPad, Made for iPhone, and Made for iPod video accessories
produced in the past few years. These accessories should let you
output video, along with stereo audio, to a TV via component or
composite connections.
181
There are so many things you can experience,
watch, and even create using Apple’s iPad
that it’s hard to know where to start. Thankfully, nobody spends more time with Apple’s
revolutionary products than the editors at
Macworld. That’s why there’s no betterqualified team of experts to create this
straightforward book on the iPad 2.
Inside this book, you’ll find a complete
rundown of the best ways you can use your
iPad to communicate, be productive, and
enjoy multimedia. First activate your iPad and
fill it with your favorite music, movies,
television shows, podcasts, apps, and files
using iTunes. This book will show you how to convert media for easy iPad
consumption; master multitouch gestures and tweak system settings; keep
your Home screens organized with folders and multitasking; and conquer the
secrets of its virtual keyboard. In case you run into any issues while using your
device, this book also contains invaluable troubleshooting advice, including how
to protect your iPad from would-be intruders.
It may not have the power of a full-fledged notebook computer, but the iPad is
great at adapting to your needs. Organize your Contacts, Calendar, and Mail
with built-in apps, or chat with your friends using FaceTime. Turn your iPad into
a work machine by creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, or
share your files like a pro. Turn your iPad into an e-book reader with Apple’s
iBook app, or into a picture frame with the instant slideshow button. Finally,
create music, paint masterpieces, edit photos, or perform any number of other
tasks with the great third-party apps available in the App Store.
Whether you’re brand-new to the iPad or a seasoned expert, this book will
show you how to get the most out of your device.

 
  
