Chapter 2
Looking Over the Home Screen
Get ready to . . .
Say Goodbye to Click-and-Drag, Hello to Tap-and-Swipe
Display and Use the Onscreen Keyboard
Update the Operating System to iOS 5
Customize the Screen Rotation Lock/Silent Switch
Take Inventory of Built-in Applications
Lock iPad, Turn It Off, or Unlock It
I won’t kid you: You have a slight learning curve ahead of you because iPad is different from other computers you may have used (although, if you own an iPhone or iPod touch, you’ve got a head start). That’s mainly because of its Multi-Touch screen and onscreen keyboard — no mouse necessary. The iPad doesn’t have a Windows or Mac operating system: It does have a modified iPhone operating system, so some of the methods you may have used on computers before (such as right-clicking) don’t work on the touchscreen.
The good news is that getting anything done on the iPad is simple, once you know the ropes. In fact, using your fingers instead of a mouse to do things onscreen is a very intuitive way to communicate with your computing device.
In this chapter, you turn on your iPad and register it and then take your first look at the Home screen. You also practice using the onscreen keyboard, see how to interact with the touchscreen in various ways, get pointers on working with cameras, and get an overview of built-in applications.
Have a soft cloth handy, like the one you might use to clean your eyeglasses. You’re about to deposit a ton of fingerprints on your iPad — one downside of a touchscreen device.
See What You Need to Use iPad
You need to be able, at minimum, to connect to the Internet to take advantage of most iPad features, which you can do using a Wi-fi network. You might want to have a computer so that you can download photos, videos, music, or applications and transfer them to your iPad through a process called syncing. With iOS 5 a new Apple service called iCloud has arrived, which syncs content from all your Apple iOS devices so anything you buy on your iPhone, for example, will automatically be pushed to your iPad.
You can register your iPad the first time you start it using iCloud or by syncing with your computer via a cable, although you can have the folks at the Apple Store handle registration for you if you have one nearby.
Can you use iPad if you don’t own a computer and you use public Wi-Fi hotspots to go online (or a 3G connection if you have a 3G model)? Yes. However, to be able to go online using a Wi-Fi–only iPad and to use many of its built-in features at home, you need to have a Wi-Fi network available.
Apple’s iPad User Guide recommends that you have
An Apple ID for some features including iCloud
An Internet connection (broadband is recommended)
A Mac or PC with a USB 2.0 port and one of these operating systems:
• Mac OS X Lion version 10.5.8 or later
• Windows 7, Windows Vista or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 3 or later
iTunes 10.5 or later, available at www.itunes.com/download
Apple has set up both iCloud and its iTunes software to help you manage content for your iPad — which includes the movies, music, or photos you’ve downloaded — and specify where to transfer your calendar and contact information from. Chapter 3 covers these settings in more detail.
Turn On iPad and Register It
1. The first time you turn on your iPad, you have to register it. You can do this using a physical connection to a computer with the latest version of iTunes installed. To register using iTunes on your computer, hold the iPad with one hand on either side, oriented like a pad of paper.
2. Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button on the top of your iPad until the Apple logo appears. In another moment, a screen appears asking if you’d like to register via iCloud or use iTunes. Tap the iTunes option and proceed.
3. Plug the Dock Connector to USB Cable that comes with your device into your iPad.
4. Plug the other end of the cable into a USB port on a computer. Both your computer and the iPad think for a few moments while they exchange data.
5. Sign into your iTunes account in the dialog that appears on your computer screen, and then follow the simple onscreen instructions to register your iPad and choose whether to use iCloud (see Chapter 3 for more about this feature) and whether to allow location services to use your current location. (You can change these settings later; these steps are covered in Chapter 3.) When you’re done, your iPad Home screen appears and you’re in business.
6. Unplug the Dock Connector to USB Cable.
If you buy your iPad at an Apple Store, an employee will register it for you and you can skip this whole process.
You can choose to have certain items transferred to your iPad from your computer when you sync: music, videos, downloaded applications, contacts, audiobooks, calendars, e-books, podcasts, and browser bookmarks. You can also transfer to your computer any content you download directly to your iPad using the iTunes and App Store apps. See Chapters 8 and 9 for more about these features.
If you have set up iCloud when registering or after registering (see Chapter 3), updates to your operating system will be pushed to your iPad without having to plug it into a computer running iTunes. Apple refers to this feature as PC Free, simply meaning that your device has been liberated from having to use a physical connection to get upgrades.
Meet the Multi-Touch Screen
When the iPad Home screen appears (see Figure 2-1), you see a pretty background and two sets of icons. One set appears in the Dock, along the bottom of the screen. The Dock contains the Safari, Mail, Photos, and Music app buttons by default, though you can add other apps to it. The Dock appears on every Home screen. You can add new apps to populate as many as 11 additional Home screens. Other icons appear above the Dock and are closer to the top of the screen. (I cover all these icons in the “Take Inventory of Built-in Applications” section, later in this chapter.) Different icons appear in this area on each Home screen.
Figure 2-1
Treat the iPad screen carefully. It’s made of glass and will smudge when you touch it (and will break if you throw it at the wall).
The iPad uses touchscreen technology: When you swipe your finger across the screen or tap it, you’re providing input to the device. You hear more about the touchscreen in the next task, but for now, go ahead and play with it for a few minutes — really, you can’t hurt anything. Use the pads of your fingertips (not your fingernails) and follow these steps:
1. Tap the Settings icon. The various settings (which you read more about throughout this book) appear, as shown in Figure 2-2.
2. To return to the Home screen, press the Home button.
Figure 2-2
3. Swipe a finger or two from right to left on the screen. If downloaded apps fill additional Home screens, then this action moves you to the next Home screen. Note that the little dots at the bottom of the screen, above the Dock icons, indicate which Home screen is displayed. The dot on the far left represents the Spotlight search screen.
4. To experience the screen rotation feature, hold the iPad firmly while turning it sideways. The screen flips to the horizontal orientation. To flip the screen back, just turn the device so it’s oriented like a pad of paper again.
You can customize the Home screen by changing its wallpaper (background picture) and brightness. You can read about making these changes in Chapter 4.
Say Goodbye to Click-and-Drag, Hello to Tap-and-Swipe
You can use several methods for getting around and getting things done in iPad using its Multi-Touch screen, including
Tap once: To open an application on the Home screen, choose a field such as a search box, select an item in a list, select an arrow to move back or forward one screen, or follow an online link, tap the item once with your finger.
Tap twice: Use this method to enlarge or reduce the display of a web page (see Chapter 5 for more about using the Safari web browser) or to zoom in or out in the Maps app.
Pinch: As an alternative to the tap-twice method, you can pinch your fingers together or move them apart on the screen (see Figure 2-3) when you’re looking at photos, maps, web pages, or e-mail messages to quickly reduce or enlarge them, respectively.
Figure 2-3
You can use the three-finger tap to zoom your screen to be even larger or use Multitasking gestures to swipe with 4 or 5 fingers (see the “Explore Multitasking Gestures” task later in this chapter). This method is handy if you have vision challenges. Go to Chapter 4 to discover how to turn on this feature using Accessibility settings.
Drag to scroll (known as swiping): When you press your finger to the screen and drag to the right or left or drag up or down, the screen moves (see Figure 2-4). Swiping to the right on the Home screen, for example, moves you to the Spotlight screen (the iPad search screen). Swiping down while reading an online newspaper moves you down the page; swiping up moves you back up the page.
Flick: To scroll more quickly on a page, quickly flick your finger on the screen in the direction you want to move.
Figure 2-4
Tap the Status bar: To move quickly to the top of a list, web page, or e-mail message, tap the Status bar at the top of the iPad screen.
Press and hold: If you’re using Notes or Mail or any other application that lets you select text, or if you’re on a web page, pressing and holding text selects a word and displays editing tools you can use to select, cut, or copy the text.
Try these methods now by following these steps:
1. Tap the Safari button to display the web browser. (You may be asked to enter your network password to access the network.)
2. Tap a link to move to another page.
3. Double-tap the page to enlarge it; then pinch your fingers together on the screen to reduce its size.
4. Drag one finger around the page to scroll.
5. Flick your finger quickly on the page to scroll more quickly.
6. Press and hold your finger on a word that isn’t a link. The word is selected and the Copy/Define tool is displayed, as shown in Figure 2-5. (This step is tricky, so if you don’t get it right the first time, don’t worry — I cover text editing in more detail in Chapter 18.)
Figure 2-5
7. Press and hold your finger on a link or an image. A menu appears with commands you select to open the link or picture, open it in a new page, add it to your Reading List (see Chapter 5), or copy it. The image menu also offers the Save Image command.
8. Position your fingers slightly apart on the screen, and then pinch your fingers together to reduce the page; with your fingers already pinched together, place them on the screen, and then move them apart to enlarge the page.
9. Press the Home button to go back to the Home screen.
Display and Use the Onscreen Keyboard
1. The built-in iPad keyboard appears whenever you’re in a text-entry location, such as a search field or an e-mail message. Tap the Notes icon on the Home screen to open this easy-to-use notepad.
2. Tap the note; the onscreen keyboard appears.
3. Type a few words using the keyboard. To make the keyboard display as wide as possible, rotate your iPad to landscape (horizontal) orientation, as shown in Figure 2-6.
Figure 2-6
4. If you make a mistake while using the keyboard — and you will, when you first use it — press the Delete key (it’s in the top-right corner, with the little x on it) to delete text to the left of the insertion point.
5. To create a new paragraph, press the Return button, just as you would do on a regular computer keyboard.
6. To type numbers and symbols, press the number key (labeled .?123) on either side of the spacebar (refer to Figure 2-6). The characters on the keyboard change. If you type a number and then tap the spacebar, the keyboard returns to the letter keyboard automatically. To return to the letter keyboard at any time, simply tap one of the letter keys (labeled ABC) on either side of the spacebar.
7. Use the Shift buttons just as you would on a regular keyboard to type uppercase letters or alternate characters.
8. Double-tap the Shift key to turn on the Caps Lock feature; tap the Shift key once to turn off Caps Lock. (You can control whether this feature is available in iPad General Settings under Keyboard).
9. To type a variation on a symbol (for example, to see alternate currency symbols when you press the dollar sign on the number keyboard), hold down the key; a set of alternate symbols appears (see Figure 2-7). Note that this trick only works with certain symbols.
Figure 2-7
10. To hide the keyboard, press the Keyboard key in the bottom right corner.
11. Tap the Home button to return to the Home screen.
You can undock the keyboard to move it around the screen. To do this, press and hold the Keyboard button on the keyboard and from the popup menu that appears, choose Undock. Now by pressing the Keyboard button and swiping up or down you can move the keyboard up and down on the screen. To dock the keyboard again at the bottom of the screen, press and hold the Keyboard button and choose Dock from the popup menu.
To type a period and space, just double-tap the spacebar.
Use the Split Keyboard
1. With iOS 5 comes the new split keyboard feature. This allows you to split the keyboard so that each side appears nearer the edge of the iPad screen. For those who are into texting or one-finger typing, this feature makes it easier to reach all the keys from the sides of the device. Open an application such as Notes where you can use the onscreen keyboard.
2. Tap in an entry field which displays the onscreen keyboard.
3. Place two fingers in the middle of the onscreen keyboard and spread them toward the left and right. The keyboard splits, as shown in Figure 2-8.
4. Now hold the iPad with a hand on either side and practice using your thumbs to enter text.
5. To rejoin the keyboard, place two fingers on each side of the keyboard and swipe to join them together again.
When the keyboard is docked and merged at the bottom of your screen, you can also simply press the Keyboard key and swipe upward. This undocks and splits the keyboard. To revert this you can press and swipe the Keyboard key and swipe downward. The keyboard is docked and merged.
Figure 2-8
Flick to Search
1. The search feature in iPad helps you find photos, music, e-mails, contacts, movies, and more. Press and drag from left to right on the Home screen or tap the small magnifying glass symbol furthest to the left at the bottom of the Home screen to display the Spotlight screen. (You can also, from the primary Home screen, click the left side of the Home button to move one screen to the left.)
2. Tap in the Search iPad field (see Figure 2-9); the keyboard appears.
3. Begin entering a search term. In the example in Figure 2-10, after I typed the letter S, the search results displayed a contact, a couple of built-in apps, and some music I had downloaded, as well as a few e-mail messages. As you continue to type a search term, the results narrow to match it.
4. Tap an item in the search results to open it.
Figure 2-9
Figure 2-10
Update the Operating System to iOS 5
1. This book was based on the latest version of the iPad operating system at the time: iOS 5. To make sure you have the latest and greatest features in iPad, update to the latest iOS now (and periodically). If you have set up and iCloud account on your iPad updates will happen automatically, or you can use a physical connection to a computer to update the iOS. To use the latter method, plug the 30-pin end of the Dock Connector to USB Cable into your iPad and plug the USB end into your computer.
2. When iTunes opens, click your iPad (in the Devices section of the Source List on the left side of the screen) and then click the Summary tab if it isn’t already displayed (see Figure 2-11).
Figure 2-11
3. Read the note next to the Check for Update button to see whether your iOS is up to date. If it isn’t, click the Check for Update button. iTunes checks to find the latest iOS version and walks you through the updating procedure.
A new iOS version may introduce new features for your iPad. If a new iOS appears after you buy this book, go to the companion website at www.iPad MadeClear.com for updates on new features introduced in major updates.
Follow Multitasking Basics
1. Multitasking lets you easily switch from one app to another without closing the first one and returning to the Home screen. First, open an app.
2. Double-tap the Home button.
3. On the horizontal bar that appears beneath the Dock at the bottom of the screen (see Figure 2-12), flick to scroll to the left or right to locate another app you want to display.
Figure 2-12
4. Tap the app to open it.
At the left end of the multitasking bar are controls for volume and playback, as well as a button that locks and unlocks screen rotation or mutes the sound, depending on which feature you’ve set the side switch to activate (you do that in the General Settings).
Explore Multitasking Gestures
Multitasking involves jumping from one app to another. New to iOS 5 are some gestures you can tell the system to activate so you can use four or five fingers to multitask. Here are the three gestures you can make:
Swipe up with four or five fingers on any Home screen to reveal the multitasking bar.
Swipe down with four or five fingers to remove the multitasking bar from the Home screen.
With an app open, swipe left or right using four or five fingers and you move to another app.
You can turn on these gestures by tapping Settings on the Home screen, and then in the General settings tap the On/Off button for Multitasking Gestures.
Examine the iPad Cameras
iPad 2 introduces front and back-facing cameras to the hardware feature list. You can use the cameras to take still photos (covered in more detail in Chapter 12) or shoot videos (covered in Chapter 13).
For now, take a quick look at your camera by tapping the Camera app icon on the Home screen. The app opens, as shown in Figure 2-13.
You can use the controls on the screen to
Switch between the front and rear cameras.
Change from still-camera to video-camera operation by using the Camera/Video slider.
Take a picture or start recording a video.
Turn on a grid to help you autofocus on still photo subjects.
Open previously captured images or videos.
When you view a photo or video, you can use an iPad feature to send the image via a tweet or e-mail, print images, use a still photo as wallpaper or assign it to represent a contact, or run a slide show or edit a video. See Chapters 12 and 13 for more detail about using the iPad cameras.
Figure 2-13
Customize the Screen Rotation Lock/Silent Switch
Starting with iOS 4.3, you can customize the switch on the top-right side of your iPad (in portrait orientation). Use these steps to set up the switch to control screen rotation or mute the sound:
1. From the Home screen, tap the Settings icon.
2. Under General settings, tap either the Lock Rotation or Mute option in the Use Side Switch To section to choose which feature you want the switch to control.
3. Tap the Home button to return to the Home screen.
4. Move the side switch up or down to toggle between the settings you chose: lock or unlock screen rotation or mute or unmute sound.
Explore the Status Bar
Across the top of the iPad screen is the Status bar (see Figure 2-14). Tiny icons in this area can provide useful information, such as the time, battery level, and wireless-connection status. Table 2-1 lists some of the most common items you find on the Status bar:
Figure 2-14
If you have GPS, 3G, or Bluetooth service or a connection to a virtual private network (VPN), a corresponding symbol appears on the Status bar whenever one of these features is active. The GPS and 3G icons appear only with 3G-enabled iPad models. (If you can’t even conceive of what a virtual private network is, my advice is not to worry about it.)
Take Inventory of Built-in Applications
The iPad comes with certain functionality and applications — or apps, for short — built in. When you look at the Home screen, you see icons for each app. This section gives you an overview of what each app does. (You can find out more about every one of them as you read different chapters in this book.) The icons in the Dock (see the “Meet the Multi-Touch Screen” task, earlier in this chapter) are, from left to right:
Safari: You use the Safari web browser (see Figure 2-15) to navigate on the Internet, create and save bookmarks of favorite sites, and add web clips to your Home screen so that you can quickly visit favorite sites from there. You may have used this web browser (or another such as Internet Explorer) on your desktop computer.
Mail: You use this application to access mail accounts that you have set up in iPad. Your e-mail is then displayed without your having to browse to the site or sign in. Then you can use tools to move among a few preset mail folders, read and reply to mail, and download attached photos to your iPad. Read more about e-mail accounts in Chapter 6.
Photos: The photo application in iPad (see Figure 2-16) helps you organize pictures in folders, e-mail photos to others, use a photo as your iPad wallpaper, and assign pictures to contact records. You can also run slide shows of your photos, open albums, pinch or unpinch to shrink or expand photos, and scroll photos with a simple swipe.
Music: Music is the name of your media player. Though its main function is to play music, you can use it to play podcasts or audiobooks as well.
Figure 2-15
Figure 2-16
Apps with icons above the Dock and closer to the top of the Home screen include:
Calendar: Use this handy onscreen daybook to set up appointments and send alerts to remind you about them.
Contacts: In the address book feature (see Figure 2-17), you can enter contact information (including photos, if you like, from your Photos or Cameras app) and share contact information by e-mail. You can also use the search feature to find your contacts easily.
Figure 2-17
Notes: Enter text or cut and paste text from a website into this simple notepad app. You can’t do much except save notes or e-mail them — the app has no features for formatting text or inserting objects. You’ll find Notes handy, though, for simple notes on the fly.
Maps: In this cool iPad version of Google Earth, you can view classic maps or aerial views of addresses, find directions from one place to another by car, foot, or public transportation, and even view some addresses as though you’re standing in front of the building at street level (though not every street image is totally up to date).
Videos: This media player is similar to Music but specializes in playing videos and offers a few features specific to this type of media, such as chapter breakdowns and information about a movie’s plot and cast.
YouTube: Tap this icon to go to the popular online video-sharing site, where you can watch videos that people have posted and then comment on the videos or share them with others.
iTunes: Tapping this icon takes you to the iTunes store, where you can shop ’til you drop (or until your iPad battery runs out of juice) for music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, and podcasts and then download them directly to your iPad. (See Chapter 8 for more about how iTunes works.)
App Store: At the Apple Store online, you can buy and download applications that do everything from enabling you to play games to building business presentations. Some of these are even free!
Settings: Settings isn’t exactly an app, but it’s an icon you should know about, anyway: It’s the central location on the iPad where you can specify settings for various functions and do administrative tasks such as set up e-mail accounts or create a password.
Game Center: The Game Center app helps you browse games in the App Store and play them with other people online. You can add friends and track your scores. See Chapter 14 for more about Games Center.
FaceTime: The FaceTime video calling app lets you use the new iPad 2 video camera to talk face-to- face with someone who has an iPad 2, Mac, fourth-generation iPod touch, or iPhone 4 or 4S. Chapter 7 fills you in on FaceTime features.
Camera: As you may have read earlier in this chapter, the Camera app is control central for the still and video cameras built into the iPad 2.
PhotoBooth: This fun app, which has been supplied with Mac computers for some time, lets you add effects to photos you take using your iPad camera in weird and wonderful ways.
Newsstand: Similar to an e-reader for books, News-stand is a handy reader app for subscribing to and reading magazines, newspapers, and other periodicals.
Reminders: This is a useful app that centralizes all your calendar entries and alerts to keep you on schedule, as well as allowing you to create to-do lists.
iMessage: For those who have been waiting for instant messaging on iPad, the iMessage feature comes to the rescue. Using the Messages app, you can engage in live text- and image-based conversations with others via their phones or other devices that use e-mail.
The iBooks application isn’t built in to the iPad out of the box. Though iBooks is free, you have to download it from the App Store. Because the iPad has been touted as an outstanding e-reader — a device that enables you to read books on an electronic device, similar to the Amazon Kindle — you should definitely consider downloading the app as soon as possible. (For more about downloading applications for your iPad, see Chapter 9. To work with the iBooks e-reader application itself, go to Chapter 10.)
Lock iPad, Turn It Off, or Unlock It
Earlier in this chapter, I mention how simple it is to turn on the power to your iPad. Now it’s time to put it to sleep (a state in which the screen goes black, though you can quickly wake up the iPad) or to turn off the power to give your new toy a rest. Here are the procedures you can use:
Press the Sleep/Wake button. The iPad goes to sleep: The screen goes black and is locked.
If you bought a Smart Cover with your iPad, just fold the cover over the front of the screen and iPad goes to sleep; open the cover to wake up the iPad. See Chapter 1 for more about iPad accessories.
Press the Home button or slide the Sleep/Wake slider. The iPad wakes up. Swipe the onscreen arrow on the Slide to Unlock bar (see Figure 2-18) on the bottom of the screen to unlock the iPad.
Figure 2-18
Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until the Slide to Power Off bar appears at the top of the screen, and then swipe the bar. You’ve just turned off your iPad.
The iPad automatically enters sleep mode after a few minutes of inactivity. You can change the time interval at which it sleeps by adjusting the Auto-Lock feature in Settings. See this book’s companion Cheat Sheet at www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/ipad forseniors to review tables of various settings.