Top Ten Tricks and Tips for the iPad

Whether you’re getting to know your new iPad or you are a long-time user, here are ten tricks and tips essential to getting the most out of your device:

Quick Mute

Caught off guard and need to silence all sounds quickly? Instead of fumbling through your settings, just hold down your volume button for two seconds and voila, your iPad’s speakers will be muted.

Screenshots

While you might be used to grabbing screenshots on your iPhone, don’t forget it’s just as simple on your iPad. Of course, you’ll be rewarded with a much larger and handier 768×1024 resolution photo. Just push down the power button on top of the iPad at the same time as the home button for half a second. All screenshots will be saved to your photo library.

Running Apps

A very simple, but often missed trick is to quickly view your iPad’s running applications. To do this, double tap your home button and all open applications will appear along the bottom of your screen. This is especially important if you find your iPad lagging or battery draining faster than normal. Press and hold down these icons until a red button appears, then scroll through, clicking the button to close desired programs. This feature can also be used on new iPhones and the iTouch.

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Screen Rotation Lock

Feel like lounging around with your iPad but are tired of your screen constantly rotating to accommodate your position? You can easily tell your screen to stay put in either landscape or portrait position by going to your general settings and selecting “Lock Rotation.” This enables you to switch the button on the side of your iPad to keep your screen in its current rotation.

Digital Photo Frame

The default Photos app allows you to easily turn your photo collection into a slideshow; complete with the capacity to add music and transition effects. Even nicer, is the ability to start the slideshow without unlocking your device. After pressing the home button to wake it up, just tap the ‘Picture Frame’ icon next to the unlock button and your iPad will instantly become a digital photo frame. The app Settings will let you control the speed of the slideshow, as well as zoom and shuffle options.

Enable Restrictions

If other people are going to be using your iPad and you’d like to restrict what applications they can use, just select Settings > General > Restrictions. You’ll then be able to put in a passcode and control which content other users will be able to access.

Default Search Engine

Your iPad will come with Google set as its default search engine but should you wish to change it, go to ‘Safari’ under your settings menu. By selecting Search Engine you’ll be able to switch to either Yahoo or Bing.

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Punctuation Shortcuts

While using the keyboard, quickly swipe up on the comma button to insert an apostrophe and up on the full stop button to insert a quotation mark. You can also hold down any letter key to bring up accented versions of that letter. Pressing the space bar twice will automatically insert a full stop followed by a space, allowing for a faster and easier start on your next sentence.

Undo and Redo by Shaking

If you accidentally cut out some text, while using such apps as Mail or Notes, it’s possible to undo your last action by tapping the Undo key on the Number keyboard. Likewise, you can redo something by switching to the Symbol keyboard and tapping the Redo key.

A quicker (and fun!) alternative is to hold your iPad with both hands and give it a quick shake, sliding the Undo button out for you to select. To redo something, simply shake your iPad again and the Redo button will appear.

Multitasking Gestures

Navigating between screens and applications on your iPad can be made much easier by turning on Multitasking Gestures. You can find this option by scrolling down through your General Settings. Once activated, you’ll be able to see the functions now available to you — most useful is the four finger sweep left and right to flip through running applications.