Getting going
Turning the device on and off
Locking your iPad
Mastering multitouch
Cutting, copying, and pasting
Spotlighting search
By now you know that the iPad is very different from other computers. You also know that this slate-style machine is rewriting the rulebook for mainstream computing. How so? For starters, it doesn't have a mouse or any other kind of pointing device. It lacks traditional computing ports or connectors such as USB. And it has no physical or built-in keyboard.
It even differs from other so-called tablet PCs, some of which feature a pen or stylus and let you write in digital ink. As we point out (pun intended) in Chapter 1, the iPad relies on an input device that you always have with you: your fingers.
Tablet computers of one form or another have actually been around since the last century. They just never captured the fancy of Main Street. Apple's very own Newton, an ill-fated 1990s personal digital assistant, was among the machines that barely made a dent in the market.
What's past is past, of course, and technology, not to mention Apple itself, has come a long way since the Newton. And suffice it to say that tablets moving forward, led by the iPad brigade of course, promise to enjoy a much rosier outlook.
If you got caught up in the initial mania surrounding the iPad, you probably plotted for weeks about how to land one. After all, the iPad, like its close cousin the iPhone, rapidly emerged as the hippest computer you could find. (We consider you hip just because you're reading this book.)
Speaking of the iPhone, if you own one or its close relative, Apple's iPod touch, you already have a gigantic start in figuring out how to master the iPad multitouch method of navigating the interface with your fingers. You have our permission to skim over rest of this chapter, though we urge you to stick around anyway because some things work in subtly different ways. If you're a total novice, don't fret. Nothing about multitouch is painful.
To enjoy the iPad, you need the following four things, and there's a darn good chance you already have them:
Another computer: This can be either a Macintosh running Mac OS X Version 10.5.8 or later, or a PC running Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 3 or later. That's the official word From Apple anyway; we got the iPad to make nice with a Dell laptop that had XP Pro and SP2.
iTunes software: More specifically, you'll need version 9.1 or later of iTunes — emphasis on the later because by the time you read this, it probably will be later. That is, unless you're a fan of the popular TV show "Lost" and no longer have any sense of what's now, what was, and what's next. All kidding aside, Apple is constantly tweaking iTunes to make it better. Because Apple doesn't supply iTunes software in the box, head to
www.itunes.com/downloadto fetch a copy. Or, launch your current version of iTunes and then choose Check for Updates. You can find the Check for Updates command under the Help menu on a Windows machine and under the iTunes menu on a Mac.For the uninitiated, iTunes is the nifty Apple jukebox software that owners of iPods and iPhones, not to mention others, use to manage music, videos, applications, and more. iTunes is at the core of the iPad as well, because an iPod is built into the iPad. You use iTunes to synchronize a bunch of stuff from your PC or Mac to and from an iPad, including (but not limited to) applications, photos, movies, TV shows, podcasts, iTunes University lectures, and of course, music.
Syncing is such a vital part of this process that we devote an entire chapter (Chapter 3) to the topic.
An iTunes Store account: Read Chapter 8 for details on how to set one up, but like most things Apple, it's not difficult.
Internet access: Your iPad can connect to the Internet in either of two ways: Wi-Fi or 3G (if you bought an iPad with 3G capabilities and connect to a 3G service). You can connect your iPad to cyberspace via Wi-Fi in your home, office, school, favorite coffeehouse, bookstore, or numerous other spots.
A 3G (for third generation) wireless data connection at press time was available only in the United States through AT&T. Unlike with the cell-phone contract you may have with AT&T (or most every other cellular carrier), no such commitment is required. That means you can come and go as you please without penalty. Instead, you prepay 30 days worth of 3G connectivity through your credit card. This means that the charge won't show up in your iTunes account or AT&T statement (if you have one). Data rates at the time this book was being published were quite reasonably priced too: $30 a month for unlimited data or $15 a month for 250MB.
Apple has taken the time to partially charge your iPad, so you get some measure of instant gratification. After taking it out of the box, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button on the upper-right edge. (Refer to Chapter 1 for the location of all the buttons.) At first, you'll see the famous Apple logo, followed a minute or so later by an idyllic lake scene at what appears to be dusk. (You can replace this scene with one of your own pictures, as we describe in Chapter 10).
To turn the device completely off, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button again until a red arrow appears at the top of the screen. Then drag the arrow from the left to the right with your finger. Tap Cancel at the bottom of the screen if you change your mind.
Carrying a naked cell phone in your pocket is begging for trouble. Unless the phone has some locking mechanism, you may inadvertently dial a phone number at odd hours.
You don't have to worry about dialing your boss at 4 a.m. on an iPad — it's not a phone after all (though such apps as Line2 or Skype can turn it into one). But you still have sound reasons for locking an iPad:
You can't inadvertently turn it on.
You keep prying eyes at bay.
You spare the battery some juice.
Apple makes it a cinch to lock the iPad.
Note
In fact, you don't need to do anything to lock the iPad; it happens automatically as long as you don't touch the screen for a minute or two. As you find out in Chapter 13, you can also set the amount of time it takes before the iPad automatically locks.
Tip
Can't wait? To lock the iPad immediately, press the Sleep/Wake button.
Unlocking the iPad is easy, too. Here's how it works:
Press the Sleep/Wake button. Or, press the Home button on the front of the screen.
Either way, the on-screen slider appears.
Drag the slider to the right with your finger.
In some cases, you also need to enter a passcode.
See Chapter 13 to find out how to password-protect your iPad.
With very few exceptions, until the iPad came along, most every computer known to mankind has had a physical mouse and a typewriter-style QWERTY keyboard to help you accomplish most of the things you can do on a computer. (The term QWERTY is derived from the first six letters on any standard typewriter or computer keyboard.)
The iPad, like the iPhone, dispenses with a physical mouse and keyboard. Apple (as is its wont) is once again living up to an old company advertising slogan to "Think Different."
Indeed, the iPad (and iPhone) remove the usual physical buttons in favor of a multitouch display. And this beautiful and responsive finger-controlled screen is at the heart of the many things you do on the iPad.
In the following sections, you discover how to move around the multitouch interface with ease.
Rice Krispies have Snap! Crackle! Pop! Apple's response for the iPad is Tap! Flick! and Pinch! (Yikes, another ad comparison!) Oh yeah, and drag.
Fortunately, tapping, flicking, pinching, and dragging are not challenging gestures, so you can master many of the iPad's features in no time:
Tap: Tapping serves multiple purposes. Tap an icon to open an application from the Home screen. Tap to start playing a song or to choose the photo album you want to look through. Sometimes, you double-tap (tapping twice in rapid succession), which has the effect of zooming in (or out) of Web pages, maps, and e-mails.
Flick: Flicking is just what it sounds like. A flick of the finger on the screen itself lets you quickly scroll through lists of songs, e-mails, and picture thumbnails. Tap on the screen to stop scrolling, or merely wait for the scrolling list to stop.
Pinch/spread: Place two fingers on the edges of a Web page or map or picture, and then spread your fingers apart to enlarge the images. Or, pinch your fingers together to make the map or picture smaller. Pinching and spreading (or what we call unpinching) are cool gestures that are easy to master and sure to wow an audience.
Drag: Here's where you slowly press your finger against the touchscreen without lifting it. You might drag to move around a Web page or map that's too large for the iPad's display area.
The Home screen we discuss in the previous chapter is not the only screen of icons on your tablet. After you start adding apps from the iTunes App Store (which you discover in Chapter 7), you may see two or more tiny dots between the Safari, Mail, Photos, and iPod icons and the row of icons directly above them, plus a tiny Spotlight search magnifying glass to the left of the dots. Those dots denote additional screens, each containing up to 20 additional icons, not counting the four to six separate icons that are docked at the bottom of each of these Home screens. (More on these in a moment.)
To navigate between screens, either flick your finger from right to left or left to right across the middle of the screen, or tap directly on the dots. You can also drag your finger in either horizontal direction to get to a different screen.
Tip
Unlike flicking — you may prefer the term swiping — dragging your finger means keeping it pressed against the screen until you get to the page you want.
Tip
You must be very precise, or you'll open one of the application icons instead of switching screens.
The number of dots you see represents the current number of screens on your iPad. The dot that's all white denotes the screen that you're currently viewing. Finally, the four icons in the bottom row — Safari, Mail, Photos, and iPod — are in a special part of the screen known as the dock. When you switch from screen to screen as we described earlier, these icons remain on the screen. In other words, only the first 20 icons on the screen change when you move from one screen to another. You can add one or two more icons to the dock if you so choose. Or move one of the four default icons into the main area of the Home screen to make space available for additional app icons you may use more often.
Press the Home button to jump back to the first screenfull of icons or the Home screen. Pressing a second time brings you to an incredibly useful Search feature that we address in the section "Searching for content on your iPad," later in this chapter.
Instead of a physical keyboard, several "soft" or "virtual" English-language keyboard layouts slide up from the bottom of the iPad screen, all variations on the alphabetical keyboard, the numeric and punctuation keyboard, and the more punctuation and symbols keyboard. Figure 2-1 shows six examples of different iPad keyboards.
Indeed, the beauty of a software keyboard is that you see only the keys that are pertinent to the task at hand. The layout you see depends on the application. The keyboards in Safari differ from the keyboards in Notes. For example, while having a dedicated ".com" key in the Safari keyboard makes perfect sense, having such a key in the Notes keyboard isn't essential.
Tip
Those of you who feel lost without a physical keyboard can purchase an optional iPad Keyboard Dock from Apple ($69) that connects to the 30-pin dock connector at the bottom of the iPad. Apple also sells the Apple Wireless Keyboard ($69) which doesn't work with the Dock but uses Bluetooth instead. Other wireless Bluetooth keyboards may very well work too, including models from Logitech and Microsoft. Find out more about using a physical keyboard with your iPad in Chapter 15.
Before you consider how to actually use the keyboard, we'd like to share a bit of the philosophy behind its so-called intelligence. Knowing what makes this keyboard smart can help you make it even smarter when you use it:
It has a built-in English dictionary that even includes words from today's popular culture. It has dictionaries in other languages too, automatically activated when you use a given international keyboard as described in the sidebar "A keyboard for all borders," elsewhere in this chapter.
It adds your contacts to its dictionary automatically.
It uses complex analysis algorithms to predict the word you're trying to type.
It suggests corrections as you type. It then offers you the suggested word just below the misspelled word. When you decline a suggestion and the word you typed is not in the iPad dictionary, the iPad adds that word to its dictionary and offers it as a suggestion if you mistype a similar word in the future.
It reduces the number of mistakes you make as you type by intelligently and dynamically resizing the touch zones for certain keys. You can't see it, but it is increasing the zones for keys it predicts might come next and decreasing the zones for keys that are unlikely or impossible to come next.
The iPad keyboard contains several keys that don't actually type a character. Here's the scoop on each of these keys:
Tip
Caps Lock: To turn on Caps Lock and type in all caps, you first need to enable Caps Lock (if not already enabled). You do that by tapping the Settings icon (usually found on the first Home screen), then tapping General, and then tapping Keyboard. Tap the Enable Caps Lock item to turn it on. After the Caps Lock setting is enabled, you double-tap the Shift key to turn on Caps Lock. (The Shift key turns blue whenever Caps Lock is on.) Tap the Shift key again to turn off Caps Lock. To disable Caps Lock completely, just reverse the process by turning off the Enable Caps Lock setting (tap Settings
Toggle: Switches between the different keyboard layouts.
Hide Keyboard: Tap to hide the keyboard. Tap the screen in the appropriate app to bring back the keyboard.
Tip
If you have an iPhone or iPad touch, it's worth noting that keyboards on the iPad more closely resemble the keyboard layout of a traditional computer rather than those smaller model devices. That is, the Backspace space key is on the upper right, the Return key is just below it, and there are Shift keys on either side. It certainly improves the odds of successful touch-typing.
The virtual keyboards in Apple's multitouch interface just might be considered a stroke of genius. And they just might as equally drive you nuts, at least initially.
If you're patient and trusting, in a week or so, you'll get the hang of finger-typing — which is vital to moving forward, of course, because you rely on a virtual keyboard to tap a text field, enter notes, type the names of new contacts, and so on.
A keyboard for all borders
Apple is expanding the iPad's reach globally. Only a few weeks after launching in the United States in early April 2010, Apple brought the iPad to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K., with other countries to follow. Obviously, English isn't the primary language for many overseas customers, if they speak English at all. Fortunately, Apple doesn't take a parochial approach with the iPad. Apple supplies international keyboard layouts on the iPad for about a dozen languages as this book goes to press. To access a keyboard that isn't customized for Americanized English, tap Settings
Have a multilingual household? You can select as many of these international keyboards as you might need by tapping the language in the list. Of course, you can call upon only one language at a time. So when you're inside an application that summons a keyboard, tap the little international keyboard button sandwiched between the Toggle and Space keys (refer to Figure 2-1) until the keyboard you want to call on for the occasion shows up. Tap again to pick the next keyboard on the corresponding list of international keyboards that you turned on in Settings. If you keep tapping, you come back to your original English keyboard.
To remove a keyboard that you've already added to your list, tap the Edit button in the upper-right corner of the screen and then tap the red circle with the white horizontal line that appears next to the language to which you want to say adios. One more note about the Chinese keyboards: You can use handwriting character recognition for simplified and traditional Chinese, as shown here. Just drag your finger in the box provided.
We make apologies in advance for not knowing what the displayed characters here mean (we neither speak nor read Chinese).
As we've already noted, Apple has built a lot of intelligence into its virtual keyboard, so it can correct typing mistakes on the fly and take a stab at predicting what you're about to type next. The keyboard isn't exactly Nostradamus, but it does an excellent job in coming up with the words you have in mind.
Tip
As you start typing on the virtual keyboard, we think you'll find the following tips extremely helpful:
See what letter you're typing. As you press your finger against a letter or number on the screen, the individual key you press darkens until you lift your finger, as shown in Figure 2-2. That way, you know that you struck the correct letter or number.
Slide to the correct letter if you tap the wrong one. No need to worry if you touched the wrong key. You can slide your finger to the correct key because the letter isn't recorded until you release your finger.
Tap and hold to access special accent marks (or in Safari, URL endings). Sending a message to an overseas pal? Keep your finger pressed against a letter, and a row of keys showing variations on the character for foreign alphabets pops up, as shown in Figure 2-3. This lets you add the appropriate accent mark. Just slide your finger until the key with the relevant accent mark is pressed.
Meanwhile, if you press and hold the .com key in Safari, it offers you the choice of .com, .net, .edu, or .org, with additional options if you also use international keyboards. Pretty slick stuff.
Tap the Space key to accept a suggested word, or tap the suggested word to decline the suggestion. Alas, mistakes are common at first. Say that you meant to type a sentence in the Notes application that reads, "I am typing an important ..." But because of the way your fingers struck the virtual keys, you actually entered "I am typing an importsnt ..." Fortunately, Apple knows that the a you meant to press is next to the s that showed up on the keyboard, just as t and y and e and r are side by side. So the software determines that important was indeed the word you had in mind and places it in red under the suspect word. To accept the suggested word, merely tap the Space key. And if for some reason you actually did mean to type importsnt instead (perhaps by way of example in a book such as this), tap on the suggested word (important in this example) to decline it.
Tip
If you don't appreciate this feature, you can turn off Auto-Correction in Settings. Turn to Chapter 13 for details.
Tip
Because Apple knows what you're up to, the virtual keyboard is fine-tuned for the task at hand. This is especially true when you need to enter numbers, punctuation, or symbols. The following tips help you find common special characters or special keys that we know you'll want to use:
Finding keys for Web addresses: If you're entering a Web address, the keyboard inside the Safari Web browser (Chapter 4) includes dedicated period, forward slash, and .com keys but no Space key.
If you're using the Notes application (Chapter 12), the keyboard does have a Space key.
Putting the @ in an e-mail address: And if you're composing an e-mail message (Chapter 5), a dedicated @ key pops up on the keyboard.
Switching from letters to numbers: When you're typing notes or sending e-mail and want to type a number, symbol, or punctuation mark, tap the 123 key to bring up an alternative virtual keyboard. Tap the ABC key to return to the first keyboard. It's not hard to get used to, but some may find this extra step irritating.
See Chapter 18 for a slick trick (the slide) that avoids the extra step involved in moving between the 123 and ABC keys.
Adding apostrophes: If you press and hold the Exclamation Mark/Comma key on the iPad, it changes to an apostrophe.
It's a good idea to type with abandon and not get hung up over mistyped characters. The self-correcting keyboard can fix many errors. That said, plenty of typos are likely to turn up, especially in the beginning, and you have to correct them manually.
Tip
A neat trick for doing so is to hold your finger against the screen to bring up the magnifying glass shown in Figure 2-4. Use it to position the pointer to the spot where you need to make the correction. Then use the Backspace key to delete the error, and press whatever keys you need to type the correct text.
Being able to select and then copy and paste text (or images) from one place on a computer to another has seemingly been a divine right since Moses, and that's the case on the Apple tablet as well. You can copy and paste (and cut) with pizzazz.
On the iPad, you might copy text or images from the Web and paste them into an e-mail or a note. Or, you might copy a bunch of pictures or video into an e-mail.
Say you're jotting down ideas in the Notes application that you'll eventually copy into an e-mail. Here's how to exploit the copy-and-paste feature, using this scenario as an example:
Double-tap a word to select it.
Tap Select to select the adjacent word or tap Select All to grab everything, as shown in Figure 2-5.
You can also drag the blue grab points or handles to select a larger block of text or to contract the text you've already selected. This too may take a little practice.
After you've selected the text, tap Copy. If you want to delete the text block, tap Cut instead.
You can also select Replace to substitute for the words you've selected.
Now open the Mail program (Chapter 5) and start composing a message.
When you decide where to insert the text you just copied, tap the cursor.
Up pops commands to Select, Select All, and Paste, as shown in Figure 2-6.
Tap Paste to paste the text into the message.
Tip
Here's the pizzazz part. If you made a mistake when you were cutting, pasting, or typing, shake the iPad. It undoes the last edit.
Using the Safari browser (Chapter 4), you can search the Web via the Google or Yahoo! search engines.
But you can also search people and programs across your iPad and within specific applications. We show you how to search within apps in the various chapters dedicated to Mail, Contacts, Calendar, and the iPod.
Searching across the iPad, meanwhile, is based on the powerful Spotlight feature familiar to Mac owners. Here's how it works:
To access Spotlight, flick to the left of the main Home screen (or, as mentioned earlier in this chapter, press the Home button from the main Home screen).
In the bar at the top of the screen that slides into view, enter your search query using the virtual keyboard.
The iPad starts spitting out results the moment you type a single character, and the list gets narrowed as you type additional characters.
The results are pretty darn thorough. Say you entered Ring as your search term, as shown in Figure 2-7. Contacts whose last names have Ring in them show up, along with friends who might do a trapeze act in the Ringling Bros. circus. All the songs on your iPad by Ringo Starr show up too, as do such song titles as Tony Bennett's "When Do The Bells Ring For Me," if that happens to be in your library. Same goes for apps with the word Ring.
Tap any listing to jump to the contact, ditty, or application you're searching for.
Tip
In Settings (Chapter 13), you can specify the order of search results so that apps come first, contacts second, songs third, and so on.
