OK, seasoned iPad veterans look away – this is another iPad Basics tip, for those who are newer to iPad and iOS.

I was recently asked by a reader how he could archive apps that are not used regularly on his iPad. As in, he wanted to be able to delete some rarely used apps on the iPad itself in order to save storage space and clutter on home screens, without losing those apps forever.

And happily the answer is that iTunes has us well covered in this area.

iTunes does the ‘archiving’ for us. You can happily delete apps from the iPad itself but the record of your purchase remains on iTunes so at any point that you want to reinstall them it recognizes that you have already purchased them. They also remain in iTunes on the PC as long as you don’t delete them there.

One important thing to be aware of when deleting an app that does not sync its data with a desktop or online partner, is that its data will also be deleted. The same goes for games. This is a good reason to look for apps that have a good sync setup.

In iOS 4.3.5 and iOS 5, which should be released in the next few weeks, there is a new Purchased tab in the App Store on the iPad, which makes all of this even easier. There’s even a section for ‘Not on this iPad’ that shows you only apps you have purchased but do not currently have installed. And of course it’s just a single tap to reinstall any of them from there.

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Post tags: iPad Basics

This is another in our occasional iPad Basics tips series – so if you’re a veteran iPad user you’ll want to skip this as you’re very likely to already know this stuff.

For those who are newer to the iPad, or who just haven’t had a need to know this before, this very quick tip let’s you know how to take a screenshot (an image that captures what is currently on the screen) on the iPad and iPad 2.

And happily, it’s very easy to do. You just press the Power (or sleep/wake) button at the top right of the iPad app and the Home button at the same time for just a quick second. When you do you’ll see the screen flash white for a moment and you’ll hear the camera shutter sound.

That’s it. Once you’ve done that, you can go to the Photos app and see your screenshot in the Camera Roll album.

You can do this when the iPad is in portrait or landscape mode, the method is always the same.

One more quick tip on putting screenshots to use on the iPad: you can open an existing photo in your Camera Roll, pinch to zoom to blow up the best portion of the image, then take a screenshot. That will create a new image in the Camera Roll. This can often be a nice way to quickly improve an existing image or just create a nice extra close-up shot.

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Post tags: how to take a screenshot on iPad, how to take an iPad screenshot, iPad Basics, iPad screen capture

Those of you who have used an iPad for a while will want to look away from this post, as it’s a very basic tip. For those of you who are newer users, I hope it will prove useful.

If you have a website you visit often and enjoy reading, say for instance a lovely iPad-focused site such as this one, and you’d like to add a shortcut to it to your home screen, it’s very easy to do.

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Read the rest of How To Add a Website to Your iPad Home Screen (181 words)

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Post tags: how to add home screen icon for a website, iPad basic tips

For many users, the iPad lives up to its description as an ‘intimate’ device – getting used often when laying around on a couch and similar. There are a number of situations – not least when playing games – when you will not want the iPad to continue its normal habit of flipping screen orientations as you shift it around; when you’ll want it to just stay fixed in landscape or portrait mode.

Happily, this is easy to do on the iPad. Here’s how:

– Double-tap on the Home button to bring up the iPad’s Multitasking Bar. This will show you all your recently used apps.

– Swipe to the right in the bar, in order to show the items at the far left of the bar. You should see the built-in iPod’s app icon, controls for the iPod, a brightness control slider, and the Orientation Lock control at the far left of the bar.

– You simply tap on the Orientation Lock to toggle orientation locking on and off (in whichever mode it is currently in).

That’s it. Another very basic but very handy iPad tip – hopefully helpful for those of you who are new to the iPad.

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Post tags: how to lock iPad screen orientation, iPad orientation lock, iPad screen lock

This is another very basic tip for iOS 4.2 users on the iPad – so if you’re a savvy veteran user it’s best to move along now.

One of the nice smaller features we gained with the 4.2 software update is the ability to change the font in the built-in Notes app. Doing so is super easy as long as you know where to go.

You cannot make the change within the app itself. You just need to go to the Settings app, and tap on Notes in the sections pane on the left (just below Photos and above Store). Once you do, you’ll see the three current font choices shown in the right pane. Just tap on Helvetica your preferred font and you’re good to go.

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Post tags: how to change the font in iPad Notes app, how to change the font in the built-in Notes app, Notes app

Since the iPad launched, the button at the top of the right-hand side of the iPad has been used as an orientation lock. Under the iOS 4.2 betas, the button has been changed to a mute switch – and apparently that change is going to become a permanent one when iOS 4.2 is released to the public next month.

According to a report at 9to5Mac, Steve Jobs has confirmed the permanent change in another of his direct email exchanges with a user.

So in iOS 4.2, the top right button will be a Mute button and the Orientation Lock will be toggled via a button in the Multitasking Bar, just to the right of the iPod controls.

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Read the rest of iPad Orientation Lock Button to Change to Mute Switch in iOS 4.2 (116 words)

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Post tags: iOS 4.2, iPad Orientation Lock switch

Most of you may be well aware of the fact stated in this post’s title – but I get asked this a lot and see lots of people talking about how it’s not possible to print from the iPad. 

So I thought I’d do a quick post to confirm that yes, you absolutely can print from the iPad – and in fact if you have the right type of printer and a decent app, wireless printing from the iPad works very well.

I’m no expert on this subject (yet ) but I’ve been giving it a go at home with a couple of wireless printers – and finding that it’s quite easy if your setup is right.

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Post tags: how to print from the iPad, iPad printing, iPad wireless printing, printing from iPad, printing from the iPad

OK, so this may be blatantly obvious to all of you – but just in case anyone was wondering whether the iPad Camera Connection Kit can import photos from one iPad to another, the answer is absolutely yes.

I just got a new iPad 3G this week, and I’ve been gradually transferring some stuff from my WiFi model across to it over the last couple days.  Today I started thinking about Camera Roll images and figured I’d see whether it was just as easy as grabbing photos off an iPhone.

It is.  New iPad recognized Old iPad just like an iPhone, fired up the Photos app in Import mode, and got all the images transferred in just a few minutes. It even resumed quite nicely right where it left off when I let it drift into sleep mode and woke it back up.

So there you have it, the answer to a question that likely nobody was asking.

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Post tags: importing photos from another iPad, iPad Camera Connection Kit

Following the iPad’s launch in Canada, Rogers has posted a step-by-step guide to activating the iPad 3G on their network. 

The guide covers first-time activation, managing your account, and offers details on data usage limits, how to cancel a plan and more.

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Post tags: iPad 3G activation, Rogers

Here’s another basic but very handy tip for those of you who are new to the iPad.  You may often receive a photo in an email that you want to save and keep on your iPad – or spot an image in a web site that you’d like to save.

It’s very easy to do this on the iPad – hit the lovely little read more link to see how …

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Read the rest of How To Save Images in the iPad Safari and Mail Apps (178 words)

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Post tags: how to save an image in an email, how to save an image in Safari on the iPad, iPad how-tos, iPad tips

The inquisitive, destructive, determined folks at iFixit have got their hands on, and inside, an iPad 3G.  They’ve already got some highlights on what they’re discovering about the new model.  Hit the jump for their full list …

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Read the rest of iPad 3G: Already Violated, Dissected by the iFixIt Guys (333 words)

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Post tags: iPad 3G teardown, iPad tech specs

AT&T has put out a PDF document outlining details of its data plan pricing for the iPad WiFi + 3G.

There’s not much that we didn’t already know in the document, but one point Gizmodo picked up on is that you’ll have free access to AT&T’s 20,000 plus WiFI hotspots while you’ve got a data plan active.

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Post tags: AT&T, data plans for iPad 3G, iPad data plans

The lovely folks over at iFixit have continued to rip apart and desecrate the iPad over this launch weekend.  One of the biggest new finds is the amount of RAM the iPad has. It’s got 256MB – the same as the iPhone 3GS.

Yes, the K4X2 is a Samsung DRAM part number!
Decoding the part number shows there is 2Gb of memory inside. This translates into ~128MB of memory per die, for 256 MB total. (NOT 512MB, as we previously reported.)

They’ve uncovered lots more fascinating details on what’s inside the iPad.  If you can handle the sight of an opened up, mutilated, not so magical and revolutionary anymore iPad – then head over here to take it all in:

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPad-Teardown/2183/1

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Post tags: iPad hardware specs, iPad teardown

As expected, it has been confirmed by Steve himself that free ePub ebooks can be synced to the iPad via iTunes.

Apparently Steve Jobs is continuing to reply to user questions on all things iPhone and iPad – this time even firing off a reply from his iPad.  This one was in reply to a question about whether we’ll be able to load free ePub format ebooks onto the iPad via iTunes. 

This is great news if you’re a fan of grabbing up classics from sources like the superb Project Gutenberg.  Another reason to look forward to seeing the iBooks app in action.

Via: Gizmodo

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Post tags: free ebooks, iBooks app, iTunes sync, Steve Jobs

As with most of Apple’s iPad pages, the one covering the iPad WiFi + 3G model has been updated with lots more juicy detail since iPad pre-orders start day.  We already knew that the 3G coverage is provided by AT&T, that it will offer speeds up to 7.2 Mbps, and that if you grab one of the AT&T data plans for the iPad, you’ll also get access to over 20,000 AT&T WiFi hotspots (in places like Starbucks, Barnes & Noble etc).

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Read the rest of More Details on iPad 3G Data Plans & Managing them on the iPad (287 words)

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Post tags: iPad Wifi + 3G details

The iPad has an external button for screen rotation lock – just above the Volume up/down controls. This is one of quite a few interesting new things we learned yesterday about the iPad, as Apple revealed more about the device when pre-orders went live.

It’s a very handy addition that should make for much more comfortable reading and help gamers out a fair bit as well.

Were any of you hoping for any other new buttons on the iPad?

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Post tags: iPad external buttons, screen rotation lock button

At the iPad launch event, it was announced that we’d be able to customize home screen wallpaper on the iPad – but we haven’t seen too much more about this since then.  Until now. This week, lots of folks are digging into the latest SDK beta and finding lots of new goodies.  I’ve been following 9to5Mac’s reporting on this area especially closely.

Amongst those are the Photos app and the options for setting your wallpaper.  In the screenshot above, you can hopefully just about see the three options at the top right of the image: Set Lock Screen, Set Home Screen, and Set Both.  So we can choose to use the same image for both lock and home screens, or for both.

I know, I know – this is hardly a major new technology breakthrough, but after these last few years of the iPhone’s limits on what could be done with home screen backgrounds (unless you are jailbroken) this is a bit of sight for sore eyes.

Via: 9to5Mac

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Post tags: custom wallpaper, home screen, iPad wallpaper options

As part of our iPad Basics coverage, it would be useful to lay out the tech specs of the device.  You can of course go to this Apple page to review them all, but I figured it might be useful to share them in more bit-sized chunks, as there are a lot of them.

So here are the details on the iPad’s external buttons and controls, as well as Input an output:

As you can see in the screencap above, the iPad’s external buttons / controls are the same as those on the iPhone.  That’s fine by me, I’ve never hankered after any additional buttons on my iPhone.

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Post tags: iPad external buttons

I thought as part of our iPad Basics coverage, it would be useful to lay out the tech specs of the device.  You can of course go to this Apple page to review them all, but I figured it might be useful to share them in more bit-sized chunks, as there are a lot of them.

So here are the details on what comes in the iPad box:

• iPad
• Dock Connector to USB Cable
• 10W USB Power Adapter
• Documentation

About what you’d likely expect, and no lovely Apple case thrown in (as if).

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Post tags: iPad accessories included, iPad box

I thought as part of our iPad Basics coverage, it would be useful to lay out the tech specs of the device.  You can of course go to this Apple page to review them all, but I figured it might be useful to share them in more bit-sized chunks, as there are a lot of them.

So here are the details for the Display, Capacity, Processor, and Battery and Power for the iPad:

Display
9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology
1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)
Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating
Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously

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Read the rest of iPad Tech Specs: Display, Storage, Battery & Power (102 words)

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Post tags: iPad capacity options, iPad display specs, iPad processor specs, iPad tech specs

I thought as part of our iPad Basics coverage, it would be useful to lay out the tech specs of the device.  You can of course go to this Apple page to review them all, but I figured it might be useful to share them in more bit-sized chunks, as there are a lot of them.

So here are the dimensions details for the iPad:

Size and weight

Height: 9.56 inches (242.8 mm)
Width: 7.47 inches (189.7 mm)
Depth: 0.5 inch (13.4 mm)
Weight: 1.5 pounds (0.68 kg) Wi-Fi model;
           1.6 pounds (0.73 kg) Wi-Fi + 3G model

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Post tags: iPad dimensions, iPad tech specs

The iPad home screen looks a bit sparse in the views of it we’ve seen so far – containing even fewer apps than the original iPhone had when it launched.  Of course it will have the App Store right out of the gate, unlike the V1 iPhone, so all those blank spaces can easily be filled up very quickly.

The built-in apps that we saw at last week’s iPad launch event do look very nice though.  Hit the jump for a rundown of all the built-in iPad apps and some excerpts about each of them straight from Apple’s iPad pages …

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Read the rest of iPad Basics – Built-in iPad Apps (994 words)

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Post tags: built-in apps on iPad, iPad built-in apps, iPad home screen

The image above shows the Pages word processing app on the iPad, part of the iWork suite for iPad.  The tool shown in the image is apparently called the Document Navigator, and looks extremely useful.

It’s one of many iPad UI (user interface) elements that are highlighted and discussed at an excellent Flickr set created by Frasier Speirs, a Mac software developer.  The Flickr set contains over 50 images and features notes on some of the fine details of the new iPad interface.  The images were all culled from public sources (mostly Apple videos) and they really offer a fascinating look at some of the details of the iPad UI.  If you have a chance, the set if well worth a good long look through:

http://tinyurl.com/y8ju4pz

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Read the rest of Closer Looks at iPad’s Interface and Gestures (48 words)

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Post tags: iPad gestures, iPad UI, iPad user interface

Image Source: gdgt.com

A blog site with the splendid name of ‘The Russians Used a Pencil’ has a post up with some thoughts on typing on the iPad.  The author feels that typing in landscape mode should be fairly ‘adequate’ even for longer text entry, but that portrait mode may be a very different, and not very satisfactory, experience.

The on screen keyboard in portrait orientation, however, seems inelegant.

In this case the iPhone style keyboard doesn’t scale very gracefully. It sits in an unfortunately middle ground: way too cramped to type with both hands, but too large to be able to comfortably “thumb type.”

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Read the rest of How Easy or Hard Will Typing on the iPad Be? (143 words)

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Post tags: iPad on-screen keyboard, typing on iPad

Apple is dramatically rethinking how applications organize their documents on iPad, leaving behind the jumbled file system and making file access between the iPad and desktop computers seamless.

That’s an excerpt from a report at Apple Insider on how Apple is ‘re-inventing’ file access and wireless sharing on the iPad. The article talks about how conventional hierarchical file systems are seen as ‘a bit of a mystery’ to non-savvy computer users, and how Apple is looking to reduce the complexity of working with files and file systems.

This is put forward as the reason behind the way many things are done on the iPhone – which is said to ‘abstract away the file system entirely’ and offers no concept of opening or saving files – which in this case is meant to be a good thing.

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Read the rest of iPad to Allow for Easier File Sharing, but Still Very Limited File System Access (850 words)

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Post tags: iPad file sharing, iPad file system access