iPad Tips and Tricks

Not everything you need to know about your iPad is contained in the online User Guide. What follows is some practical advice that might improve the use and functionality of your device.

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Nuances of charging your iPad:

You've heard it before and know it after using your device. The iPad is not just a larger iPod or iPhone. One of the important unique characteristics of the device is a large, bright screen and long battery life. It shouldn't be a surprise that this comes at a cost. The iPad has special charging needs.

Here's the bottom line: while the iPhone and iPod can easily charge off of any computer USB port, this is not the case with the iPad. The ipad can charge optimally from only three sources:

1. The Apple provided 10 watt wall charger
2. A high power USB port (present on newer Mac and certain other PCs, but not all)
3. High energy non-Apple auto and ac charging devices

When plugged into other power sources (chargers for an iPhone or non-high-power USB ports) you will see a "not charging" indicator on your device. Surprisingly, this indicator is not entirely accurate. While your iPad will not be charging rapidly, numerous users have confirmed that charging is occurring, but at a slower rate. To allow charging when attached to a standard (low energy) USB port, you should place the iPad in the "sleep" mode by pressing the sleep/wake (power) button. If you don't put the iPad in the sleep mode it may not charge, but will likely maintain its current state (not drain further).

Optimizing Power Consumption

There are many steps you can take to optimize the battery life on your iPad. Here are general categories of step you can take:

1. Keep your iPad software up to date (energy saving tweaks are expected periodically)
2. Optimize settings: this involves setting your screen brightness to the minimum level needed and turn off any unneeded services (location services, wifi, 3G, push notifications, push mail, etc.)
3. Lock your device when you're not using it (press the sleep/wake button)

For a detailed list of step you can take to optimize battery life, visit the following article on the Apple website: iPad Battery

Creating an iPad USB port

A USB connection to iPad? Although the iPad doesn't have a formal USB port, it turns out that the camera connection kit includes an adapter that converts the 30 pin docking port into a standard USB port. What can you do with this? Although it is designed for attaching your camera using a USB cable, you can also attach some of the following devices:

• USB Keyboard
• USB microphone

How can you get this adapter? You need to order it directly from Apple. Read more about this at electronista.com.

Using speech recognition with your iPad

Although the iPhone operating system does not include speech recognition, Nuance Communications is currently offering a free speech recognition program which allows you to create text from speech and insert it into one of 3 places: 1) email, 2) SMS text message, 3) the clipboard, and 4) a "notes" storage area within the program. This is currently a free application, but get it now since it is likely to become a paid application in the near future.

Keep in mind a few factors when using the Dragon Dictation application:

• The application is tailored to your voice (identified by your device) and will get better with time as you use it; for this reason you should not allow others to use the Dragon dictation application on your iPad or iPhone for anything other than very short dictation.
• The largest determinant of recognition accuracy is careful enunciation. Speak very clearly when dictating
• Dragon will learn from its mistakes if you correct errors which occur. This can be done in two ways: 1) tap on the incorrect word and choose from the drop-down menu or 2) bring up the standard iPad keyboard and manually correct the mis-recognized word.
• You will get better accuracy if you use Dragon Dictation with a formal microphone rather than the built-in microphone. In order of preference, we recommend the following:
  
  
  1. A wired headset microphone attached to the iPad audio jack (using an adapter such as the one sold on our site and elsewhere)
  2. Using a Bluetooth microphone paired with your iPad
  3. Using the microphone integrated into one of the standard Apple (or other manufacturer) microphone/earbud unit

We anticipate using speech recognition on the iPad will be tremendously more effective once the new operating system is released in June or July of 2010 and multitasking is allowed. At this point it might be possible to use Dragon while running another application. But this will likely involve many challenges ...

More information:

• Visit the Nuance Dragon Dictation page
• Visit the Nuance Dragon Dictation Support Page

Finger versus stylus for the iPad

Apple has made a point of not recommending a stylus for use with the iPad. Why? For a very simple reason: the iPad touchscreen is designed and optimized for use with a finger. Anything other than a finger works slightly less well. Does this mean that a stylus cannot be used with the iPad or iPhone? No, but there are a couple of caveats you should consider:

• When using any of the commercially available iPad styli, you should know that because these devices are not as efficient as the human finger in being tracked by the iPad's "capacitance" touchscreen" you will need to push a bit harder with the stylus than you would with a finger.
• Do not use a stylus designed for pressure sensitive touchscreens with your iPad or iPhone. These may actually cause damage to the screen or scratch it. The type of stylus which is safely used with the iPad screen is one designed for a "capacitance" touchscreen.
• Because of the relative reduction in sensitivity of a commercial stylus compared with a human finger, these should be considered more for coarse functioning such as typing letters on a keyboard, activating an application, and pushing appropriate areas of the touchscreen. Actions which require sliding and more variable motions across the touchscreen (more creative endeavors!) are accomplished far more easily with a finger.
• Realize that you cannot rest the palm of your hand on the touchscreen while using any stylus (or your finger for that matter). With the exception of the pinching and reverse pinching motions used to shrink or enlarge objects with the iPad, the device will generally accept only one stimulus at a time on the touchscreen.

We know of three general designs for a stylus used for a capacitance touch screen. The first uses a squishy conductive material that slides fairly well on the iPad screen. The Radtech stylus employs this material. The second type of stylus uses as soft conductive rubber-like material. Depending upon your need, each material seems to have certain advantages.

1. Radtech Styloid: The Radtech stylus tip has a somewhat flattened end. It is made with a material that facilitates very simple sliding on the iPad screen and this is an advantage if you plan to do any freestyle (artistic) work or handwriting. But to work best, it is best to hold the stylus in a completely vertical position (as much as possible at a 90 degree angle from the touchscreen), which is not the way we are accustomed to holding writing instruments. But when used at such an angle, the stylus works almost as easily as a human finger, and requires virtually no downward pressure.
   
   
   
   
2. The Pogo Sketch has a more rounded tip and is not quite as angle dependent as the Radtech device. We consider the combination of materials and design to be ideal in this device. It slides smoothly on the iPad screen, is not so angle dependent at the Radtech device, and requires only minimal pressure. We don't yet have enough experience to evaluate this device in terms of durability.
   
   
   
   
3. The generic stylus has a soft rubber-like tip and is not so angle dependent, which we consider an advantage. But the material tends to drag a bit on the touchscreen, so any freestyle movement is considerably less fluid and easy. Further, to work well, the tip on this type of stylus needs to be deformed slightly (flattened) during use, and this requires pushing a bit harder, a definite disadvantage. The main advantage of this device is reduced cost.

Saving a Screen Shot

This is a simple procedure. Press the home button and power (top right) button simultaneously for about a half second. You'll hear the familiar photo shutter movement sound and your screen will be captured as a photo in your Photos folder in it's full size and resolution. Be careful when you open the screen shot - if it's a shot of your desktop, you might forget it's only a photo and not the real thing and when you touch application icons, nothing will happen!

As an aside, it is even possible to do a screen shot while playing a movie (paused or while playing).

Forcing a Shutdown

In the rare situation in which your iPad freezes and you seem unable to shut it down, simply press and hold both the home button and power button for a few seconds. This will cause your device to shut down and restart. In order to force shut down a single application, simply hold the home button for a few seconds.

Using a standard headset microphone with the iPad

Both the iPad and iPhone use a single audio jack which will carry the signal for both stereo sound out and a mono microphone in. Apple and other manufacturers make small earphones with an inline microphone which can be used with audio applications, such as listening to audio, place calls with Skype and other applications, and with optional speech recognition applications. But what if you want to improve the quality of your audio and use a more professional headset or headset microphone? For some applications like speech recognition, an extremely clean signal is critical to good recognition and this requires a dedicated microphone.

If you plan to use a combined headset and microphone, of the type typically used with a personal computer, you will notice that you have two plugs - one for the sound out and one for the microphone. How do you use such a headset microphone with the iPad?

Creative Apple users have come to the rescue and shared wiring diagrams, and a few manufacturers have created the exact adapter needed to accomplish. Examples of both a commercially available version (we sell this) and a home-made version posted on the web are shown below.

Commercially Available Headset Microphone iPad adapter. See this on our site.		Picture of home-made adapter shown at: http://benttronics.blogspot.com/2009/05/audio-breakout-cable-for-ipodiphone.html

Keyboard Shortcuts

You may be surprised by the flexibility underlying the basic keyboard on the iPad (and iPhone). In addition to having the choice of choosing entirely different keyboard arrangements (go to Settings > General > Keyboard > International Keyboards), within a given keyboard there are many more key choices than you see. Pressing and holding many keys opens a selection of related keys or symbols. Here are some of the basics.

Special Characters: Pressing an hold many of the keys on the keyboard will open up a selection of related symbols. Some examples are shown below:

Similar keyboard symbol extension occur with the "u", "a", "i", "y", "e", "s", "l", "z", "c", "n" and others.

In general, if there is a key you want to type but which isn't available, try pressing and holding the most similar key and you might be surprised to see your desired key show up as an option

Typing a word in all caps: Although you might not want to do this for an entire document, once in a while it's necessary to capitalize an ENTIRE word. The hard way is to repeatedly go back and forth between the shift key and successive keys in the word. It's a bit laborious. On the other hand if you enable "Enable Caps Lock" in the settings (Setting > General > Keyboard > Enable Caps Lock "On") you can type all caps simply by preceding the word with a double tap of the shift key. It will turn blue (see below) and all letters will be capped until you tap the cap key again.

Choosing alternative domain name endings: If you press and hold the "." key when attempting to type a .com, .org, or .edu URL, you will be given a choice of these endings. Just slide your finger to the one you want to choose.

Bluetooth Devices and the iPad

The iPad differs from other Apple mobile devices in many ways, including the Bluetooth protocols it supports. As a result, some bluetooth devices that will link the the iPhone or iPod may not pair with the iPad. The most notable difference in this regards is the inability of the iPad to use the "Hand-Free Profile" or the "Phone Book Access PBAP (PBAP)". The most obvious manifestation of this difference is the inability of some simple headset microphones to pair with the iPad.

What you can expect to work with the iPad:

1. Most stereo bluetooth headset and earphone microphones (these tend to use the A2DP Protocol)
2. Wireless (Bluetooth) keyboards (these tend to use the Human Interface Device Protocol (HID)
3. Remote control functions (pause, play and stop) with some portable devices
4. Peer-to-peer connectivity of an iPad to another mobile device for games and other applications is supported by the Personal Area Newwork Profile (PAN).

What won't work with the iPad:

1. Simple computer headset microphones using the "Hand-Free" protocol

More Information:

• Learn more about the various Bluetooth protocols from Wikipedia
• Read the Apple article from which the above table was taken: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3647
• Learn how to set-up peer-to-peer connectivity of your iPad with another portable device with this article from Apple

iPad Car Mounting

Although the concept has obvious implications in terms of safety, many users might desire a firm way to mount your iPad in your vehicle. Searching the web, we were amazed at the number of commercial sites that are designing semi-permanant ways of mounting the iPad to your car. See a few of these below:

For the not-so-committed iPad user, be aware that there are some "low tech" means of mounting your iPad, including some that cost less than 50 cents! Here is an interesting YouTube

YouTube "DIY iPad Car Mount"

A similar method using a string might be utilized for mounting your ipad to the back of your seat for rear-seat movie viewing. The only requirement is a standard folding iPad case and piece of string!

Jailbreaking your iPad

While we fully believe that Apple has the best of intensions in maintaining such tight control of what runs on the iPad and their other portable devices, you might truly find yourself in need of one of those "special" programs that can be run only on a jailbroken machine. We, for instance, wanted to do a formal demonstration of the iPad for some colleagues and even with the Apple VGA adapter there was no way to project the desktop ("Springboard") and most of the applications we wanted to demonstrate. With a quick jailbreak and installation of a program called "Display Out", it was suddenly possible to display everything through the same Apple VGA adapter.

What's the downside of jailbreaking your device? First, you may be voiding your Apple warranty. Second, you are missing the screening for stability and compatability of applications which happens before an app is added to the official Apple app store.

How do you jailbreak your device?

1.  First you should sync your device with iTunes and do a back-up, just to be sure you will have a fresh copy of everything on your device stored on your pc
2. After the sync, close down iTunes but leave your device connected
3. Go to:  http://www.limera1n.com/ and click on the “Download for Windows” link;  Download Lmera1n to a reachable place on your hard drive
4. Open the file you just downloaded and click on “Let it Rain”
5. Follow the instructions which pop up.  It involves depressing you home button, simultaneously the home and power button, etc.   The entire process takes only a couple of minutes.
6. Once you’re done, you’ll see a new app on your desktop (the desktop is also called the “Springboard”) named “Limera1N”
7. Launch LimeraN1 and click on the link that says “Install Cydia” (Cydia is the program that gives you access to all the non-Apple-approved apps

Once this is done, you will have Cydia on your desktop.  Just open Cydia to get you access to thousands of new programs, including some of the very cool stuff.  Most of the apps are free but some cost a few bucks and you’ll need to share a PayPal or other billing method to purchase some items.  Often when  add new applications you’ll see a request to “relaunch springboard” – this is equivalent to doing a restart on your PC and takes only 5-10 seconds to complete.

APPLICATIONS:  What do I recommend?  Here are a few of the apps which I have found very useful.  If you search “best cydia ipad apps” or something of this nature, you’ll get lots of links to sites and You-Tube videos with other recommendations.

1.  Backgrounder:  This allows you to keep almost any program running in the background, so when you go to it next, it’s open and ready to go.  The default method of putting a program in the backgrounder mode is to press and hold the home button when closing the app.  You’ll see  a little message saying “backgrounding enabled” as the program shuts down.  Hint:  If you open the actual backgrounder program and go to “Global Settings”, you’ll see an option for “Badge”.  If you turn this on, it will add a small badge or symbol to the icon of any program which is running in the background, so you’ll remember it’s running.  To stop a program from running in the background, simply open it and again press and hold the home button and you’ll get a message that “backgrounding disabled” as the program closes.  One note:  having programs running in the background can do two bad things:  1) it will consume some of your RAM, so if you have a lot of programs running in the background you might find programs start to run slowly or not run correctly and 2) if the program is actually doing something in the background, it might use up some of your processing power.  This wouldn’t be an issue for your New York Times app, since it just sits there, but if you put a game in the background mode, it will continue to run (and make noise if appropriate).  Overall, though, this is a very cool application and I find it very useful.

Notice the small “badge” attached to the Editor’s Choice and Keynote icons.  Both of these apps are running in the background and will start instantly when tapped.

1.  Display Out:  If you’ve purchased the Apple VGA adapter ($30 from the Apple store), you’ve probably noticed  that only a few things are actually ported to your VGA device, like photos only when in the slideshow mode, most You-tube videos, and Keynote when in the presentation mode.  “Display Out” does for your device what Apple should have allowed:  it ports out everything to your VGA device, including the view of your desktop, all programs images, movies, etc.  You install this by finding it on Cydia.  Once it’s installed you won’t see it as an application on your  Springboard (iPad desktop), but rather it shows up as an “extension” in your setting menu.  This is the perfect app if you want to do a demonstration of you iPad.

1. FullForce:  Do you have some iPhone apps on your iPad and are you frustrated by the small size?  Or are you disappointed by the image quality when you hit the “2X” button on an iPhone app on the iPad?  Again, FullForce does what Apple should have done.  If you select an application to display using FullForce (selected in the FullForce area of your settings menu) it will automatically display your iPhone app in full iPad size and, more importantly, it makes the resolution crisp (no double pixel size like you’re accustomed to).  It’s a wonderful addition to your iPad.  One caveat – there are a few iPhone apps that just don’t display well using this program.  But the  beauty is that through the FullForce menu in your settings menu, you can choose which apps run in full size versus their original size.

1. SBSettings:  This simple program adds the ability to open up a small screen on the top left of your device which provides access to a variety of important device information and settings.  It is opened with a simple left to right swipe across the very top of your iPad screen (see below).  Within the program you can alter what will show up on the interface.  It turns out to be a quick way to change common settings such as changing screen brightness, turning wifi or 3G off and on, etc.  It also allows other functionality, including adding things like your IP address of RAM usage to your status board (see below).

Notice the graphic interface overlying the apple desktop (Springboard) with a variety of settings.  This can be opened with a swipe across the top of the screen and close with the “X” on the  interface.

Can you undo a jailbreak?  Yes, simply attach you device to iTunes and select “restore”.  You’ll revert back to the prior operating system without the jailbreak. 

One warning:  As quick as hackers are developing methods of jailbreaking, Apple is updating their operating system to patch the holes that allow it.  The current jailbreak was just released Sunday (10/10/10) and will work with the latest iPad (3.2.2) and iPhone (4.1) operating systems.  As soon as Apple figures out how it works, they’ll likely upgrade the iOS.  Here’s the catch, if you want you jailbreak to continue to work, don’t upgrade the operating system!  If you do upgrade, you’ll have to wait a month or two until a new vulnerability is discovered.

*The Apple warranty issue seems to be theoretical in that you have the ability to un-do a jailbreak by doing a complete restore using iTunes.   To my knowledge there is no way that Apple will actually know that your device was ever jailbroken.