My New iPad, 3rd Edition: A User’s Guide
Wallace Wang
(No Starch Press, paperback, list price $24.95; Kindle edition, $9.99)
If you don’t already own an iPad, this crisp, nicely illustrated and well-organized user’s guide can make you wish you did. And if you’ve recently pulled an iPad out of the box and started using it, My New iPad, 3rd Edition can help you master features you likely haven’t tried yet.
“The iPad,” notes veteran author Wallace Wang, “offers so many features that one person may focus on its ebook reading features, another may focus on its video and music playing capabilities, someone else might be interested in browsing the Internet, and still another might focus on the ability to type and edit text to create slide show presentations, spreadsheets, or business reports.”
His 289-page book covers “the original iPad, iPad 2, and new iPad.” It is divided into 32 “short chapters that act like recipes in a cookbook. Each chapter explains how to accomplish a specific task and then lists all the steps you need to follow,” Wang says.
The 32 chapters are grouped into six parts:
- Part 1: Basic Training
- Part 2: Making the Most of Your iPad
- Part 3: Getting on the Internet
- Part 4: Video, Music, Photos, and Ebooks
- Part 5: Organizing Yourself
- Part 6: Additional Tips
My New iPad, 3rd Edition covers everything from turning on an iPad to putting it into airplane mode, setting up email, typing with voice dictation, creating a slide show, changing the appearance of a map, defining a foreign-language virtual keyboard, dealing with a frozen app, and using the tracking feature to find a lost or stolen iPad.
Before learning the touch gestures that control an iPad’s screen, Wang recommends first getting comfortable with “[t]he two most commonly used buttons…the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button.”
He notes: “Since you’ll be using the Home button often, take the time to practice returning to the Home screen by pressing the Home button once. If you press the Home button twice in rapid succession, you can lock the screen rotation, adjust the volume, or switch to another app.”
Wang adds: “Locking the screen rotation can be handy if you like curling up in a chair or sofa with your iPad. Without locking your screen, the image might flip back and forth between portrait and landscape mode.”
Switching between apps via the Home button can be handy, because you can leave one app, such as a game, in its current state while you make a quick check of email.
And double-clicking the Home button also gives access to the touch-screen’s up-down slider for the volume control–after you’ve first swipe your app icons to the right.
These are just a few basic samples of the many how-to tips in this book. Wang also offers numerous tips and “additional ideas” for getting the most out of your iPad and its powerful range of capabilities.
— Si Dunn
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