UNBOXING YOUR IPAD

 You've waited in fine and picked your coiour, and you've got a brand new iPad in your hot little hands.,. so what now? Don't stress. We'll have you using your iPad like a pro within minutes.

 SETTING UP YOUR NEW IPAD After you've feverishly cracked open the box, before you can use your new iPad, youTl have to plug it into iTunes to set it up.

1 Download and install the latest version of iTunes fromwww.itunes.com/download.

2 Plug in your iPad via a USB 2.0 port on either your Mac or PC with the white cable that came with the IPad.

3 iTunes will prompt you to register your iPad and sync it with music, video and other content from your iTunes library, and with your contacts, calendars and bookmarks on your computer.

 
In the Set Up Your iPad screen, select 'Automatically sync contacts, calendars and bookmarks1 to have those items sync automatically when you connect iPad to your computer, or choose 'Sync Manually' to do it yourself.

SYNCING WITH ITUNES In order to get your music, videos, downloaded apps and other iTunes library content from your computer onto your iPad, you'll need to sync using iTunes. YouTl also be able to sync your contacts, calendars and browser bookmarks. By default, iTunes syncs automatically whenever you connect your iPad to your computer, but you can choose what content you'd like to sync and when. When you sync, you can also transfer the stuff you've purchased, or created yourself, from your iPad to your computer

  SLEEP/WAKE BUTTON Whenever you're not using your iPad, you can put it to sleep by locking it. When it's locked nothing will happen if you touch the screen, but any music you're playing in the iPod app will continue to play, and the volume buttons will stili work fine. Also, you don't have to lock the iPad yourself: if you don't touch the screen for a minute or two, the iPad locks automatically.

HOME SCREEN

Pressing the Home button at any time will whisk you to the Home screen, which contains your iPad apps.

USING APPS

Open an app by touching its icon. You can also switch between apps, rearrange them and organise similar apps into folders.

To open an app, tap its icon on the Home screen. Multitasking allows certain apps to  run in the background, so you can quickly switch between the apps you're using. To see the apps you've used most recently, doubleclick the Home button.

The most recently used apps appear in the list at the bottom of the screen. Flick left to see more.

 Remove an app from the recents list: Touch and hold the app icon until it begins to jiggle, then tap the little 'X' in the comer of the icon. The app will be added to the recents list again the next time you use it.

To delete an app from the Home screen, touch and hold the icon until it jiggles and an 'X' appears in the top left hand corner of the icon. Tap it to delete the app. But, if you're happily erasing apps, do be aware that deleting an app from iPad also deletes the documents and data created by that app,

SCROLLING

Drag up or down to scroll. You can also scroll sideways in Safari, Photos and Maps.

If you swipe the screen quickly, you'll scroll up and down more rapidly.

 get to the top of a list, web page or email message quickly, just touch the status bar at the top of the screen.

VIEWING IN PORTRAIT OR LANDSCAPE

You can choose whether you'd like to view iPad apps in either portrait or landscape orientation. Choosing is ridiculously easy: just turn the iPad, and the screen rotates too, adjusting automatically to fit the new orientation.

If you like a little more screen real estate, you might like to use the landscape orientation for viewing web pages in Safari, or when you're typing. Content will automatically scale to the wider screen by making the text and images larger. This is particularly useful when you're entering text, as the onscreen keyboard also gets bigger, which definitely increases your typing speed and accuracy.

You can also keep the iPad in one orientation even if you're rotating it by locking the screen orientation. To lock the screen in portrait or landscape orientation, simply double-click the Home button to view the Multitasking status bar, then flick from left to right. Tap to lock the screen orientation.

You can also use the side switch to lock the screen orientation instead of silencing sound effects and notifications. Go to Settings > General

ADJUSTING BRIGHTNESS To make the screen brighter or dimmer, open up the multi-tasking bar by double-clicking the Home button. Flick from left to right, then drag the brightness slider. If you want the iPad to select the appropriate brightness itself, go to Settings, choose Brightness & Wallpaper, then turn Auto-Brightness on or off.

 ZOOMING IN OR OUT When viewing photos, webpages, email or maps, you can zoom in and out. Pinch your fingers together or apart. For photos and web pages, you can double-tap (tap twice quickly) to zoom in, then double-tap again to zoom out. For maps, double-tap to zoom in and tap once with two fingers to zoom out.

 ONSCREEN KEYBOARD Anytime you need to write, the onscreen keyboard will pop up automatically. Use the keyboard to enter text. It also has an active auto-prompt function that automatically corrects misspellings, predicts what you're typing and learns as you use it.

 EDITING—CUT, COPY AND PASTE If you want to make changes to text you've already entered, simply tap on the screen to bring up a magnifying glass. This helps you position the insertion point precisely where you need it. Grab-points on selected text let you quickly select more or less text. You can also cut, copy and paste text and photos within apps, or across multiple apps.

First, position the insertion point. Touch and hold to bring up the magnifying glass, then drag to position the insertion point.

In order to select text, tap the insertion point to display the selection buttons. Tap Select to select the adjacent word, or tap Select All to select all text. You can also double-tap a word to select it. In read-only documents such as web pages, touch and hold a word to select it. Drag the grab points to select more or less text.

If you want to cut or copy text, select text, then tap Cut or Copy.

CHECK YOUR SPELLING If you misspell a word, the iPad will underline it with a red squiggly line. Tap and hold an underlined word, and, to the right of the Copy and Paste options, you'll see a Replace button. Tap this button, and the iPad will give you suggestions for alternative, properly spelled words you may have meant to type instead. Tap the word you want, and it will automatically replace your typo. If none of the words is what you were going for, tap your word and try typing it again. If you don't care to see your writing covered in squiggly red lines, you can easily deactivate this spelling checker by making a trip to Settings > General > Keyboards.

PRINT FROM APPS Some apps support Apple's AirPrint standard, which allows you to send documents, photos and email messages over Wi-Fi to any compatible printer. To use AirPrint, your iPad must be connected to a wireless network. On the printer side, your printer must be AirPrint-compatiabie - of which only few are at this time.

Once you've submitted a job, you can use the built-in Print Center app to view or cancel pending print jobs and even receive a notice when a printer is running low on ink. When in the middle of a job, the Print Center icon will appear in the iPad's Multitasking shelf. Tap it, and you'll bring up the Print Order pop-up menu showing the print jobs in your queue. Tap a print job to get a full summary, including the photo title, the printer it was sent to, number of copies, print time and status. If you no longer want to print your image or document, you can cancel it from Print Center by tapping Cancel Printing.

 JOINING A WI FI NETWORK To use your local wireless network, you need to activate Wi-Fi. Go to Settings and select Wi-Fi. Choose Settings > Wi-Fi and turn Wi-Fi on. Wait for a moment a moment as the device figures out which networks are within range, then select a network. If you need to, enter a password and tap Join (networks that require a password appear with a lock icon). Once you Join a Wi-Fi network, the iPad automatically connects to it whenever it's available. When the iPad has a Wi-Fi connection, the Wi-Fi icon in the status bar shows the connection strength. The more bars you see, the stronger the connection.

MICRO SIM CARD TRAY Available only on the Wi-Fi + 3G iPad model, the micro-SlM card tray along the back left edge of the tablet is where your SIM card is stored. With one of these cards and a data plan, you can get 3G data service on your iPad. To eject a micro-SlM card, insert the end of a paper clip into the small hole adjacent to the tray and push.

ORGANIZING WITH FOLDERS If your iPad is getting a bit crowded, your iPad lets you organise your apps into folders. Each folder can hold up to 20  icons. When you're creating a folder, the iPad will automatically give it a name based on the icons within it, but you can change the name. Rearrange folders by dragging them on the Home screen or by moving them to a new Home screen or to the Dock.

To create a folder, simply touch and hold an icon until the Home screen icons begin to jiggle, then drag the icon onto another icon. You can then tap the name field to enter a different name.

You can also do this using iTunes.

 SEARCHING

If you want to find something on your iPad, you can search its built-in apps, including Mail, Calendar, iPod, Video, Notes and Contacts, using Spotlight.

Go to Spotlight: On the main page of the Home screen, flick right or press the Home button. On the Spotlight page, you can press the Home button to return to the main Home screen.

Search iPad: On the Spotlight page, enter text in the Search field. Search results appear automatically as you type. Tap Search to dismiss the keyboard and see more of the results.

Tap an item in the results list to open it.

 Icons to the left of the search results let you know which app the results are from.

 PASSCODES AND DATA PROTECTION To keep your iPad safe, you might want to block access from strangers. You can set up a passcode that you must enter each time you turn on or wake up iPad.

Set a passcode: Choose Settings > General > Passcode Lock > Turn Passcode On.

Enter a 4-digit passcode, then enter it again to verify it. From now on, the iPad will ask you to enter the key to unlock it, or to display the passcode lock settings.

Setting a passcode turns on data protection, which uses the passcode as the key for encrypting mail messages and attachments stored on the iPad. (Data protection may also be used by some apps available in the App Store.) A notice at the bottom of the Passcode Lock screen in Settings shows that data protection is enabled.

To increase security, turn off Simple Passcode (a four-digit number) and use a more robust passcode that has a combination of numbers, letters, punctuation and special characters.