Introducing Safari for iPad - the ultimate web browser

 AS WITH APPLE'S COMPUTERS AND iPHONES,

Safari is the default web browser for the iPad - and on this platform it offers the best of both worlds. From the iPhone version, you get a gestural touch-based interface, with flick-scrolling, pinch-zooming and links that you activate by tapping them. With the large iPad screen, this gives you a truly effortless web-browsing experience that is also highly intuitive.

Another aspect of Safari for iPhone that benefits from extra screen space is the pages feature. Pages are similar to a desktop browser's tabs, enabling you to browse multiple sites simultaneously or send a link to a new page to read later.

However, Safari for iPad also borrows some ideas from its desktop cousin, notably a toolbar which sits permanently at the top of the screen, unlike on the iPhone where the toolbarsits at the bottom, with the address and search fields moving out ofsight when you scroll a page.

The toolbar also houses the web page's title, which therefore remains onscreen at all times (unless you're viewing specific media content in full-screen, such as a video).

Here we showyou how to get started with Safari, working with gestures, pages and web video. Once you start interacting directly with web content on the iPad's gorgeous screen, you'll be hooked. In fact, you may well find the combination ofyour computer's browser and a mouse starts to feel rather archaic by comparison.



 KIT LIST:

■ iPad

■ Internet connection

Time required : 10 mins
Difficulty : Beginner

 Search the web

The familiar search field occupies its customary spot in the top right of the toolbar-as it does on the iPhone and desktop versions of Safari.

Safari's toolbar

The toolbar buttons in Safari enable you to go back and forward, access the pages screen, go to your bookmarks, and bookmark a web page.

Standard websites

Unlike Safari for iPhone, the iPad version defaults to the standard version of a web page, not the mobile version, so you get a fuller experience.

1 Open a web page... If you know the site you'd like to visit, tap the address field. When the keyboard appears, type the website's address and tap 'Go' to confirm, or select a site from your history.

2 ... Or Search the web To search the web instead, tap the 'Google' field, type a search term, and tap 'Search'. Note: you can switch the search engine to Yahoo in the Safari section of the Settings app.

 3 Navigate a page Drag to scroll; scroll bars appear briefly to show how much of a page you're viewing. Flick to scroll quickly in any direction.

 4 Zoom page content Simply use spread and pinch gestures, or double-tap to zoom to a text column; a second double-tap reverts to full-screen.

   5 Use pages Tap the pages icon in the toolbar, then tap a 'New Page' slot to open a new page. You can have up to nine pages open at once.

  6 Handle links and images Tap hold a link for more options. Tap-hold an online image and tap 'Save Image' to use it in the Photos app.

 A good turn

Like Safari for iPhone, the iPad version works well in both portrait and landscape orientations. If you find yourself regularly zooming in and out on a certain website, try rotating your iPad to landscape mode -the page will resize accordingly, and the text will be bigger. Although you will then see less of the web page overall, the effortless scroll-based navigation of Safari for iPad means this is rarely, if ever, a problem.

7 Play video To start playing a video, tap the play icon at its centre and it will play inline. To access controls for play/pause and scrubbing through the clip, tap the video. Controls fade after a few seconds.

8 Go full-Screen Tap the icon at the bottom right of a video and it will fill your display. Tap the video again to access controls. Tap 'Done' to return to the video's parent web page.