Seeing your appointments in the Calendar app

 Learn about different views, searching for events, and more...

 WITHOUT QUESTION, THE CALENDAR APP IS ONE

 of the biggest iPad app wins. The interface is clearly based on a real-world desktop calendar, and the result feels entirely natural and right rather than cliched or tacky. The app has a surprisingly tactile feel, given that you interact with it by prodding and swiping at a piece of glass. It's one ofthe iPad's features that you really could use in isolation, without the help of a desktop computer.

 Of course, it helps that the Calendar app is pretty capable. It doesn't quite offer the range of options found in the likes of iCal for Mac OSX, but it comes close. You get a bunch of different views (explored in full overleaf), enabling you to viewyour upcoming events in a number ofways. There's built-in search for quickly finding events that you can't see in the current view. And, as you'd expect, you can edit and create events directly on your iPad, rather than having to do so in your desktop application prior to a sync. How to work with events is detailed in the next tutorial.

You may also find the Calendar app highly beneficial even when you're office-bound. Putyour iPad in a dock, perhaps set next to your computer, and turn off the auto-lock feature (via the 'Auto-Lock' menu within the 'General' section ofthe Settings app). This gives you a fantastic interactive calendar that also happens to look great. It certainly beats scribbling on a piece of paperwith a marker pen.



KIT LIST:

■ iPad

■ A busy shedule in your Calendar

Time required : 10 mins
Difficulty : Beginner

 Multiple views

Using the buttons at the top of the Calendar app's interface, you can change to a day, week, month or list view.

Multiple calendars

The Calendar app supports multiple calendars, but you can also toggle which ones are displayed at any time.

Date navigation

The bar at the bottom of the screen provides quick access to other days, weeks or months (depending on the selected view).

 1 Day view In day view, the screen is split between a scrollable list of events and a day planner. Tap an event in either half of the screen to access the 'Edit Event' pop-up.

2 Navigate days Drag your finger along the date bar to select a different date. Lift your finger off the screen to confirm your choice. You can also tap the arrows to move day by day.

 3 Week and month views The week and month views show events for a selected week or month. In either case, tap an event for a summary.

 4 List view Tap the 'List' button to see, on the left, a column listing all upcoming events, grouped by day.

 5 Toggle calendars Tap the 'Calendars' button to view the calendars you added during your most recent iTunes sync. Tap to toggle each on and off, or tap 'All' to turn all calendars on or off.

6 Snap to today If you've been adding and viewing events for upcoming days, weeks or months, you needn't manually navigate back to the current day's events -just tap the 'Today' button.

 Today's date?

Although the iPad lock screen shows the current date below the time, the date isn't shown when you navigate your home screens - only the time appears, at the top ofthe screen. However, the Calendar app's icon shows the current day and date. Put it in your dock and you'll be able to see the date at all times.

 7 Search for events Use the search field to access a dynamically filtered list of events, grouped by day.

8 On the road? In the Settings app, hit 'Mail, Contacts, Calendars'. Turn off Time Zone Support and the time will be set according to your location.