15. The World of Apps
To go beyond the basic functionality of your iPad, you need to learn how to add more apps using the App Store.
• Viewing Currently Running Apps
• Using iPhone/iPod touch Apps
Apps that come with your iPad and the iWork suite are just the tip of the iceberg. The App Store contains thousands of apps from third-party developers, with more added each day.
You use the App Store app to shop for and purchase new apps—although many are free. You can also rearrange the app icons on your Home screen pages to organize them.
Purchasing an App
Adding a new app to your iPad requires that you visit the App Store. You do that, not surprisingly, with the App Store app on your Home screen.
1. Tap the App Store icon on your Home screen.
2. You see the featured apps at the top of the screen.
3. Swipe left or right in the New and Noteworthy section to view more featured apps. You can do the same for the sections below, which often change to feature different types of apps.
4. Scroll down to see more featured apps.
5. Tap Top Charts to see the top paid apps and top free apps.
6. Tap More to see a list of app categories.
7. Tap any category to go to the page of featured apps in that category.
8. Use the search box to search for an app by keyword.
9. The switch at the top lets you filter between iPad apps and iPhone apps. Apps that are optimized to work well with both screen sizes will appear in both.
10. Select whether you want to see apps that are free, paid, or both.
11. Select a category to narrow down the search results.
12. Choose how you want the results to be ordered: relevance, popularity, ratings, or release date.
13. Tap an app to read more about it.
If you go to the bottom of any listings page in the App Store, you will see a button marked Redeem. Use this to enter any redemption code you get for a free app. You may get a code because someone sends you an app as a gift. Developers also send out a handful of these codes when they release a new app or app version.
Automatically Download New Apps
If you go to the Settings app, look for the iTunes & App Store category. There you can turn on automatic downloads for apps, as well as music and books. Once you turn this on, purchasing an app on your Mac or PC in iTunes, or on another iOS device with the same Apple ID, will automatically send this app to your iPad as well.
14. The app’s page displays screenshots, other apps by the same company, and user reviews.
15. Tap on the price on the left under the large icon to purchase an app. It changes to a Buy App button. Tap it again. If you have already purchased the app, the button will simply say “Open” and you can launch the app by tapping the button.
16. Scroll down to read the description of the app.
17. Tap here to look at ratings and reviews for the app.
18. Scroll left and right to flip through the screenshots for the app.
19. When you purchase an app, it starts installing, and you can watch the progress from the app’s information page in the App Store app or from the location of the app’s icon on your Home screen.
Redownloading an App You Already Purchased
Once you buy an app, you own it forever—at least as long as you keep using the same Apple ID. At the bottom of the App Store app, you see a button marked “Purchased.” Tap that to see a list of all apps you have bought, even if you have removed them from this iPad, or maybe never even downloaded them in the first place. Perhaps you previously bought an app on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You can quickly jump to any of these apps and download them to your iPad without paying for it a second time.
Arranging Apps on Your iPad
It doesn’t take long to have several pages of apps. Fortunately, you can rearrange your app icons in two ways. The first is to do it on the iPad.
1. Tap and hold an icon until all the icons start to jiggle.
2. The icon you are holding is a little larger than the others. Drag it and drop it in a new location. To carry the icon to the next page of apps, drag it to the right side of the screen.
3. Delete an app from your iPad by tapping the X at the upper left of the icon. Note that the X does not appear over all apps, as the default set of apps that come with your iPad cannot be removed.
If you sync your iPad to iTunes on a computer, you do not delete apps forever. All apps remain in your iTunes library on your computer unless you remove them. So, you can get rid of the app from your iPad and find it is still on your computer if you want to select it to sync back to your iPad. Additionally, you can always redownload an app from the app store that you purchased previously, without paying again. If you don’t think you’ll need an app for a while, you can delete it and then add it back again later.
4. When finished, press the Home button.
You can also arrange your apps when you sync with iTunes on your Mac or PC. Simply select the iPad in the left sidebar of your iTunes window, and then select Apps on the right. You can move apps between screens and also decide which apps get synced between your computer and your iPad.
Creating App Folders
In addition to spreading your apps across multiple pages, you can also group them together in folders so that several apps take up only one icon position on a screen.
1. Identify several apps that you want to group together. Tap and hold one of those apps until the icons start to jiggle.
2. Continue to hold your finger down, and drag the icon to another one you wish to group it with.
3. An app folder appears, and all other app icons should fade so you can focus on your new app folder.
4. Change the name of the app folder.
5. Press the Home button once to dismiss the name editor, and again to return to your home screen.
6. You now see the app folder on your home screen. You can drag other apps to this folder using steps 1 and 2.
After you have created an app folder, you can access the apps in it by first tapping on the folder and then tapping the app you want to launch. Tapping and holding any app in the folder gives you the opportunity to rename the folder, rearrange the icons in the folder, or drag an app out of the folder.
Viewing Currently Running Apps
You can have many apps running at once on your iPad. In fact, after you launch an app, it will remain running by default even if you switch back to the home screen and run another app. Apps running in the background use little or no resources. You can think of them as paused apps. You can switch back to them at any time, and most apps will resume right where you left off.
1. Double-press the Home button. This brings up the list of recent apps at the bottom of the screen.
2. You can flick back and forth to view apps further down the list.
3. Tap an app to return to it.
4. Press the Home button to simply exit the list.
5. If you flick to the right, until you get all the way to the left end of the recent apps list, you will get to controls for the audio app you are currently using, such as the Music app.
Moving from App to App with a Gesture
If you have several apps running, you can quickly move between them by using four-finger gestures. Just swipe left or right with four fingers at the same time. This will move you from app to app without needing to go back to the Home screen, or use the list of recent apps.
Quitting Apps
Although it is rarely necessary to completely quit an app, you can do it in one of two ways. This will force the app to shut down if it has frozen, or if you simply want to start the app fresh to see an introduction sequence or work around problems the app may be having.
1. Press the home button once to leave the app and return to the Home Screen.
2. Double-press the button to bring up the list of recent apps at the bottom of the screen.
3. Tap and hold any of the app icons in the list until they all start to jiggle and the red circle minus button appears in the upper-left corner of each.
4. Swipe left or right to locate the app you want to quit.
5. Tap the red circle minus button above the app that you want to quit.
A second method works when the app is the one currently on the screen.
1. Press and hold the wake/sleep button on the top of your iPad for about 3 seconds. You will see the “Slide to power off” control appear.
2. Don’t use the “Slide to power off” control or press the Cancel button. Instead, hold the Home button down for several seconds. This will quit the app and return you to your Home Screen.
Finding Good Apps
Finding good apps might be the biggest problem that iPad users have. With more than 140,000 apps in the App Store, it can be hard to find what you want, so here are some tips.
1. Check out the featured apps in the App Store, but be wary because they tend to be heavy on apps by large companies with well-established brands.
2. In iTunes on your computer, find an app close to what you want and then check out the Related section.
3. Look for trial versions, which often have names with “Lite” or “Free” at the end. Search for the name of the app and see if other versions turn up. Use free versions of apps to determine if it is worth paying for the full or enhanced version.
4. Tap on Ratings and Reviews.
5. Read reviews, but don’t trust them completely. Casual users are not always the best at providing balanced reviews.
Using iPhone/iPod touch Apps
One of the great things about using apps on the iPad is that you can use almost every app in Apple’s App Store—including those originally made for the iPhone and iPod touch.
Four types of apps are in the store from an iPad-owner’s perspective. A few are iPhone/iPod touch only. Avoid those, naturally. The majority are iPhone/iPod touch apps that also work on the iPad. These apps appear in the middle of the screen or scale to double the size. Some might work better than others on the iPad. You can also find apps that work only on the iPad. If you select iPad Apps from the switch at the top of a search results screen, you will see apps that are either for the iPad only, or are for both the iPhone and iPad but have been designed to use the iPad’s full screen size. Otherwise, if you pick iPhone apps, you will see apps that work for both, as well as apps that work only at the iPhone screen size.
For the apps that only work at the iPhone’s screen size, you can scale them up so they are easier to work with on the iPad. In some cases, made-for-iPhone apps actually work better on the iPad because it is easier to see the graphics and touch the buttons.
1. To enlarge the app, tap the 2x button at the lower-right corner.
2. If the app looks blurry when it’s enlarged, tap the 1x button to return to normal size.
Getting Help with Apps
Apps are developed rapidly by both large and small companies. And apps are difficult to test because of Apple’s restrictions on app distribution. So it is common to find bugs, have problems, or simply need to ask a question.
1. Check in the app to see if you can contact the developer. For example, in the USA Today app, an i button brings up a window for providing feedback.
2. Tap Email Support button (or a similar button in another app) to email the developer right from the app.
3. If you don’t find a way to contact support in the app, launch the App Store app and search for the app there.
4. Select the app to view its information.
5. Go to the Ratings and Reviews section.
6. Tap the App Support button.
When you buy an app, it can be put on any iPad (or iPhone/iPod touch if it works there, too) registered to your iTunes account. So if you share an iTunes account with your entire family, you can share your apps as well. No need to buy them again for a second iPad.
In iTunes on your Mac or PC, click the Store, Authorize This Computer menu item to authorize that copy of iTunes with more than one account. Then you can download apps to iTunes purchased from any of those accounts. In addition, the Home Sharing feature of iTunes lets you grab apps from one computer to another on the same network so that they can be loaded into iTunes and then synced to different iOS devices.