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Old 04-27-2011, 09:37 AM   #1
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Five Tips to Make Your iPad Even Better

You've purchased an iPad and you're either thinking "This is the greatest little device I've bought in some time" or maybe, "I can't really figure out what all the fuss is about, could there be more to it than what I'm doing?"

I'm going to give five little tips to turn your iPad from a great device into a really, really great device! And you won't have to spend much money… if at all.

5 Tips

(1) Implement 'developer privilege'. I'm not going to tell you how to do it, you'll have to search somewhere else, but once you've added this, you will now have Apple's 'hidden' feature which makes the iPad so much easier to use! You won't believe how easy it is to maneuver by using finger gestures… close your hand on the screen to instantly go back to home; use fingertips to navigate forward or backward between apps; and four finger 'up' to instantly go to all your recently used apps. No more touching the hardware button or going through several steps to get where you need to go.

(2) Add cloud storage and get all kinds of additional storage. Cloud storage is so practical, simple and easy when you have an app. I've used Dropbox for some time… way before I ever got an iPad, and it's a great basic well-thought out storage solution between devices. The app for SugarSync is so good that I'm using it more and more. With their app you can actually view images, listen to music files, and view others types of documents as well. Their iPad app gets an A+. I'm just now getting acquainted with Box.net and will soon know it's strengths and weaknesses. There are many others too… just look and find what you need. The icing on the cake is they all offer some free storage. Between the three I'm using, I have about 15gb of free storage.

(3) You won't believe how great Facebook looks until you add 'Flipboard'. For those of you who enjoy social media, you've never seen it look so good until you use it on an iPad. Honestly, Facebook is a pretty boring site (design wise) on a computer using a web browser, but when viewing it with one of several media apps, it blossoms and comes to life in a whole new way. The most impressive is Flipboard, an amazing app which allows you to view your Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, or other blog/news sites which you use. If you want to impress your friends on how the iPad does some things better than a computer, just show them Facebook as displayed on Flipboard's book interface. It honestly makes you want to look at people's trivial images and details!

(4) Who says you can't do flash or view a variety of movie formats? iSwitter is a web browser which can actually play many flash sites. Some play perfectly, others play with bugs, some not-at-all… it all depends. If you have a favorite flash-enabled web site, it's worth checking to see if iSwitter can handle it. Also, for non-quicktime video formats both YXplayer and OPlayerHD do a good job of handling several of them. I've even opened media content within Safari and it instantly took me to one of these apps to open and flawlessly play the content. You can't beat that!

(5) Don't use your finger, get a capacitive brush. I'm not talking about one of the stylus pens which use a foam or rubber tip. What works even better are the brush pens (yes, they actually have brush bristles) offered by several companies from $3 to $30. The one I use is called the 'Pogo Sketch' and only cost $2.99 on ebay… shipping included! The soft brush bristles do a great job of emulating your fingers and for many screen activities it's much easier. (This also works great on my HPC Android phone with a capacitive screen.)

______________

Now you have five little additions which make your iPad even more of a powerhouse than what it was originally. Don't forget, the app market is literally filled with hundreds of thousands of apps… many of which are useful and incredible gems. You just have to do a little exploring and see what's out there. Another thing which makes the iPad so good is you get to use Apple apps! I have their iMovie, Garageband, and Pages on my iPad and those three apps alone are worth the entire investment for the iPad. If they're your cup of tea, they give you an experience which can't be found anywhere else.

______________

Also, if you've found some work-arounds, apps, or other add-ons which you've found helpful, feel free to share here. Additionally, I will add to this thread as I come across other improvements in the app market and hardware additions.

Last edited by pphilipp; 04-27-2011 at 10:55 AM.
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Old 04-27-2011, 10:14 AM   #2
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Great post! And speaking of "Pages," I use the desktop version on my iMac to create epubs for my iPad. Set your styles, giving your chapter headings a "chapter name" style and export your doc as an epub. Then drop it as a book in iTunes. You'll have a nice TOC based on your "chapter name" styles.

Apple even has a "best practices" template available. For more info search the desktop version of Pages "help" for "epub." Also see Pages under the Macintosh section in the forum wiki HERE

Last edited by 1611mac; 04-27-2011 at 10:17 AM.
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Old 04-27-2011, 10:33 AM   #3
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Great post! And speaking of "Pages," I use the desktop version on my iMac to create epubs for my iPad. Set your styles, giving your chapter headings a "chapter name" style and export your doc as an epub. Then drop it as a book in iTunes. You'll have a nice TOC based on your "chapter name" styles.

Apple even has a "best practices" template available. For more info search the desktop version of Pages "help" for "epub." Also see Pages under the Macintosh section in the forum wiki HERE
Thanks for the tips... I use a Mac at work and I'll check into adding the desktop version.

Last edited by pphilipp; 04-28-2011 at 03:14 PM.
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Old 04-27-2011, 05:26 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by 1611mac View Post
Great post! And speaking of "Pages," I use the desktop version on my iMac to create epubs for my iPad. Set your styles, giving your chapter headings a "chapter name" style and export your doc as an epub. Then drop it as a book in iTunes. You'll have a nice TOC based on your "chapter name" styles.

Apple even has a "best practices" template available. For more info search the desktop version of Pages "help" for "epub." Also see Pages under the Macintosh section in the forum wiki HERE
What would be awesome would be if the iPad Pages app could open/save ePubs from iBooks directly for editing...with instant feedback by switching back and forth between the two.
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Old 04-28-2011, 03:39 AM   #5
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Can someone suggest an HTML editor with FTP? Not for heavy development, but it would be nice to have for some light editing.
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Old 04-28-2011, 04:07 AM   #6
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For 1). you don't need to be developer or xcode or whatever to enable it. Just follow this tutorial http://www.icopybot.com/blog/enable-...ilbreaking.htm
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Old 04-29-2011, 08:09 AM   #7
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If Facebook is your thing, the app market offers quite a few for the iPad. Several are top notch, and a few have no equivalent on a PC. I use three extensively, each with it's on strength or niche. I already mentioned Flipboard in my first post so I won't rehash it's strengths again.

If you are wanting an experience that closely matches that from a computer browser, my favorite, and probably the best of the bunch is 'Friendly'. For the most part this one won't make you learn a whole new interface. I do feel it's a little better thought-out than Facebook's website is (you can tell I'm no fan of their interface). They offer a free version, but hey... go ahead and spend the .99 and get the fully loaded version, it pays off in the long haul.

The third one I use a lot is 'Photofeed'. As it's name suggests, this app is for photos. You don't use it to read wall posts, messages or anything else. All you do with it is view images, but it makes viewing Facebook images so simple and easy it's the best way to go if image-viewing is what you have in mind. I personally never look at the images from the majority of people in my friends list. Why should I? There's very little in Facebook's interface to make you want to (again, I'm referring to their official website version). But with Photofeed, you actually want to look at people's images... even those folks you barely know!! You don't have all the clutter to get in the way of navigating around photo albums and the speed at which images pop-up full screen takes away the drudgery. The app also offers an option where it searches and displays images for you to view (it's choice). I don't normally use this option unless some dramatic image pops-up that demands my attention. I have been known to view entire photo albums because an image of interest was suggested by the app.

I can say beyond a doubt that these apps (or others) make the iPad the perfect device for any Facebook fanatic.

Last edited by pphilipp; 04-29-2011 at 09:25 AM.
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Old 04-30-2011, 11:28 PM   #8
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I absolutely LOVE being able to annotate PDF files and bought an annotation program called Noterize before I stumbled upon the totally free neu.Annotate. I downloaded a manuscript from public files and am highlighting and taking notes galore with my stylus. It's awesome. I go back & forth between the two apps. I also bought an app called Save2PDF which allows you to save downloaded web content as a PDF. I save content that is helpful as resources too. So for anyone studying information-great tools!
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Old 04-30-2011, 11:31 PM   #9
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I absolutely LOVE being able to annotate PDF files and bought an annotation program called Noterize before I stumbled upon the totally free neu.Annotate. I downloaded a manuscript from public files and am highlighting and taking notes galore with my stylus. It's awesome. I go back & forth between the two apps. I also bought an app called Save2PDF which allows you to save downloaded web content as a PDF. I save content that is helpful as resources too. So for anyone studying information-great tools!
Checkout GoodReader

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Old 05-01-2011, 06:44 AM   #10
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Screen Protectors...
One of the many unpublicized aspects which set the iPad high above the competition is the glass which is used over the display. The high quality of the glass might not be that apparent until you use a tablet from other manufacturers. Now you will see how durable and thick the glass is compared to thinner glass and even plastic on quite a few competing devices!

A good rule of thumb when using a tablet with lesser screen quality is: definitely use a screen protector! But, with the iPad, a screen protector is not near as important (some could argue it's not needed at all). My take on the situation is, if you are the only person using it, and you are careful and use it the way it should be, then there's no real need to cover the screen with a protector. But if you have children or other users, then it just might be a little added insurance to use a protector. If you have a salesperson strongly pushing a protector (especially high cost ones), feel free to turn this down. It's not a life-or-death mandatory situation.

((I've added this post since I've used touch devices for so many years and have experienced all types of screens and screen needs. Most of the time I've used some type of protection, but most devices did not utilize the same quality of glass as the iPad does.))
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Old 05-01-2011, 09:09 AM   #11
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Checkout GoodReader
I have GoodReader! So many things to mention. Funny, but I don't like annotating on it! It was the first annotation one I tried too! I just find I don't like it an an annotation tool. Just one of those personal preference issues. But I think it is a dandy PDF reader. Thanks for the tip though! For PDFs, I am not locked to any one reader and I go back and forth between several.
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Old 05-01-2011, 09:05 PM   #12
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Screen Protectors...
One of the many unpublicized aspects which set the iPad high above the competition is the glass which is used over the display. The high quality of the glass might not be that apparent until you use a tablet from other manufacturers. Now you will see how durable and thick the glass is compared to thinner glass and even plastic on quite a few competing devices!
Good point and the iPad 2 display is even better in this regard than the iPad 1 was. Defiantly leaps and bounds better.

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Old 05-02-2011, 02:20 AM   #13
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Good point and the iPad 2 display is even better in this regard than the iPad 1 was. Defiantly leaps and bounds better.

Dale
I'm curious about what makes the iPad 2 glass cover leaps and bounds better than iPad 1. I haven't noticed any difference between them (or between the glass covers for iPod Touch and iPhone for that matter). They are all great, but leaps and bounds...?
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Old 05-02-2011, 03:29 AM   #14
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Screen Protectors...
One of the many unpublicized aspects which set the iPad high above the competition is the glass which is used over the display. The high quality of the glass might not be that apparent until you use a tablet from other manufacturers. Now you will see how durable and thick the glass is compared to thinner glass and even plastic on quite a few competing devices!

A good rule of thumb when using a tablet with lesser screen quality is: definitely use a screen protector! But, with the iPad, a screen protector is not near as important (some could argue it's not needed at all). ...
I do use a screen protector, but mainly for antiglare. PowerSupport makes a great one that's easy to put on and doesn't have moire issues like some antiglare protectors.



Quote:
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I have GoodReader! So many things to mention. Funny, but I don't like annotating on it! It was the first annotation one I tried too! I just find I don't like it an an annotation tool. Just one of those personal preference issues. But I think it is a dandy PDF reader. Thanks for the tip though! For PDFs, I am not locked to any one reader and I go back and forth between several.
I love GoodReader but I know I haven't explored all that it can do. How do you annotate using it?
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Old 05-02-2011, 10:33 AM   #15
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I'm curious about what makes the iPad 2 glass cover leaps and bounds better than iPad 1. I haven't noticed any difference between them (or between the glass covers for iPod Touch and iPhone for that matter). They are all great, but leaps and bounds...?
Well, perhaps only leaps. The new screen is much more rugged and thinner. It will flex a bit without breaking. On a screen this size I am very concerned about the screen breaking. There is a crying need for stronger screens for portable devices and I am encouraged by Apple's work on this. I haven't seen both screens side by side but I have heard the new screen is less reflective with a mat surface.

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