[pphilipp]

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.)

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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.

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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.