If you're already familiar with using an iPhone or iPod touch, you practically already know how to use the iPad's user interface. However, if you're new to any Apple products that use a Multi-Touch interface, you'll still find that the iPad is easy to learn.
The Multi-Touch screen is how you'll interact with your iPad. By tapping, pinching, or sliding your finger across the screen, you can select items, manipulate objects, or scroll across the screen. Nearly every app uses one or more touch gestures, so it's important to learn how to use them all.
In this chapter you'll learn how to control your iPad using touch gestures on the Multi-Touch screen.
The Multi-Touch screen functions as both a display and a user interface that you can control with your fingertip. These are the three main touch commands:
Note
The Multi-Touch screen lets you tilt the iPad vertically (portrait mode) or horizontally (landscape mode) to make it easy to view data. No matter how you tilt your iPad, the Tap, Drag, Pinch, and Double-Tap touch commands work the same.
The simplest command is Select, which lets you touch an item that you want to select. To use the Select command, point at an icon or button, press it lightly, and then lift your finger off the screen. When done correctly, the Select command involves nothing more than a quick tap on the screen. This Select command is called tapping throughout the rest of this book.
Note
The Multi-Touch screen works only when it detects your fingertip touching the screen. If you tap the screen with your fingernail or while wearing gloves, the Multi-Touch screen won't recognize this physical contact.
To see how the Select command works, follow these steps:
Press the Home button. The Home screen appears, showing all the apps available on your iPad.
Tap any icon, such as the Calendar. Your chosen app appears on the screen.
Press the Home button. Notice that your iPad displays the Home screen once more.
Sometimes an app might need to display more information than can comfortably fit on the screen. When this happens, you can view multiple screens by choosing between two different scrolling commands: Controlled Scroll and Quick Scroll.
Controlled Scroll lets you scroll horizontally or vertically by sliding or dragging your finger across the screen. To practice the Controlled Scroll and Quick Scroll commands, try the following to acquaint you with the App Store, where you can buy and download new apps for your iPad:
From the Home screen, tap App Store.
Tap the Featured icon at the bottom of the screen. The App Store appears, as shown in Figure 4-1.
Near the bottom of the screen, slide your finger up and down the screen. Notice that the screen scrolls up and down as your finger slides up and down the screen. As soon as you lift your finger off the screen, it stops scrolling. This is a Controlled Scroll.
Near the bottom (or top) of the screen, slide your finger up or down quickly, and lift your finger off the screen in a quick flicking motion. Even after you lift your finger off the screen, the screen should continue scrolling in the direction you flicked your finger. This is a Quick Scroll.
Repeat the previous step, except before the screen can stop scrolling, tap your finger on the screen. This immediately stops the scrolling and is known as a Quick Scroll Stop.
Press the Home button. The Home screen appears.
Since the iPad's screen can't display multiple, overlapping windows like an ordinary computer screen, apps often display multiple windows as individual, side-by-side panes. One pane is always visible, but other panes are tucked out of sight to the left or right of the screen.
To let you know that a screen consists of multiple panes, two or more dots are displayed at the bottom of the screen—each dot represents a screen (see Figure 4-2). A bright dot represents the current screen, while dimmed dots represent hidden screens. To view these additional screens, you need to slide the current screen left or right with your finger.
The Home screen actually consists of multiple panes (up to a maximum of 11 panes). To practice scrolling horizontally to view other panes, follow these steps to get acquainted with the Home screen:
From the Home screen, slide your finger to the right across the screen. The Search screen appears, as shown in Figure 4-3.
Slide your finger to the left across the Search screen. The Home screen pane appears again.
The iPad's screen can display entire web pages. Of course, the images and text may appear too small to read comfortably, so the iPad gives you the option to zoom in and zoom out. To enlarge or shrink an image, you can use two fingers in a pinching motion. Touch the screen with your fingers spread out and bring them closer together to cause the iPad image to shrink. If you start with your fingers together and slide them apart, the iPad image enlarges. This gesture resembles a pinching motion with two fingers.
To practice zooming in and out, try the following steps to get acquainted with the Maps app:
From the Home screen, tap Maps. The Maps app appears, as shown in Figure 4-4.
Zoom in using the pinching gesture: Place two fingers close together and slide them apart while maintaining contact with the iPad screen. Notice that the map zooms in.
Zoom out using the pinching gesture: Place two fingers apart and slide them together while maintaining contact with the iPad screen. Notice that the map zooms out.
Zoom in by tapping one finger on the screen twice in rapid succession. Notice that the map zooms in.
Zoom out by tapping two fingers on the screen at the same time. Notice that the map zooms out.
Press the Home button. The Home screen appears.
Note
Not all apps allow you to zoom in and out. If you find yourself wanting to zoom in closer on the Home screen or within apps that don't allow it, you can enable the accessibility feature called Zoom. Read Chapter 29 for instructions on how to enable it.
The iPad also offers four/five finger gesture commands to help you switch between multiple apps that are running at the same time. The multitasking gestures include:
Four/five-finger pinch to return to the Home screen
Four/five-finger swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar
Four/five-finger swipe left/right to switch between apps
Multitasking gestures let you navigate quickly from one running app to another. To see how multitasking gestures work, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Maps. The Maps screen appears.
Pinch four/five fingers towards the center of the screen. The Home screen appears again even though the Maps app is still running in the background.
Tap Safari. The Safari screen appears.
Swipe four/five fingers up from the bottom of the screen. The multitasking bar appears at the bottom of the screen and displays all the currently running apps including the Maps app, as shown in Figure 4-5.
Swipe four/five fingers sideways to the left and right. The iPad switches you back and forth between all running apps, such as between Maps and Safari.
The iPad's multitasking gestures can be a time-saver, but if you find these four/five-finger gestures annoying, you can turn them off.
To turn multitasking gestures on or off, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap General. The General settings screen appears.
Tap the Multitasking Gestures on/off switch, as shown in Figure 4-6.
Press the Home button (or pinch four/five fingers).
Touch gestures represent the primary way to control your iPad, so be sure to practice using the tap, scroll, and pinch gestures until they become second nature. By mastering these three commands, you'll be able to get the most out of your iPad no matter which app you may be using at the time.
In a few apps, such as the Photos app, you can use a fourth touch gesture known as the Rotate command, which lets you rotate an image on the screen. Just place two spread fingers on the screen, and then rotate your two fingers in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction to rotate the image currently displayed on the screen.
Turn on multitasking gestures and you can use four/five fingers to pinch or swipe in order to switch between different apps, return to the Home screen, or view the multitasking bar to see all your currently running apps. Multitasking gestures give you one more way to control your iPad without relying on the Home button.
Try these common touch gestures on different apps, both the built-in ones that come with your iPad and any additional ones that you may have downloaded from the App Store. You'll quickly see how you can control almost any app with your fingers alone. Some applications also use the iPad's orientation as a control, and nearly all apps will change depending on how you hold your iPad: in portrait or landscape mode.