15. The World of Apps
In this chapter, you learn how to go beyond the basic functionality of your iPad by adding more apps using the App Store.
Monitoring and Managing Your Apps
Apps that come with your iPad and Apple’s office apps, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, are just the tip of the iceberg. The App Store contains hundreds of 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. If this is the first time you have used the App Store, you see the featured apps at the top of the screen. Otherwise, tap the Featured button at the bottom.
3. Swipe left or right to view more featured apps. You can do the same for the sections in the lower part of the screen, which often change to feature different types of apps.
4. Swipe up to scroll down and see more featured app categories.
5. Tap Top Charts to see the top paid apps and top free apps.
6. Tap Categories 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. Tap to filter between iPad apps and iPhone apps. Apps that are optimized to work well with both screen sizes appear in both categories.
10. Select whether you want to see apps that are free or both free and paid.
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 and see screenshots, other apps by the same company, and user reviews.
Redeem Codes
If you go to the bottom of the Featured page in the App Store, you 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. After you turn this on, purchasing an app on your Mac or PC in iTunes, or on another iOS device with the same Apple ID, automatically sends this app to your iPad as well.
14. Tap the price on the left to purchase an app. It changes to a Buy App button. Tap it again. If the app is free, the label is Get instead of a price. If the app is on your iPad, the button is labeled Open, and you can launch the app by tapping the button.
Purchased Apps
If you have purchased the app in the past, but don’t currently have it on your iPad, you will see a cloud/download button that lets you download the app again. You do not pay again for an app you have already purchased.
15. Swipe up to read the description of the app.
16. Tap Reviews to look at reviews for the app.
17. Scroll left and right to flip through the screenshots for the app.
18. Tap the Share button to send a link to the app to friends via email, Messages, and so on. You can also pay for and send a non-free app to a friend as a gift, or add a non-free app to your wish list to remember it for future consideration.
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 them a second time.
>>>Go Further: Free, Paid, and Freemium
Organizing 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 Home screen and allow apps to appear on multiple pages of the screen as each page fills up. In addition to spreading your apps across multiple pages, you can also group them in folders so that several apps take up only one icon position on a screen.
Arranging Apps on the Home Screen
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 a different page of apps, drag it to the 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 some of the default set of apps that come with your iPad cannot be removed, such as Contacts, Settings, and App Store.
4. When finished, press the Home button (not shown).
Deleting Is Not Forever
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. You can always redownload an app that you purchased previously from the App Store 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.
Creating App Folders
Grouping apps in a folder enables you to de-clutter your Home screen if you find you have too many apps competing for space on the screen.
1. Identify several apps that you want to group. Tap and hold one of those apps until the icons start to jiggle.
2. Continue to hold your finger down, and drag the icon over another icon you want to have in the group.
3. An app folder appears and enlarges to fill the center of the screen.
4. Change the name of the app folder by tapping on the default name and editing it with the virtual keyboard.
5. Press the Home button once to dismiss the name editor, and again to return to your Home screen (not shown).
6. The app folder is on your Home screen. You can drag other apps to this folder using steps 1 and 2.
Working with Folders
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.
Working with Apps
You can have many apps running at once on your iPad. In fact, after you launch an app, it remains running by default even if you switch back to the Home screen and run another app. You can even view a second app at the same time you’re running another one, or set up video to run picture-in-picture with another app.
Viewing Currently Running Apps
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 resume right where you left off.
1. Double-press the Home button (not shown).
2. This gives you a new view, called the Recents List or App Switcher, which shows all your currently running apps in a 3D series of pages. The app you currently are using appears to the right, and the previous app that you used is in the middle. This lets you easily switch between the current app and the previous app.
3. Swipe left and right to see more items in the list. The further to the left in the list the app is located, the longer it has been since you last used it.
4. Icons for each app also appear at the top. You can tap these icons just as you can tap the screens.
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 to move 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 forces 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 twice to see the list of your currently running apps (not shown).
2. Swipe to the left or right so the app you want to force to quit is in the center of the screen.
3. Tap the preview of the app and swipe upward quickly until your finger is almost at the top of the screen; then let go. The app quits and is removed from the list.
Viewing a Second App with Slide Over
Ever wish you could check your email while surfing the web? Or write something in the Notes app while reading the News app? There are three methods for viewing two apps at the same time. The first is called Slide Over. For this example, I started in Calendar.
1. Tap and swipe in from the right side of the screen. It may be easier to touch just outside of the visible area of the screen so your finger moves from off the screen to on the screen. Then continue moving, and you see the Slide Over screen appear. Stop when you are about a third of the way across the screen.
2. A list of apps appears on the right side of the screen if this is the first time you are using Slide Over. If not, then the last app you used with Slide Over appears, and you can jump to step 4. Only apps that are compatible with Slide Over appear in the list. This includes most Apple-created apps.
3. Tap an app to view it in this Slide Over area.
4. You can interact with this second app normally, though some of the screens may look different in order to fit into the smaller space.
5. The app you were previously using remains on the other part of the screen, but is inactive. If you tap it, you dismiss the Slide Over app and return to your original app.
6. You can also tap and slide the handle on the left side of the Slide Over portion of the screen to go back to your original app.
7. To return to the list of apps, tap and drag down from the top of the screen on the right side. Start your finger just outside the screen for this to work.
Limitations
Apps running in the Slide Over portion of the screen look and act differently from when they are running full screen, naturally. For instance, Mail shows you the list of messages in an inbox or the contents of a single message. But there is no room for both. The original app still takes up two-thirds of the screen, but is inactive until you switch back to it. You can still see it, though, which can be useful. For instance, you can glance at your calendar while composing an email.
Interacting with Two Apps at Once with Split View
Another way to interact with more than one app at a time is to use Split View. This mode seems to be similar to Slide Over, but there are two important differences. The first is that you can interact with both apps, not just the one brought over from the right. The second is that both apps take up equal space on the screen.
Split View works best when you are in horizontal orientation, so hold your iPad horizontally. For this example, I used Safari.
1. Start Split View the same way you start Slide Over, by dragging from outside the right side of the screen to the left. Stop about a third of the way to leave the app in Slide Over mode.
2. Tap and drag the handle until you get to the middle of the screen.
Best on a Pro
This works particularly well if you have a 12.9-inch iPad Pro. The Pro was designed to be about twice the screen size of an iPad Air, so using Split View is like having two iPads.
3. The new app appears on the right. You can interact with it the same way as with Slide Over. In vertical orientation, many apps on the right use only about a third of the screen; whereas in horizontal mode they use half of it
4. The original app is on the left, and you can interact with it as well.
5. You can drag from the top of the right side down to view other apps to replace this one, just like with Slide Over.
6. Drag the center handle to the right or left to allow one of the two apps to take over the whole screen.
Viewing Video with Picture-in-Picture
A third method for multitasking is specific to video. While you are watching video in some apps, like Safari, you can keep the video playing on the screen while you move to another app. This example uses a video on a web page.
1. Start on a web page that has an embedded video.
2. Sometimes you need to start the video to see the controls.
3. Look for this Picture-in-Picture control and tap it. If you don’t see it, it means that the video isn’t being presented in a format that is compatible with picture-in-picture on your iPad.
4. The video is replaced with a “This video is playing in Picture in Picture” message.
5. The video moves to a corner of the screen.
6. Now you can leave this app. For instance, press the Home button to go to your iPad’s Home screen.
7. The video remains. You can tap and drag it to move it elsewhere on the screen. You can also pinch it in or out to resize it.
8. Tap the Play/Pause button to toggle playback.
9. Tap the Close button to remove the video from the screen.
10. Tap the Return button to return to the app where the video originated.
You can continue to move from app to app and the video remains on the screen until you dismiss it. You can also drag it off to the left or right side to reduce the video to only a small “tab” that you can tap to bring the video back onto the screen.
Finding Good Apps
Finding good apps might be the biggest problem that iPad users have. With more than a million 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 (not shown). Be wary because they tend to be heavy on apps by large companies with well-established brands.
2. In the App Store app, 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 (not shown). 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 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
Most apps in Apple’s App Store are built for both the iPhone (and iPod touch) and iPad. Both devices run iOS, but the iPhone has a much smaller screen than the iPad. If a developer has created an app specifically for the iPhone’s screen, and not the iPad, you can use a special feature of the iPad to enlarge the app to make it fill most of your display.
1. To enlarge the app, tap the 2x button.
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 Word Tiles game app, there is an About/Feedback button that takes you to a page of frequently asked questions and contact information.
2. If you don’t find a way to contact support in the app, launch the App Store app and search for the app there.
3. Select the app to view its information.
4. Go to the Reviews section.
5. Tap App Support.
Monitoring and Managing Your Apps
Most users don’t need to do anything extra to keep apps running smoothly. However, you do have a variety of tools that let you see how much storage space and battery power your apps are using, and whether they are accessing your location and other information.
Viewing App Storage Information
To see how much storage space each app is using on your iPad, go to the Settings app.
1. Tap the Settings app icon.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Storage & iCloud Usage.
4. Tap Manage Storage under the Storage heading, not the iCloud heading.
5. You see a list of all your apps sorted by how much storage they are using. Tap any app for more details.
6. For the majority of apps, you simply see another screen with the app size, version number, and total storage being used.
7. Tap Delete App to delete the app from your iPad without needing to go back to the Home screen to do it.
8. For some apps, you get a list of content and a breakdown of how much space each item is using.
9. You can often swipe right-to-left to reveal a delete button for each item.
10. Alternatively, tap the Edit button, and then select items to be deleted.
Viewing Battery Usage
If you notice your iPad’s battery life isn’t as long as you think it should be, it could be because an app is using more than its share. You can check the battery usage for each app in the Settings app.
1. From the Settings app, tap Battery.
2. Tap either Last 24 Hours or Last X Days to get an idea of how much battery each app has been using. If you haven’t been using your iPad unplugged from power for a while, you might not see any apps listed at all.
Days Vary
The number of days you see in Last X Days can vary based on your usage.
3. The list gives you an idea of which app may be an energy hog. Keep in mind that it is relative. In this example, the Maps app had just recently consumed the most battery power simply because I’d used it the most.
4. Tap the clock icon to see a list of how much time you’ve recently spent using each app. This helps you better judge which apps consume power in relation to how much time each has been used.
Viewing Location Usage
Another thing apps use is information. Of particular use is your location. This helps mapping and information apps to give you relevant results, for instance. You can see which apps use your location and how often they access it in the Settings app.
Locating Wi-Fi
Remember that your iPad can get your location even if you do not have a mobile wireless data plan. It looks at which Wi-Fi hotspots are near, and figures out your location from a database that knows where these hotspots are located.
1. In the Settings app, go to the Privacy settings.
2. Tap Location Services.
3. Here you see a list of apps that access your location. Some apps access your location only while they are the app you are currently using. Other apps access that information even while they are running in the background. Keep in mind that this is about permissions, not usage. Just because an app has been given permission to access your location in the background doesn’t mean it is always doing so.
4. The little compass needle icons are color-coded to let you know how often your location is used by the apps. For instance, three apps show a gray icon, which means that they have used your location in the last 24 hours, but not recently.
5. You can tap any item to revoke location access, or in some cases change it from Always to While Using the App.
The Location Services screen in the Settings app shows a hollow purple arrow next to an app that is using a geofence. This simply means the app checks to see whether you are in a certain area. For instance, a shopping app may check to see if you are in the store. The MLB At the Ballpark app uses this to see if you are in the stadium and customizes the information based on that fact.
Viewing Information Sharing Permissions
Some apps communicate with each other. For instance, Keynote might have access to your photo library, or Skype might have access to your Contacts database. You are usually asked for permission when this first happens. For instance, the first time you insert an image into a Keynote presentation, a dialog pops up asking for you to grant permission for Keynote to access your photos.
You can view these connections between apps in the Settings app. You can also revoke these permissions.
1. In the Settings app, tap Privacy.
2. You see a list of apps that share information. Tap one of them.
3. In this case, four apps have asked for permission to access the photo library. Some built-in apps that are part of iOS, like Contacts or Camera, won’t be listed.
4. You can switch off access to any app. Keep in mind that this could have consequences and the app might no longer be able to get the information it needs to operate.
Modifying Notifications Settings
When you start using an app, it might ask you if it is okay for it to send you notifications. The notifications are little alert boxes in the middle of your screen, or messages at the top of your screen, that appear when something happens that the app wants you to know about. Apps need your permission to show you these notifications, which is why they ask. You can change your decision later by using the Settings app.
1. Open the Settings app and tap Notifications.
2. Tap an app to view its specific notifications settings.
3. Choosing the None alert style means that neither a banner nor alert will appear.
4. Choosing Banners means that a drop-down banner appears when the app has a message; the banner goes away on its own after a few seconds. These do not interrupt your work when they appear.
5. Choosing Alerts means that a box pops up in the middle of the screen when the app has a message, and you must dismiss it to continue.
6. Turning on Badge App Icon means that the app’s icon shows a number over it when there is a message.
7. Many apps let you set the specific sound used. Tap Sounds to specify the sound the app uses.
8. Tap Show in Notification Center to adjust whether alerts appear in the list in Notifications Center.
9. Tap Show on Lock Screen to adjust whether alerts from this app appear even when the iPad is locked.
10. Turn off Show Previews if you prefer that the small preview of the message does not appear with the alert.
11. Tap Repeat Alerts to configure whether the alert repeats after a few minutes, and how many times. It is useful to have an alert repeat in case you missed it the first time.
12. If you want to completely disable an app’s ability to send you notifications, switch off Allow Notifications.
Apps Vary
Each app has its own set of settings, so take a few minutes to go through them all and see what options are offered. As you add new apps to your iPad, any that use the Notifications Center are added to this list, so it is a good idea to occasionally review your settings.