Chapter  7

Touching Your Music and Video

The iPad offers new ways to interact with your media. The iPad provides a magnificent dedicated music player, and with just a few touches, you can access that same audio from a wide variety of other applications, allowing you to enjoy your tunes as you play and work. When you watch a TV show, a movie, or a quick video on your iPad, its widescreen video playback capabilities and superb television integration provide beautiful, clear images that are larger than ever before. What's more, the iPad's wireless Internet capabilities allow you to access a huge range of content—from YouTube to embedded video on the Internet to your own personal computer—and to share the content already on your device out to external players. This chapter introduces the primary applications that let you enjoy music and video on your iPad: Videos, YouTube, Safari, and Music.

Watching Video on the iPad

Video forms such a basic component of your iPad that you shouldn't think about it as just a single application. Apple provides the base technology used by several built-in apps that support video playback of third-party media. The following list provides a quick overview of those Apple-supplied apps (see Figure 7–1).

Figure 7–1. Videos, YouTube, and Safari all feature video playback capabilities on the iPad.

Videos: The Videos application appears on the Home screen of your iPad. The icon looks like a traditional clapperboard, with a black-and-white striped top over a blue base. This application plays back the TV shows, movies, podcasts, iTunes U lessons, and music videos you've synchronized from your home iTunes library.

YouTube: You'll find the YouTube app icon next to the Videos app icon in Figure 7–1. The icon looks like an old-fashioned TV, complete with a greenish screen and brown dials. YouTube connects to the Internet and allows you to view videos from YouTube.com. You can navigate to www.youtube.com in Safari on the iPad and browse YouTube videos that way, but the iPad's YouTube app wraps www.youtube.com in such a nice and easy-to-navigate package that you'll find it's leaps and bounds better than using YouTube in a web browser.

Safari: Safari, which you read about in depth in Chapter 6, offers a third way to view videos. Like its computer-based equivalents, the Safari app allows you to watch embedded movie files. Safari's icon looks like a light blue compass with a needle pointing to the northeast.

In addition to the three apps that play video that ship with the iPad, thousands of other apps play video. You can discover all these apps in the iTunes Store. Some of my personal favorites are YXPlayer, which allows me to view videos from my family's personal camcorder (it records in AVI format), the BBC News app to view news footage, and the Weather Channel app to watch weather-related news stories and Doppler video.

For all that the iPad brings to video, it has limits. Your iPad's built-in applications play files using H.264 MPEG-4 video and its immediate family, and that's pretty much it. You cannot use your iPad's standard apps to view Flash/Shockwave videos or animation or play AVI videos or DivX, Xvid, Matroska video, or any of the other dozens of popular formats. If your video isn't in MPEG-4 H.264 format, by default, your iPad won't understand it without help.

Fortunately, the App Store helps you work around this limitation. Some third-party apps enable you to watch videos using formats that the iPad does not officially support. Video-playing applications include such titles as CineXPlayer, yxplayer, and Azul Media Player. These viewers work with a wide variety of content including WMV, AVI, DivX, and Flash FLV formats, among others. Because these applications work outside of Apple's built-in media support, you will generally have to preload your content to each app. Use iTunes' Apps tab, in the File Sharing section, to add and remove video files.

Some applications also let you access media directly from web URLs, even allowing you to play Flash video (FLV) embedded in web pages (rather than URLs that link directly to FLV assets). Custom web browser Skyfire offers Flash video playback support by using edge cases. It isn't always successful, because some monetized sites like Hulu currently disable iPad video access through any solution outside their own custom player (the Hulu Plus player in Hulu's case). Even if Flash-on-iPad limitations were removed, Hulu's own restrictions mean that it will not freely distribute video to mobile browsers.

The general consensus on the matter is that although Adobe has had Flash technology ready to roll out for iPad and iOS in general for some time, relations between Adobe and Apple have kept that technology off the platform.

Video Playback

The iPad is an orientation-agnostic device: you can interact with it in portrait or landscape mode. That's no different for playing video. When you watch a video on the iPad, you can watch it holding the iPad in portrait mode or in landscape mode. Depending on the app you are watching it in, you may see more options for the video being played or indeed for the app itself.

However, most apps display the video interface with all the same elements, meaning once you know how to control video playback in one app, you know how to do it in the rest of them. Here is a quick overview of those controls, which are shown in Figure 7–2.

Figure 7–2. The iPad's video playback controls allow you to control playback as you watch.

Play/Pause: Play/Pause appears as either a right-pointing triangle (Play) or a pair of vertical lines (Pause). Tap this button to pause or resume video playback.

Rewind: The Rewind button appears as two triangles pointing left to a line. Tap it to return to the start of the video, or press and hold the button to scan backward.

Fast-Forward: The reverse of Rewind, the Fast-Forward button's triangles point to the right instead of the left. Press and hold this button to scan forward. Tap it to skip to the next video track.

AirPlay: A rectangle with an embedded upward-pointing triangle, AirPlay allows you to redirect over-the-air playback to other devices. At the time this book was being written, AirPlay receivers were limited to second-generation or later Apple TV units and third-party applications like Banana TV (http://bananatv.net).

Volume: The volume control is the large line below the Play/Pause button. Drag the volume control knob to adjust playback volume. Of course, you can always use the dedicated physical volume button on the side of the iPad as well.

Scrubber bar: The scrubber bar appears at the top of your screen. It is a long line with a small knob that you can drag. (The volume control is the thicker bar at the bottom.) Drag the playhead along the scrubber bar to set the current playback time.

Zoom: The Zoom button looks like two arrows in a white box pointing away from each other, at the top right of your screen. Either double-tap the screen or tap the Zoom button to switch between full-screen mode and the original aspect ratio. To get back into the original aspect ratio's view, double-tap the screen again, or tap the Zoom button again. You'll note that the Zoom button changes slightly when viewing a video full-screen: the arrows turn into a letterbox icon. When viewing in full-screen mode, you use the entire iPad screen, but some video may be clipped from the top or sides of the video. In the original aspect ratio, you may see either letterboxing (black bars above and below) or pillarboxing (black bars to either side), which results from preserving the video's original aspect ratio.

Audio tracks and Subtitles: If alternate audio tracks or subtitles are available in the video you are watching, you'll see an icon that looks like a speech bubble appear in the controls. Tap this icon to select from a pop-up list of audio tracks and subtitles.

Done: The Done button appears on all video application screens. Tap Done to exit video playback. Press the physical Home button on the iPad's bezel to quit the app and return to your Home screen.

While you're playing a video, the iPad automatically hides your video controls after a second or two. This allows you to watch your video without the distraction of on-screen buttons. Tap the screen to bring back the controls. Tap the screen again to hide them; or leave them untouched for a few seconds, and they once again fade away.

Videos App

To launch the Videos app, tap its blue clapperboard icon. When the app opens, you'll be presented with a list of media items synchronized to your iPad. These items are organized into categories by tabs, including items such as movies, TV shows, podcasts, and so forth (see Figure 7–3). As long as you've already synced videos from your iTunes library (see Chapter 2), you'll see them appear here. Tap through each tab to find a complete selection of synchronized media.

Figure 7–3. The Videos app offers separate tabs of movies, TV shows, podcasts, music videos, and iTunes U lessons you've synchronized to your iPad.

Playing a Video

As you can see, the Videos interface shown in Figure 7–3 couldn't be simpler. Its thumbnail images represent the items you've copied to your iPad. (Synchronizing these items is discussed in Chapter 2.) Navigate between your various video media categories by tapping the category tabs that run along the top of the screen (see Figure 7–4). If you have a lot of videos in a specific category, you can flick your finger to quickly scroll through the list.

Figure 7–4. Navigate your video categories by tapping the appropriate category tab at the top of the screen.

Tap any video thumbnail to open it. The item's icon flies forward as gray panels unfold from behind it like origami. You'll be presented with the information page that displays the name of the video and the year it was made, along with other information that could include the length, dimensions, file size, codecs, and copyright notice, but generally it simply includes an extended episode or movie description (see Figure 7–5). Tap “more” to see the entire write-up.

If you are viewing a video with chapters, such as a TV show (each episode in a season is considered a chapter), podcast, or movie, you'll see a list of chapters. If it's a podcast or TV show, you'll be presented with the episodes you have on your iPad, including the name, a summary, ratings, and the length of each episode.

Figure 7–5. Information screens for movies and TV shows

To begin video playback, tap the circular Play button in the top right of the screen, or if your video has a list of chapters, tap a chapter from the list. Your screen clears, and the video loads and automatically begins playing. Tap Done to return to the information page.

Deleting Videos

If you want to delete a video from your iPad, touch and hold the video thumbnail until a circle with a white x appears in the corner of the video's icon (see Figure 7–6). Tap the x to delete the video. With the exception of videos rented from the iTunes Store, deleting a video from the iPad will not delete it from your computer. You'll be able to sync it again from your iTunes library should you choose to do so.

Figure 7–6. Tap and hold a video's thumbnail icon, and wait for the x in a circle to appear. Tap the x to delete the video. Time to delete those old out-of-date WWDC 2010 videos, for example.

Video Settings

You can adjust several settings that affect your video playback. These settings are accessed through the iPad's Settings application (see Figure 7–7).

Figure 7–7. The Videos preferences

Start Playing: This setting allows you to choose whether to start playing videos from the beginning or from where you left off. Being able to start from where you left off is terrific when you're trying to work through a movie or TV episode in short snippets. You might prefer to always start product demonstration videos at the beginning, however.

Closed Captioning: If your video contains embedded closed captions, you can view them by switching this option from Off to On. Closed captions are not just helpful for the hard of hearing. They provide an excellent way to augment your video-watching experience in noisy conditions when on the subway or at a busy cafeteria.

The iPad's Video app also lets you play content from it through your home television. You'll need to buy some extra cables for this, which you can read about later in the “Video Accessories” section of this chapter, but the Video settings is where you can choose the following options:

Widescreen: Turn this on to force wide-screen videos to be played in wide-screen on your TV. This preserves their original aspect ratio.

TV Signal: Choose either NTSC or PAL. If you are in North America or Japan, you'll most likely have an NTSC TV. In Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, it's PAL.

YouTube

Discovering, navigating, and watching YouTube videos on the iPad is an experience that's light years beyond watching them on your computer while sitting at your desk. The iPad turns watching YouTube videos into a fantastic leisure experience that you can enjoy from the comfort of your couch.

Unlike the Videos app, the YouTube app requires an Internet connection. As long as you have at least a Wi-Fi connection, you're all set. At the time this book was being written, YouTube allows you to watch videos using 3G connections as well (if you have a 3G iPad); the application automatically downgrades video quality to put less strain on your bandwidth allocation. The lower-quality videos won't look quite as good as they will over a Wi-Fi connection, but they won't deplete your account quite as fast.

To take full advantage of the YouTube app, you'll want to have a YouTube account. You don't need one to use the app, but having one makes the app that much more powerful. With a YouTube account, you can view and bookmark your favorite videos; subscribe to YouTube users' videos; see with a tap of a button all the videos you've uploaded to YouTube; and share, rate, and flag videos—all from within the YouTube app. Creating a YouTube account takes only a few minutes and can be done at www.youtube.com/create_account.

To launch the YouTube app, tap the YouTube icon; it looks like a retro-styled TV set (shown earlier in Figure 7–1). When launched for the first time, the application displays the Featured screen, as shown in Figure 7–8. This screen showcases videos chosen by YouTube's staff.

Figure 7–8. YouTube's Featured screen provides a video showcase.

Navigating and Finding YouTube Videos

Key elements of the YouTube app include a search field in the upper-right corner of the app and a row of seven buttons at the bottom of the screen. Each button (see Figure 7–9) offers a different way to discover and enjoy YouTube videos.

Figure 7–9. The YouTube navigation bar

Featured: This screen displays videos reviewed and recommended by YouTube staff. You'll often find some worthwhile viewing here that you might otherwise miss.

Top Rated: This screen displays videos that have the highest ratings on YouTube. You can choose to show the highest-rated videos for the day, the week, or all-time. Viewers assign ratings, and the videos with the highest votes are collected here.

Most Viewed: This screen displays videos that have the most views on YouTube. You can choose to show the most-viewed videos for the day, the week, or all-time. Here's where you'll discover videos that have gone viral, passed from viewer to viewer by e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook recommendations.

Favorites: This screen displays all the videos you've added to your Favorites list on YouTube. This screen will also show you a list of any playlists and their videos when you tap the Playlists tab at the top of the screen. This is one of the features of the YouTube app that requires you to have a YouTube account. To sign into your account, tap the Sign In button in the top-left corner (see Figure 7–10). You'll be prompted to enter your user name and password. Once you do this, any videos you've favorited will be displayed.

Figure 7–10. The Sign In/Sign Out button is located in the top-left corner of the Favorites, Subscriptions, and My Videos pages. Tap it to log into your YouTube account.

To remove a bookmarked video, tap the Edit button in the top gray bar. All your bookmarked videos will display a circled x in their top-left corner. Tap the x to remove the video from your favorites. When you are finished deleting favorites, tap the blue Done button. (When you delete your last favorite, and there are no favorites left, the iPad automatically returns you to the Favorites screen without having to tap Done.)

Subscriptions: YouTube allows you to subscribe to another YouTube user's videos so you can keep up-to-date with the latest videos they've posted. Any subscriptions you have will show up on this screen. Tap the name of the user to see all their videos displayed to the left of the list. This feature requires you to be logged into your YouTube account.

My Videos: This screen displays all the videos you've uploaded to YouTube. This feature requires you to be logged into your YouTube account.

History: This screen displays the videos you have viewed on your iPad. The history does not reflect the videos you've viewed on your computer while logged into your YouTube account. To clear your history, tap the Clear button in the top-left corner.

You can also use the search field, found in the upper-right corner of any of these screens, to search YouTube's library of videos.

Viewing YouTube Videos

After finding a video you want to watch, what do you do next? This is one of the situations where the next step depends on whether you're holding the iPad in landscape or portrait mode. If you tap the video thumbnail in portrait mode, the video's information screen will appear, and the video will automatically begin playing in the information screen. If you tap the video thumbnail in landscape mode, the video will begin playing full-screen, and you'll need to tap the Done button to view the video's information screen.

Video information screens provide detailed information for each video. Depending on which orientation you are holding your iPad in—landscape or portrait—you'll see that information laid out slightly differently, but either orientation gives you the same information. Figure 7–11 shows the same info screen in both landscape and portrait modes.

Figure 7–11. A YouTube video's information screen offers information about the video in both landscape and portrait modes. The landscape layout offers a list of related videos, and the portrait layout shows you a fuller video write-up.

On the video information screen you'll find the name of the video, its rating (in stars, from zero to five, when applicable), the number of times the video has been viewed, its run time, and more. You'll also see tabs labeled Related, More From, and Comments.

Related: Shown by default, this tab lists videos related to the one you're watching. YouTube uses some clever tricks to match names, themes, and uploaders, among other aspects, to provide a list of videos that are most related to the one that you're currently watching.

More From: Tap this tab to see more videos from the YouTube user who uploaded the video you are currently watching. From this tab you can also tap a Subscribe button to subscribe to the user's video feed. The user's YouTube name and videos will show up on the Subscriptions page.

Comments: Tap this tab to read comments left by other YouTube users about the video you are watching. You can also tap the “Add a comment” field to write your own comment. You must be logged into your YouTube account to write a comment.

Managing Videos: Rating, Sharing, and So On

You can do more with videos in the YouTube app than just sort and view them. While in a video's information screen, you can bookmark, share, rate, and flag the video, as well as move from embedded to full-screen playback. Simply tap the video to bring up its YouTube control overlay, shown in Figure 7–12.

As you see in Figure 7–12, the overlay consists of opaque bars at the top and bottom of the video. The bar at the bottom allows you to play/pause the video, scrub backward or forward with the slider, and switch to full-screen mode by tapping the double-arrow expand button. These are all standard controls and operate exactly as you'd expect them to, matching the video interface used in other applications. The double-arrow also appears in full-screen mode, allowing you to return from full-screen to embedded playback.

The bar at the top allows you to select several options for managing the video. From here, you can add the video to your favorites, share it with others, vote on the video (like or dislike), or flag the video as inappropriate. All the top-bar options require a YouTube account to apply them. Here's a quick overview of what the options are and how they work.

Figure 7–12. Tap a video in the video information screen to overlay it with a number of management options.

Add: Tap this to bookmark the video to your favorites. If you have more than one Favorites list, you'll be able to select the list you'd like to add the video to. The video will immediately appear under the Favorites button in the YouTube app.

Share: Tap this to send a link to the video in an e-mail message. Without taking you out of the YouTube app, an e-mail compose window will pop up with the name of the video in the Subject field and a link to it in the body of the message. Just enter the e-mail address of the person you want to send it to, and you're done! You can also add your own text to the body of the e-mail like any other e-mail.

Like/Dislike: Tapping either button flags the video as one you like (thumbs up) or dislike (thumbs down).

Flag: Tapping this button will display a red Flag as Inappropriate button. Tap that to send a notification to YouTube. They will review the video and pull it from the site, if they deem it necessary. Be warned: don't flag videos just because you don't like the content. Flagging is meant only for objectionable content. If you falsely flag too many videos, you could have your YouTube account suspended.

YouTube Tips

Here are some tips for using the YouTube application:

• Use the Clear button at the top-right corner of the History screen to erase your YouTube viewing history. People don't have to know you've been watching that skateboarding dog.
• Don't overlook the Related Videos list. Scroll down on the video information screen to find related videos that you may want to view. YouTube is pretty clever about adding listings that you may actually want to see.
• While navigating videos on the Featured, Top Rated, and Most Viewed pages, scroll all the way down, and you'll see a gray video icon with the words “Load More…” on it. Tap this to load more videos on the selected page.
• You can play your YouTube videos out to TV either by connecting your iPad through a supported video cable (composite, component, VGA, and HDMI cables are all available through the Apple Store) or by selecting an AirPlay destination such as an Apple TV or a third-party player like Banana TV.

Watching Videos on the Web with Safari

Video on the iPad isn't limited to special-purpose applications. You can also watch MPEG-4 movie files with the iPad's Safari application. Chapter 6 introduced Safari. Here you'll see how you can connect to video on the World Wide Web and watch it in your Safari browser.

Many web sites besides YouTube feature embedded video. For example, go to virtually any news site, and you're sure to find embedded video. As mentioned in Chapter 6 and earlier in this chapter, the iPad, and thus Safari, does not support Flash playback, which limits the iPad's ability to display every single web video (see Figure 6-20 to see what happens when a Flash video is displayed on a web site in iPad's Safari). However, many web sites serve HTML5 and MPEG-4 videos, and they are fully iPad-compliant. You can also use a third-party application like the Skyfire Mobile Browser to view Flash video on the Web.

For example, the web site TED (www.ted.com), where you can watch videos of some of today's greatest minds talk about science, education, technology, and art, is fully iPad-compatible. Figure 7–13 shows playing back in the iPad's Safari web browser this site's video of author Elizabeth Gilbert talking about creativity.

You simply tap an embedded video to begin playback. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, it may take a few seconds before the video begins playing. You can watch the video in-page or full-screen. To navigate between the two views, tap the video, and a navigation bar appears along the bottom of it. It displays the Play/Pause button, the navigation scrubber, and the familiar full-screen double-arrow button at the very right. Tap the double arrows to enter full-screen view. To exit full-screen view and return to the web page, tap the Done button on the video playback screen.

Figure 7–13. Many videos on the Web can be played natively in the Safari web browser.

Video Accessories

If you are going to be watching a lot of videos, there are several iPad accessories you should consider purchasing:

Stands: Several companies make them, and they range in price from $5 to $100. Whatever stand you choose, make sure it holds the iPad in landscape mode, because that gives you maximum screen real estate to watch your videos. Some cases also double as an iPad stand. Apple's iPad 2 Smart Cover ($39) folds into a stand.

Apple Digital AV Adapter ($39): Use this adapter (see Figure 7–14) to connect your iPad to any television using an HDMI connection. The dual-port design allows you to charge your iPad through the second port at the same time as you display video. The iPad 2 offers screen mirroring, but the adapter can be used with older iPads for applications that support video-out, including Videos, Photos, and YouTube.

iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter ($29): The VGA end of the adapter can be connected to external monitors, some TVs, and PC projectors. You'll need this, or the cables listed next, to connect your iPad to your home television. Like the Digital AV Adapter, this connector works with older iPads as well as newer ones. Screen mirroring is only available, however, on the iPad 2 and newer.

Apple Component AV Cable ($49) and Composite AV Cable ($49): These also work with the iPad, providing two more methods of linking external monitors and projectors to the device.

Figure 7–14. Apple's new Digital AV Adapter provides HDMI connectivity from your iPad. The second connector outlet allows you to charge your iPad at the same time as you display video.

Don't worry if you don't know the difference between VGA, HDMI, Composite, and Component. All three are types of physical video connectors that link devices to TVs.

• VGA is a 15-pin connector that you can still find on the back of many PCs. It supports resolutions up to 2048× 1536.
• HDMI, also known as the High Definition Multimedia Interface, is a digital audio/video connector (it carries both signals at once) that provides high-definition signal support up to 2560× 1600 across a single digital link.
• Composite is a video connector that channels three video source signals through a single connection. It's the oldest of the four technologies, but it still supports a resolution of up to 720×576i.
• Component is a video connector that takes three video source signals (red, green, and blue) and outputs them through three different connections. It's basically an RCA cable with three heads like the composite cable, but Component offers a much better resolution, up to 1920×1080p (otherwise known as full HD).

Many modern TVs support all these connections. Check your TV's manual to see which yours supports.

Projecting Video

Although Apple's connector cables allow you to direct your iPad video to televisions, a number of innovative third parties provide video solutions as well. Take the $430 Cinemin Slice (www.wowwee.com) from WowWee, for example. It's a video system that allows you to dock your iPad (see Figure 7–15) and project video to any screen or wall. With it, you can avoid a lot of awkward cabling when making presentations on the go, plus you don't have to arrange in advance for an HDTV. Instead, you can carry this relatively small unit along with you and display to any large flat surface, including the ceiling, if needed—the projector head is on a hinge that can rotate forward and upward.

The Slice works with iPad 2's screen mirroring. If you need to project in landscape mode rather than portrait, which most business folk probably prefer, you can purchase a $40 connectivity pack to use with your Apple-branded VGA video cable. If you need to use wireless mirroring, you'll need to connect an Apple TV unit to your projection system.

Figure 7–15. The $430 Cinemin Slice product offers a highly portable way to project iPad 2 screens for on-the-go presentations.

Listening to Music on the iPad

When Apple introduced the iPad, many people started complaining on the Internet that it was nothing more than a big iPod touch, even though most of them hadn't yet tried the iPad. There's even a popular parody video that shows joggers carrying an iPad instead of an iPod on their morning run. By now you've discovered that the iPad is much more than just a big iPod touch, but it also does play music like an iPod. (Just don't go jogging with it; or, if you do, get a Bluetooth headset and throw the iPad in a backpack, so you don't look silly running with something the size of a laptop screen in your hands, or, worse yet, attached to your arm.)

When it comes to the iPad, the Music app allows you to browse your audio libraries and select items to play. This app brings all the functionality and ease of use you expect from an iPod, but it delivers that functionality in a distinctive iPad package.

If you are used to listening to music on an iPod, iPod touch, or iPhone, you may expect the iPad to have the same kind of interface for its music player. In actuality, the iPad's music player provides a complete big-screen redesign. This is great news, because if you are used to using iTunes on a Mac or a Windows computer, you'll be instantly familiar with the basic functionality of the iPad's music player app. The iPad's easy-to-understand interface highlights its music features in a way that's simply not possible on a smaller screen.

Navigating the Music Library and Playlists

Tap the Music icon (see Figure 7–16) on your iPad’s Home screen to launch the app. The Music icon is bright orange and has a picture of a musical note.

Figure 7–16. The Music icon

The first thing that you’ll notice about the Music app (see Figure 7–17) is that its functionality is similar to that of iTunes. Not only can you listen to music in the app, but you can easily create and edit playlists like you would on your desktop. If you’ve played music on an iPhone or iPod touch, you’ll be struck by how much more open the layout of the iPad’s Music app feels. There’s so much more space on the iPad that you can see more music at once. Instead of popping up and down long sequences of menu screens, the iPad presents more options and more music in one place, making it much easier to find and enjoy your tunes.

Figure 7–17. In functionality, the Music app on the iPad closely resembles iTunes on your computer.

The Music window is composed of elements that help you choose and play your music:

The play bar: This runs along the top of the app and, when playing music, contains Play/Pause, Forward, and Rewind buttons; the playback scrubber; and the volume control. An optional AirPlay button may appear here if you can connect to a valid AirPlay audio destination on your local network.

Store button: Found at the bottom-left of your screen, this button offers one-click access to the iTunes mobile music store.

The category list: In the bottom row you’ll see your music separated into different categories, depending on the items you have synced to your iPad (see Figure 7–17). Tap any category to see its contents.

• Playlists: Presents your music organized by playlists. Tap a playlist (it looks like a stack of albums) to navigate to a list of the songs contained within. Then tap any song to begin playing it.
• Songs: Contains all the music on your iPad in an alphabetic list.
• Artists: Presents your music on an artist-by-artist basis. Tap an artist to see all their albums and the songs on each album. Tap any song to begin playing it.
• Albums: Presents your music album by album. Tap an album cover, and it springs forward and flips around to reveal a full album view. Tap a song to begin playing it.
• More: Offers other categories such as by-genre-ordering and via composers. Tap a genre cover or composer name to see all the albums and the songs per album that match your choice.

Searchbox: This field allows you to search through your currently displayed music collection by entering text to search for.

Between each of these elements, you’ll find all your individual content. The displays will vary, however. On the Playlists screen, each item is represented as a pile of albums. In the Songs view, iTunes offers you a list of songs. The remaining options (Artists, Albums, Genres, and so on) are presented in tiled views, letting you choose each item as desired, navigating to the list of elements that make those up with a tap. As you use this app, you’ll find these presentations become more and more natural to use as they closely match how you think about and play your music.

Playing Audio from the Music Library and Playlists

Whether you are in your main music library or a playlist, to start playing a song, simply tap it. Figure 7–18 shows the Music app’s Now Playing screen. You arrive at this screen whenever you start playing a song and then tap the small album icon in the top bar on your screen. To return to the library, tap the album icon again.

Figure 7–18. The Music app’s Now Playing screen provides an interactive screen that controls playback for the currently playing item. From this screen, you can adjust the volume, pause and resume playback, and loop the current track.

When playing music, you’ll also notice that a Play indicator has appeared in the iPad’s status bar (see Figure 7–19). The right-pointing Play indicator at the top right of the screen (just left of the battery status) appears universally when you’re playing back music. This tells you at a glance that music is playing. You’ll find this especially helpful when you’ve removed your earbuds and placed the iPad on a table. It alerts you that your battery is gleefully emptying itself as your iPad plays music that no one is hearing.

Figure 7–19. The Play indicator is next to the battery status in the iPad’s status bar.

Now Playing Screen

The Now Playing screen (see Figure 7–20) is divided into several sections. Here’s a rundown of each of those sections and what kinds of information and controls you’ll find there.

Title Bar

The title bar (see Figure 7–20) is the central bar at the top of the Now Playing screen and contains the following items:

Figure 7–20. The title bar on the Now Playing screen

Rewind: The Rewind button looks like a line followed by two left-pointing triangles.

• Tap to move back to the beginning of the currently playing song.
• Double-tap to move to the previous song in the album or playlist.
• If you are already at the start of the song, a single tap moves you back; if you’re already at the first song, this works as if you had pressed the Back button—you return to the most recent album or playlist screen.
• Touch and hold to rewind through the current song. You’ll hear very short snippets as you move backward through the song. This feature proves especially handy while listening to audiobooks.

Play/Pause: Play looks like a right-pointing triangle. Pause looks like a pair of upright lines. Tap this button to toggle between playback and pause modes.

Forward: The Forward button looks like the Rewind button in a mirror. The line is to the right, and both triangles point right instead of left.

• Tap once to move to the next song in the album or playlist. If you’re at the last song, tapping Forward moves you back to the album or playlist.
• Touch and hold to fast-forward through your song.

Now Playing Album cover: Offers one-tap navigation between the now-playing screen and your music library. Alternatively, tap the back arrow at the bottom-left of the Now Playing screen.

Loop control: This control, which looks like a pair of arrows pointing to each other in a circle, appears when you tap album art.

• Tap once to loop the currently playing album or playlist. After the last song plays, the first song starts again.
• Tap a second time to loop just the current song. The number 1 appears on the loop, telling you that the loop applies to just this song.
• Tap once more to disable looping.
• A blue loop (both the regular loop and the loop with the number 1) indicates that looping is enabled. A white loop means looping is switched off.

Scrubber bar: The scrubber bar appears to the right of the loop control. Tap the album cover to make this control appear; tap again to hide it.

• The number at the left of the bar shows the elapsed playback time. The number at the right shows the remaining playback time.
• Drag the playhead to set the point at which your song plays back. You can do so while the song is playing, so you can hear which point you’ve reached.

Shuffle: The shuffle control looks like two arrows making a wavy X. It appears to the right of the scrubber bar and, like the loop and scrubber controls, appears only after you tap the album cover.

• When the shuffle control is off (white), album and playlist songs play back in order.
• When the shuffle control is selected (blue), the Music app randomly orders songs for shuffled playback.

Genius: Looking like a futuristic atom, the Genius button creates a collection of songs from your library that go great together and adds it to your Playlists collection.

Volume slider: Drag along the slider to adjust the volume. You can also use the iPad’s physical volume button to adjust the volume. If you’ve attached an external speaker or remote control, you can use its switches to control the playback volume as well.

AirPlay button: When music-capable AirPlay receivers are available on your home network, an AirPlay button appears just to the right of the volume slider. Tap the button and select a receiver to redirect your music to. Because of Apple’s highly encrypted AirTunes protocol, AirPlay for music and audio was limited to Apple-branded receiver equipment until spring 2011, when it was finally reverse engineered to allow access by third-party applications.

Artist, song, and album: These items appear at the top middle of the screen and are for information only. Tapping them does nothing.

Album Cover

Below the scrubber bar, you’ll notice the song’s album art taking up a majority of the display (see Figure 7–18). When you’ve downloaded album art, the cover image appears just below the top bar and occupies most of your screen. (When the iPad cannot find album art, it instead displays the same light gray music note on a white background.)

Double-tap the album to flip it over to the song-by-song album listing. Tap any song to switch to playing it. Here, you can also add song ratings for the current song using the star control, just under the scrubber bar. A single-tap returns you to the album cover art.

If you tap the album instead of double-tapping it, it zooms to fill the entire screen. Tap it again to return to the normal view.

Bottom Bar

At the bottom of the Now Playing screen you’ll see a two buttons, one on each side of the screen, with grayed-out categories between them:

Back button: Tap the Back button (the arrow pointing left) at the bottom left of the screen to return to your library.

Album View button: This button looks like a three-item bulleted list and appears at the bottom right of the screen. Tap this to switch between your Now Playing screen and its Album view. This works the same as double-tapping the album cover.

Album View

Album view is a powerful and fun way to navigate your music. You can access Album view in two ways, both from the Now Playing window.

• Double-tap the album art area to reveal Album view. The cover art will flip around, and you’ll be presented with the full list of songs from that album.
• Tap the Album View button in the thick bottom bar of the Now Playing window. The cover art of the current song will flip around, and you’ll be presented with the full list of songs from that album.

Why use Album view, as shown in Figure 7–21? Pretend you are listening to a playlist and a song comes on you haven’t heard in a while. It’s a great song, and you want to check out what other songs are on the album. Album view lets you do this without leaving the playlist. Simply access it by using either of the methods mentioned earlier, and you’ll be presented with a screen that shows a track list of all the songs from that album along with their names and durations. Scroll up and down the track list to see all the items on the current playlist or album. Tap any item to start playback.

Figure 7–21. Album view shows a list of tracks and durations for the current music.

Album view also allows you to rate your songs. Use the star control that appears below the scrubber bar to rate the current song, from zero to five stars. Drag your finger along the stars to set your rating. These ratings sync back to your computer. Rating your music is a good thing to do because it lets you keep track of songs you really like. You can create smart playlists to contain all of your five-star songs, enabling you to access them all in one place instantly.

Also, if you use the iTunes DJ feature in the desktop version of iTunes, higher-rated songs will be played more often. iTunes DJ is an iTunes feature that picks songs from your library and creates an endless playback of music. It’s great when you are having a party. iTunes DJ is not a feature of the Music app on the iPad.

Creating Playlists

Playlists you’ve chosen to sync from iTunes will automatically appear in your Music app. But you aren’t limited to creating playlists on your computer. You can create standard and Genius playlists right from your iPad, allowing you to build audio-listening experiences on the go.

Creating a Playlist

To create a standard playlist, tap the New button at the top-right of the Playlists tab. A pop-up appears, asking you to name the playlist. Enter a name, and tap Save. Immediately after, a list of all the songs on your iPad slides up the screen. Select the songs you want to include in your playlist by tapping the + button next to each track. When you select a song, it will appear grayed out. You’ll also find an Add All Songs option at the top of your list of songs. Adding all the songs in your library defeats the purpose of a playlist, however.

If you select a song by accident, you cannot unselect it at this point, but you can easily remove it later.

While adding songs to a playlist, you have several options to navigate your library to find the songs you want (see Figure 7–22). At the bottom of the Add to Playlist screen, you’ll see the category views of the Music app: Songs, Artists, Albums, Genres, and Composers. Select any of these to sort through your song library, and then click the appropriate song to add it to the playlist.

Tap the Done button at the top right when you are finished adding songs.

Figure 7–22. Adding songs to a playlist. You can search through your entire library for songs.

Editing a Playlist

When you are finished adding songs to your new playlist and tap the Done button in the upper-right corner, you are taken to the playlist edit screen (see Figure 7–23). This screen allows you to add, delete, rearrange, and shuffle songs.

Figure 7–23. The playlist edit screen allows you to further customize your playlists after their creation. As you can see here, the playlist creation tool allows you to add song duplicates. If this happens, use the edit screen to remove those (unless you really want songs to repeat.)

You can access the playlist edit screen from any existing playlist by tapping the gray Edit button at its top-right corner. This playlist edit screen allows you to do the following:

Add songs: Tap the Add Songs button to be presented with the Add to Playlist screen again, and follow the previous steps until you’ve added the items you want; then tap the Done button again.

Delete songs: Tap the white and red minus (−) button to remove a selected song. Tap the red Delete button that appears to the right of the song to confirm deletion. Removing a song from a playlist will not delete it from your music library on your iPad or on your computer.

Rearrange songs: Tap and hold the grip bars to the right of a song, and drag to rearrange it in the playlist.

Deleting Playlists

In iOS 5, you delete playlists in the Playlists tab by tapping and holding the album pile until a small circled X appears at the top-left of that playlist. Tap the X. You will not receive any further confirmation, and the playlist will be removed from your iPad. So, do this carefully.

Creating a Genius Playlist

Genius is a feature in iTunes that finds songs in your music library that go together. It does this by matching rhythm, beat, artists, genres, and Internet data. A Genius playlist is a list of songs that results when you choose to run the Genius feature on a song you are listening to.

You can create Genius playlists in iTunes on your computer or on the iPad. However, to enable the Genius feature, you need to turn it on through iTunes on your computer first. To do this, launch iTunes on your computer, go to the Store menu, and select Turn on Genius. You’ll need to log in with an iTunes Store account (see Chapter 8 for creating an iTunes account) to access the Genius features. Enter your user name and password, agree to the terms and conditions, and sit back as Apple analyzes your music library.

You can create or update your iPad’s Genius playlist by tapping the Genius icon in the bar at the top of the screen. The currently playing song acts as the seed for this list.

A new playlist named Genius Playlist appears in your music library. In its list of songs, you can scroll through to see what Genius has picked out. The playlist offers options via buttons at the top of the song list:

Refresh: Tap Refresh to rebuild the Genius playlist around your original song. This allows you to retain the same playlist styling with an updated selection of tracks matching that theme. This is a great feature if you’re exercising and finish the playlist but want to keep going with the same kind of songs you just listened to.

Save: Did Genius generate an absolutely awesome collection of songs that you want to keep around to play over and over again? Tap Save to keep your Genius playlist for later. After tapping Save, the name of the playlist changes from Genius to the name of the song you chose to create the playlist.

Editing a Genius Playlist

Genius playlists offer the following two management options. Both appear as buttons above the song list when the Genius playlist is selected.

Refresh: Tapping Refresh populates the Genius playlist with all new songs seeded by your original selection. Keep your theme while switching up the music with this option. All songs previously on the playlist are removed but remain in your music library.

Edit: Tapping Edit prompts the white and red minus (−) button to appear next to the name of each item in the Genius playlist, and grip bars to appear to the right. Make your updates and then tap Done to finish your edits.

Playing Podcasts, Audiobooks, and iTunes U Lessons

If you’ve synced podcasts, audiobooks, and iTunes U lessons to your iPad, their categories will show up in the categories list at the bottom of the screen in the More section. To view the items available in each category, simply select the category name from that More menu.

For podcasts and iTunes U lessons, tap the series or class, and then select the episode or lesson to begin playing back that item. To play an audiobook, tap your chosen audiobook in the list.

Displaying Music Playback Controls When in Another App

We’ve already mentioned how your music, podcasts, and audiobooks will keep playing even when you leave the Music app. The good news is that you don’t need to go back into the Music app to change tracks. Simply double-tap the iPad’s physical Home button in quick succession to reveal the recent apps list, and then swipe to the right to find your iPad playback controls (see Figure 7–24). From this small pop-up, you’ll be able to navigate through songs, adjust the volume, or select an AirPlay destination. To close this panel, tap anywhere on the main screen. Tap the Music icon at the right to move immediately into the Music application. (When you’re in the middle of watching YouTube or Videos, this icon may change to that app.)

Figure 7–24. These iPad controls appear to the left of your recently used applications. Swipe to the right to uncover this little gem.

You can also access these controls when your iPad is locked. Simply double-tap the iPad’s Home button, and the Music navigation bar appears at the top of the display (see Figure 7–25).

Figure 7–25. With a simple double-tap of the iPad’s home button, music options appear on the iPad’s lock screen. Use these buttons and sliders to control music playback even when your iPad is locked.

Music app Settings

Surprisingly, for a feature-rich application like Music, the iPad provides just a few settings for its music player. You’ll find these in Settings Music (see Figure 7–26), and they work as follows:

Sound Check: Say you’re listening to a song that was recorded way too low. So, you crank up the volume during playback. Then when the next song starts playing back, boom!—there go your eardrums. Sound Check prevents this problem. When you enable Sound Check, all your songs play back at approximately the same sound level.

EQ: The iPad offers a number of equalizer settings that help emphasize the way different kinds of music play back. Choose from Acoustic, Dance, Spoken Word, and many other presets. To disable the equalizer, choose Off.

Volume Limit: Face it, personal music players bring your audio up close and very personal—so up close, in fact, that your hearing may be in peril. Though not a dedicated music player, the iPad is no different. We strongly recommend you take advantage of the iPad’s built-in volume limit to protect your ears. Tap Volume Limit, and adjust the maximum volume using the slider. All the way to the left is mute—sure, you’ll protect your ears, but you won’t be able to hear anything. All the way to the right is the normal, unlimited maximum volume. If you’re super paranoid or, more usually, if children have access to your iPad, tap Lock Volume Limit to open a screen that allows you to set a volume limit passcode. No one may override your volume settings without the correct passcode.

Group by Album Artist: Choose this to override the artist metadata when you want to give priority the artist listed on the album rather than the artist listed in each track.

Figure 7–26. The Music app’s Settings screen allow you to set EQ and adjust volume limits, as well as add credentials for iTunes’ new Home Sharing feature.

Setting Up Home Sharing

Home Sharing allows you to play music on your iPad that is stored on your home computer. It’s pretty much the opposite of AirPlay, where you send music and videos from your iPad out to other devices for playback. For Home Sharing to work, your computer and your iPad must be sharing the same Wi-Fi network, and iTunes has to be running on your computer. Home Sharing is a feature of the iTunes application itself, and it has to be able to serve that data out to the network and from there to your iPad.

Enable Home Sharing by entering your Apple ID and password in settings. You must use the same Apple ID and password that your home computer is signed into. If you fail to do so, you won’t be able to access your music.

On your home computer, launch iTunes, and select Advanced Turn On Home Sharing. Enter your Apple ID and password, then click Create Home Share.

From the iPad side of things, you can access Home Sharing media by tapping the Library item at the top of the Music app’s sources list (see Figure 7–27). Select the shared library you want to browse from the pop-up. Once selected, it may take a minute or two for the library contents to load (there is eventually a progress wheel that fills to let you know how long it will take). Once loaded, the Home Shared library replaces the current library, and the check mark in the Home Sharing pop-up switches to the library in use. You can return to your onboard library at any time by selecting your iPad from the Home Sharing pop-up.

Figure 7–27. Access shared libraries from the Music app’s Library item at the top of the sources list.

Summary

In this chapter, you learned how to watch videos through the YouTube and Videos apps, as well as in the Safari web browser. You also learned how to browse and play back your music and podcasts using the Music application and Home Sharing.

Here are a few points you should take away and consider:

• Video playback is consistent across applications. If you can handle video in YouTube, you’ll know how to use it in Safari. The changes between the screens are minor and easy to follow.
• Set up a free YouTube account to enjoy the YouTube app even more. You’ll be able to bookmark your favorite videos, subscribe to video feeds, and rate and share your favorite clips.
• The Music app playlists are a lot of fun. The Music app lets you create and edit two kinds of these: standard, which lets you manually add songs to it, and Genius, which automatically generates a list of songs based on a single song you choose in your music library.
• Save your ears. Adjust your playback volume using the built-in volume controls and limiters. You can find out more about the increasing occurrence of noise-induced hearing loss at www.cdhh.org/resources.php.
• Don’t forget about double-tapping the Home button to pull up music controls, regardless of your current application.
• Home Sharing currently can be used only when your iPad and computer share the same Wi-Fi network. Ideally, Apple will extend this to remote access in future updates. Forcing you to authenticate with your Apple credentials suggests that that feature remains just around the corner.