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Random iPad Tricks

Dave Gray mentioned on twitter that he learned how to lock the screen rotate on his iPad after only two years of owning it. Since that used to be the default way the side switch was set I knew about that one, but just in case you don’t, here’s how:

If you rotate your ipad the display will rotate so that it is always right side up, it even stretches or contracts depending on if you are in portrait or landscape view. This can be a problem if you are in bed reading while lying on your side, or if you have apps that you never want to go into portrait mode (I have an IM client that only shows 2 columns in portrait mode and I always want to see 3). Currently there are two ways to rotate lock – go into settings and set the side switch to lock rotation, or another trick: Double click the menu button and you’ll get a pop-up menu. Swipe the toolbar one screen to the right and you’ll see a rotate lock button on the far left (note that if you set the side switch to lock rotation this button becomes a mute button).

This also got me thinking of other tricks I’ve picked up:

Apostrophe: Being a grammar geek, I use apostrophes often. If you touch the ! and , key and swipe up you’ll get an apostrophe.

Screen Shot: If you hold down the button then click the on/off switch you’ll take a screenshot that shows up in your photo library. You can then click and email it anywhere.

Auto-pause: I plug my iPad into my car radio aux jack and realized that when you are done you don’t have to pause the music, pulling the headphone jack out automatically pauses the music.

1080P Video: The iPad will not play 1080P (because resolution that high on a 10 inch screen is not noticeable compared t0 720p), but I’m not really into re-encoding HD stuff just to carry on the iPad. Good Reader will play 1080p files (of course they are huge, but I’ll take that over re-rendering).

Bookmarking: You can bookmark any webpage to have an icon on your home screen just as if it was an app. Browse to the page you want, touch the box with the arrow icon to the left of the URL, and click “Add to Home Screen”

and, Dvorak keyboard layouts are supported if you use the bluetooth (or the stand version) Apple keyboard.

If you have any other tricks please share. Thanks!

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