Documentation (and I use the term loosely): You find a small, white envelope under the iPad itself, about the size of a half-dozen index cards. Open it, and you’ll find
• A single sheet titled iPad Info: This pamphlet is essentially small print (that you mostly don’t need to read) from folks like the FCC.
• A mysterious label sheet: This contains two white Apple logo stickers. (Apple has provided these for years with its products as a form of cheap advertising when users place stickers on places like their computers or car windows.)
• A small card containing the actual documentation (sort of): This displays a picture of the iPad and callouts to its buttons on one side, and the other side contains about three sentences of instructions for setting it up and info about where to go online to find out more.
✔ Lightning to USB Cable: Use this cord (see Figure 2-1) to connect the iPad to your computer, or use it with the last item in the box, which is the power adapter.
✔ 10W USB Power Adapter: The power adapter (see Figure 2-1) attaches to the Lightning to USB Cable (or the Dock Connector to USB Cable) so that you can plug it into the wall and charge the battery.
Figure 2-1: Some pretty simple gadgets for power and USB connections.
That’s it. That’s all there is in the box. It’s kind of the typical Apple study in Zen-like simplicity.
Taking a First Look at the Gadget
The little card contained in the documentation (see the preceding section) gives you a picture of the iPad with callouts to the buttons you’ll find on it. In this section, I give you a bit more information about those buttons and some other physical features of the iPad. Figure 2-2 shows you where each of these items is located.
Figure 2-2: There are probably fewer gizmos to get used to on an iPad than on the average cellphone.
Here’s the rundown on what these things are and what they do:
✔ (The all-important) Home button: On the iPad, press this button to go back to the Home screen to find just about anything. The Home screen displays all your installed and preinstalled apps and gives you access to your iPad settings. No matter where you are or what you’re doing, press the Home button, and you’re back at home base. You can also double-press the Home button to pull up a scrollable display of apps called the App Switcher so that you can quickly move from one to another or quit apps that you don’t want or need to have running. (Apple refers to this as multitasking.) If you press and hold the Home button, you open Siri, the iPad voice assistant. Finally, on recent iPad models, the Home button contains a fingerprint reader used with the Touch ID feature.
✔ Sleep/Wake button: You can use this button to power up your iPad, put it in sleep mode, wake it up, or power it down (more about this in the final section of this chapter).
✔ Lightning connector: This is where you plug in the Lightning connector at the USB end to the power adapter to charge your battery or use it without the power adapter to sync with your computer (which you find out more about in Chapter 5 of this minibook). Also use this slot for the Camera Connection Kit or to connect various AV adapter cables.
✔ Cameras: iPads (except for the original iPad) offer front- and rear-facing cameras that you can use to shoot photos or video. The rear one is on the top-right corner, and you need to be careful not to put your thumb over it when taking shots. (I have several very nice photos of my thumb already.)
✔ Side switch: In case you hadn’t heard, the iPad screen rotates to match the angle you’re holding it at. If you want to stick with one orientation even if you spin the iPad in circles, you can use this little switch on the iPad mini 3 to lock the screen, which is especially handy when reading an e-book. (Note that some apps can override this functionality if they require one orientation or the other.) iPad Air 2 no longer has a side switch, but you can change Rotation and Volume settings in the Control Center (swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open Control Center).
✔ (Tiny, mighty) speakers: One nice surprise when I first got my iPad Air 2 was hearing what a great little stereo sound system it has and how much sound can come from these tiny speakers. The speakers are located along one side of the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3.
✔ Volume: This is a volume rocker that you use like any other volume rocker: Press up for more volume and down for less. You can also use this rocker as a camera shutter button when the camera is activated.
✔ Headphone jack and microphone: If you want to listen to your music in private, you can plug a 3.5mm minijack headphone and some 1⁄8" headphones in here (including a set of Beats headphones sold through the Apple Store, if you have one, which gives you sound to both ears). There’s also a tiny microphone that makes it possible to speak into your iPad to deliver commands or enter content using the Siri feature. Using Siri, you can do things like make phone calls using the Internet and dictate text, or work with other apps that accept audio input.
Charging the Battery
You’ve heard about the awesome ten-hour battery life on your iPad, and it’s all true. My iPad showed up almost fully charged from the Apple Store, but even if you got yours shipped, it should’ve been at least partially charged. But all batteries run down eventually (the little battery icon in the iPad Status bar tells you when you’re running low), so one of your first priorities is to know how to recharge your battery. This is a pretty obvious procedure, given the few items that come with your iPad, but just in case you need help, you can follow these steps to get that battery meter up to 100 percent:
1. Gather your iPad, Lightning to USB cable (fourth generation and later) or Dock Connector to USB Connector (earlier models), and Apple USB power adapter.
2. Gently plug the USB end of the Lightning to USB Cable (or the Dock Connector to USB Cable) into the USB Power Adapter.
3. Plug the other end of the cord (see Figure 2-3) into the Lightning Connector (or Dock Connector slot) on the iPad.
Figure 2-3: Assembling the connector cord and power adapter to charge the iPad battery.
4. Unfold the two metal prongs on the power adapter (refer to Figure 2-3) so that they extend from it at a 90-degree angle, and plug the adapter into an electrical outlet.
Turning the iPad On and Registering It
The first time you turn on your iPad, you need to go through a sequence of setup steps. The best way to do this is to be in range of a Wi-Fi network.
When you’re ready to get going with your new toy, be sure you’re within range of a Wi-Fi network that you can connect with, and then hold the iPad with one hand on either side, oriented like a pad of paper. Plug the Lightning to USB Cable that came with your device into your iPad and plug the other end into a USB port on your computer, just in case you lose your battery charge during the setup process.
Now