Should I Buy a Mouse for my iPad?

Last year Apple introduced the option to use a mouse or trackpad with iPad quietly as an accessibility feature. This year they went all in, releasing the incredibly well received (and pricey) Magic Keyboard & Trackpad cases for iPad Pro models, making use of their Smart Connectors.

We’ve already mentioned the rumours that these cases will be extended to more, if not all iPad models in the near future, but until then, is it worth grabbing a cheap mouse to get a taste of the action?

As will almost anything I ask on this website, the quick answer is, it depends.

iPad Pro Magic Keyboard & Trackpad

Because iPad is a touch first operating system, multitouch is a central part to how the system works. The trackpad is the most natural way to replicate this without directly touching the screen and the gesture support built into iPadOS makes Apple’s own option very functional.

Unfortunately at this stage, third party trackpads don’t appear to support the extended feature set that Apple has on their own hardware. I would assume that the gestures work if you pair one of their own Mac trackpads as well as with the Magic Trackpad case, but I’ve not tried so I can’t verify that right now.

That means that most trackpads in cases from Logitech or Brydge right now don’t give much more usability than a basic mouse – but of course you’re not swapping touch support for pointer, you get both. You can still reach up and manipulate things on the screen and then go back to a more traditional experience with keyboard & pointer when you need to.

Convenience vs Cost

One of the biggest conveniences you’ll lose however by using Bluetooth accessories rather than Apple’s Smart or Magic ones is that when you grab the iPad to use alone, you’ll have to disconnect the peripherals manually, either by powering them off or disconnecting the iPad’s Bluetooth connections.

With Apple’s Smart Connector based products, as soon as you pick it up you’re done. Also Apple’s Keyboards are powered by the iPad, not another thing to remember to charge, which also makes a difference.

So right now, I wouldn’t recommend getting a third party trackpad case for your iPad, go Apple or go home on that. But if you have an Apple trackpad in the drawer, give that a go, or even pick up a Bluetooth mouse for about a tenner from Amazon if you feel like dipping your toe in the computer replacement waters.

It’ll give you a good idea of what to expect for very little investment, but there’s also no reason to use one if you’re not using an external keyboard too. It would be very strange to tap away on the screen for letters and then go back to a mouse!

iPadOS 14 Public Beta is out! Here’s what it’s like.

Following on from Apple’s WWDC Keynote a few weeks ago, you can now get your hands on the public beta for iPad of this Autumn’s operating system if you’re feeling adventurous.

As with all beta software releases, there can be issues and app compatibility or stability problems which is why I’m only running it on one of our iPads for testing. So far so good though and it’s been 100% painless so far save for slightly reduced battery life.

If you’re interested in running the beta, be sure to have a solid backup of your current iPad or iPhone, and I’d probably even back up to iCloud as well as a physical computer to be sure.

If you decide to take the plunge, you can get the beta profiles from beta.apple.com, install the profile and then it should just update like any other software update for iOS or iPadOS.

Of course, its all at your own risk, but if you go for it, let me know what you think!

6 Ways to Extend iPad Battery Life

iPad has industry leading battery life of around 10 hour use on a full charge, but of course, this will vary based on what you’re using it for. Complex gaming apps like Call of Duty or Fortnite will certainly eat up your battery faster than email and web browsing for example. There are ways you can carefully sip away at that battery a bit more slowly through the day.

1: Switch off Background App Refresh

One of the services which iPad runs constantly in the background keeps your apps up to date, lets you know when there are notifications and uses your battery. Navigate to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and switch off any apps that you absolutely don’t need instant updates on to save them from accessing your data and battery behind the scenes.

2: Reduce Your Screen Brightness.

The backlight on your iPad’s display uses way more battery than you probably realise, so make sure that its either set to auto brightness so the system will optimise it or manually lower the brightness.

3: Airplane Mode.

If you can get away with it, for example if you’re just writing and don’t need to communicate with the world for a while, activating Airplane Mode will turn off all your wireless coms on the iPad. Of course, if you’re using a Bluetooth keyboard you’ll need that on still, but just be aware of how many wireless standards you’re making use of and turn them off when you can.

4: Dark Mode.

It may sound silly but Dark Mode will generally allow you to have the screen brightness lower while keeping text readable on the screen. While iPhones with the latest OLED screens will actively save power by using black screens that stops pixels being illuminated, iPad still uses a full backlight and LCD displays, so the gains here are much smaller.

5: Update iPad OS.

Apple constantly tweaks the operating system to help with power efficiency, so make sure you’re running the most recent version of iPadOS to take advantage of these. Although it may seem like your iPad doesn’t last as long as time goes by, its not because the operating system is draining the battery but that the battery itself degrades over time. Keeping your iPad up to date will mitigate this issue as much as possible, but eventually batteries will need to be replaced, but by then, its probably more economical to replace the device itself. Check out our article on making use of older iPads for some full time connected ideas for iPads with degraded batteries.

6: Top Up When You Can.

Not letting your battery completely empty is a good idea, and Apple’s battery tech is designed to notice when you normally pick up your iPad in the morning and optimise charging times to extend the useful life of the device. So plug in if you’re at the desk or just listening to music and don’t need it in your had all the time.

3 Ways to Multitask on iPad

iPad used to have a reputation for being an oversized iPhone and more for consumption of media than getting work done and creating for yourself. Well those days are over, as iPad is now very capable of running multiple apps if as long as you’re running a recent version of iPad OS.

Not only CAN iPad multitask, it has multiple different multitasking modes, so there’s options that will work for you regardless of if you’re writing an essay and need to refer to sources, want to simply have some video running while you browse the web or want quick access to social media or notes. Let’s get into it.

The video below shows how all of this works in practice and I’ll explain each mode in detail afterwards.

Split Screen Multitasking on iPad

Split screen is probably the kind of multitasking that first comes to mind when you think about multiple apps on screen together. iPad only allows 2 apps like this, and its not supported by all apps (a bit of a theme when it comes to iPad apps).

To activate split screen mode, open the first app you want to use as normal, full screen. Then, swipe up from the bottom of the screen to reveal the dock and then tap and hold the app you want in the dock for a split second before dragging it up and across to either side of the screen. It may take a couple of attempts to get the hang of it the first time but its not too tricky. If the contextual menu pops up, you held it too long before dragging.

You may have also noticed that the second app you want to open needs to be in the dock. By default, iPad shows your most recent three apps not normally in the dock on the right hand end of it, so if your second app isn’t there, return to the home screen and locate your app, open it, and drag the other app into multitasking. I know, it’s a little complicated, but fingers crossed iPadOS 14 this Autumn will simplify the process a little.

Swipe Over Multitasking on iPad

Swipe Over gives you an iPhone style interface that floats on top of your main window – perfect if you need to occasionally check notes whilst working on a larger piece or you’re needing to keep an eye on social feeds.

Activate Swipe Over the same way as Split Screen, except release the app you want to add near the middle of the screen instead of the edges. You can also add more apps to your Slide Over stack by just dragging more apps on top of your Slide Over app. You can then switch between them just like an iPhone by swiping up on the bottom handle and swiping sideways between the active apps.

Picture in Picture Multitasking on iPad

If you just want to have a video playing while you work on your iPad, Picture in Picture is for you. Unfortunately, YouTube is one of the apps that won’t work with this, but Apple TV, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are among those which do.

Activating Picture in Picture is as pretty easy, just open the video app, start the video playing and then hit the home button (or swipe up on home button-free pro models). The video will shrink down to a thumbnail view in the corner and keep playing so you can navigate your iPad as normal. You can also swipe it off to the side of the screen and keep the audio playing in the background if you want a little less distraction.

So there you have it, three ways to multitask on your iPad. You don’t need a pro model, this works on all the current lineup as well as any iPad running iOS (or iPadOS) 11 or later.

How to use a Bluetooth Keyboard with your iPad

If you want to do any serious work on iPad, you may find that the built in onscreen is less than ideal for writing long documents. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine for replying to an email or a text but for any more than a couple of paragraphs you’ll find it a much more comfortable experience with physical keys.

Which keyboards work with iPad?

One of the best things about iPad is that as far as I know, any Bluetooth keyboard should work without problems. What does that mean? It means you might already have one you can use sitting in a drawer somewhere, but if you don’t there are a lot of options available to you.

A quick search on eBay will bring up Bluetooth keyboard options from around £9 including delivery, and while there will certainly be quality differences from model to model, even the most basic will improve your typing experience. Apple’s own keyboard folio cases for iPad will set you back over £100, and the experience will certainly be more premium with nice materials and a solid build quality.

I’m currently typing this article on a Bluetooth keyboard pulled from an old iPad case where the rest of the casing cracked, but the keyboard is absolutely fine to this day and has served me for around 3 years. It’s compact and easy to throw in a backpack when I’m out working and certainly makes typing easier.

For £18 though I recently bought a clamshell case for my wife’s iPad (Air 1) which essentially turns it into a MacBook style experience. The iPad clicks into the top shell and hinges up to a comfortable typing angle. £18 is an absolute steal for something like this, and even gives protection to the iPad itself too.

How to Connect your Keyboard to iPad

It’s pretty simple to connect your keyboard, but it might not be intuitive, so here’s our guide.

• Make sure your keyboard is charged up – Bluetooth keyboards are self powered so make sure you charge the battery before getting started.
• Open the Settings app on your iPad (its the grey icon with cogs in the centre) and navigate to the Bluetooth menu inside
• Make sure that your Bluetooth is switched on (there’s a toggle switch in the menu).
• Power on your keyboard, and press the pairing button if it has one.
• Back on the iPad, tap on the name of the keyboard in the device list when it appears. In most cases, you’ll then be prompted to enter a four digit code on the keyboard and hit enter. This is to make sure you’re connecting to the right keyboard.
• You’re done!

One extra bonus that you might not have realised is that when you connect a Bluetooth keyboard, the screen keyboard won’t appear on screen, freeing up a huge amount of space to see your work. The standard onscreen keyboard, at least in landscape orientation takes up almost half the screen. With an external keyboard, all of that space is dedicated to what you’re working on.

Of course, if you grab the iPad to work away from the keyboard, you might find the keyboard doesn’t spring back into place if your Bluetooth keyboard is still active – so either power down the keyboard or if you’re not nearby, you can just switch off Bluetooth on your iPad. Do this either in Settings where we turned it on before or by swiping down from the top right corner of the screen and tapping Bluetooth in the Control Centre menu.

Let me know how you get on!

How to save family pictures from Instagram

If your family members post pictures to Instagram, you might find that they’re not easy to save to your iPad. In this article, we’ll show you how you can download them, for example if you want to print them out for a physical album. 

Why won’t Instagram just let you download them?

There re a couple of reasons that Instagram doesn’t make this super easy. First, it’s to protect the copyright of their customers, so making it more difficult to save these images reduces the chances of them being downloaded and re-shared by others without permission.

The second reason is most likely to help Instagram grow its own user base. Instagram allows users to embed posts in other websites, but with an instagram frame and the original caption attached. Of course, clicking this will take you back to Instagram’s own website or app, and probably prompt you to set up an account if you don’t have one.

Now, you should absolutely have an Instagram account and will need one for this tutorial, and downloading local copies of your family photos is not really copyright infringement so lets go right ahead. 

Method one – Screen Shots

The first method is the most rudimentary, but it works. Open the App (Instagram inexplicably doesn’t have a native iPad app so you’ll need to download the iPhone version from the App Store) find the image you want and take a screenshot by simultaneously pressing the home and Sleep/Wake button on your iPad.

You’ll see a flash and the image will drop down and hover in the bottom left corner of your screen for a few moments. Tap on the image and you’ll be able to crop it by dragging the handles on the corners to the size of the image you want to save. Hit done, and save it to your Photos app.

Method 2: Repost App

The Repost App is free in the App Store and is designed for allowing people to re-share an Instagram post while giving credit to the creator, so by default it will add a small box to one corner of the image with the original poster’s Instagram account name. There is an in-app purchase option which is a one time fee which will allow you to save the images without this, so its up to you if that’s worthwhile to you.

To save an image using Repost, click the three dots in the top right of the instagram post and choose “Copy Link” from the drop down menu that appears.

Next, open the Repost App, and the post should be showing up. You can choose where you want the original poster’s name to show up in the image and then click the repost button at the bottom of the screen. In order to “repost” the image to Instagram, it is saved to your camera roll.

If Instagram opens at this point and prompts you to post, you can just click the home button or swipe up on the screen to return to the home screen, and the image will be in your Photos app.

While this technique may seem a little complex, it does save the full resolution image to your iPad. If you wish, you can also use the Photos App’s edit tool to crop out the instagram username too.

Hope this helps! 🙂

6 Ways to make use of old iPads

It’s crazy to think that iPad has been in our lives for over 10 years now, with the original, camera free version being launched in April 2010. That means there are a lot of early generation iPad out there sitting in drawers gathering dust. In this article, we’ll look at some of the best ways to reuse and upcycle older iPads into useful parts of your home.

For the purposes of this we’ll call older iPads anything that isn’t running the latest version of iPad OS – so iPad Air 1, iPad Mini 3 or older.

1: Media Player

While it may not be capable of running the latest operating system, it can still do what it always could. So if you need a tablet for the kids to watch CBeebies on, a Netflix tablet for a teenager or just something for catching up on YouTube, everything back to an iPad 2 from 2011 will be more than capable. Check out our list of some of the best stuff to watch on your iPad here.

2: Kitchen Hub

If the battery on your device is starting to suffer, why not give it a permanent home at the heart of your house. Find a spot where you can either mount it on the wall with permanent power and you’ll have easy access to recipes whenever you need them.

If you’re not moving it, you could even use the headphone socket to plug into some great speakers giving you on demand radio, podcasts or even streaming TV in the kitchen while you cook.

3: Digital Photo Frame

Dedicated digital photo frames are generally pretty terrible, low resolution and hard to use. Happily, an old iPad can work brilliantly, especially when you can have it plugged in constantly.

You can set up a folder of images in the Photos App, then hit the Slideshow button in the top right of the screen. By using Guided Access mode, you can also set the iPad not to sleep and stop people accidentally switching it to another app. Make it even easier to keep up to date using an iCloud Shared Photos folder so you can add images from another device wirelessly!

4: Second Screen

If you use a desktop or laptop computer at all, an App like Duet or Air Display can extend your screen onto an iPad. It’s perfect whether you want to be able to take it with you for working on the go or keeping set up next to your desktop PC or Mac. You’ll be blown away how helpful more screen space can be!

5: eBook Reader

While some prefer the feel of one of those vintage style ex-tree books, eBooks save ALL the space on your shelf, can be read in the dark in bed without a lamp and can even offer sync’d audio book versions for many titles. The Apple Books App also features a dark mode to reduce the glare and eye strain when you’re in bed.

6: Radio Alarm Clock

Who doesn’t want some super motivational music to wake up to each morning? The iPad OS (and iOS) alarm clock lets you choose exactly what song you want to wake up to, you can set up different alarms for different days of the week, whatever you like. Need something motivational on Monday and something more triumphant when you make it to Friday? Some chilled vibes at 11 On Saturday? iPad has you covered!

Have you found more uses for old hardware like this? Let us know on Twitter @livingonipad

Guided Access can keep your kids safe on iPad.

As much as everyone talks about limiting screen time for kids, there are times when you’ll need to keep them occupied with an iPad, whether its a car journey, or just time to get some work done from home.

Of course, with younger kids they don’t always understand what parts they are allowed to make use of on the iPad, and the last thing you want is your kids or grandkids accidentally tweeting 6 episodes of Mr Tumble to your followers.

Fear not, we are here to show you how to secure your iPad and keep the kids safe, by using an accessibility feature called “Guided Access”.

Guided Access Locks iPad to a Single App

Guided Access allows the iPad (or iPhone’s) owner to restrict the device to the current app, requiring a passcode to access other parts of the device. This feature can be used so that kids don’t accidentally delete your important emails, message your friends gibberish or fill your camera roll with close ups of the couch. It’s also perfect if you’re using an iPad to collect emails at a trade show for example, or just generally don’t want it messed with.

Guided Access needs to be enabled in settings before you can activate it in your chosen app, so lets start with that.

1: Open the Settings App on your iPad. If you can’t see it immediately on the home screen, you can swipe down in the middle of the screen and type “settings” to find it. Scroll down to Accessibility on the left hand pane and tap on it.

2: Tap “Guided Access” in the right hand pane to open its sub menu. It’s under the General section, and you might need to scroll down to find it.

3: Set a Passcode for Guided Access. This is what you’ll use when you want to end the Guided Access session. Make sure you don’t forget this. You can also set time limits for using iPad before it ends the session for bedtime viewing or just making sure homework gets finished distraction free.

Activating Guided Access to lock into an App

When you’re in the App you want to lock the iPad into, triple click the home button. If you’re using an iPad Pro model without a home button, triple clicking the sleep wake button activates the mode.

You’ll be presented with options to start or cancel the mode, or select more options from the bottom left corner of the screen.

Turns out you can’t screenshot the Guided Access screen!

The Options panel allows you to disable the hardware buttons for sleep/wake and volume while Guided Access is active, though many video apps will have onscreen volume controls which will still be active. You are able to disable screen areas by drawing over these in the centre of the screen if you need to remove access to other on screen controls.

When you’re ready to deactivate Guided Access on the iPad, triple click the home (or sleep/wake) button again as you did to activate it. This will then prompt you to enter your passcode to end Guided Access. With TouchID equipped iPads, you can also use this to switch off Guided Access if you chose this option before.

That should be all you need to know on Guided Access. If I’ve missed anything please don’t hesitate to reach out either here or on twitter and I’ll be happy to answer any questions.