The Apple iPad Mini is the smallest and cheapest iPad to date, check out our full iPad Mini review, but here are some tips to help you get the best from it.
1: Jump to the top
Be it Twitter, email or a very long Facebook message, many applications involve long lists, which can be tedious to scroll through. However by tapping at the very top of the status bar, you can jump to the top of the list, saving laborious seconds of scrolling.
2: Multitasking Gestures
You might not know that the iPad supports gestures, which are accessible by going to Settings – Multitasking Gestures. Using four or five fingers, pinch to return to the homescreen at any point; swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar and swipe left and right to move between open applications.
3: Control Notifications
Swiping down reveals the Notification Centre where you can view messages, calendar entries and app alerts. If you’ve got lots of apps you may want to limit what you receive notifications for. Go to Settings – Notifications and you will see a list of all apps on the iPad Mini, tap each one and select ON/OFF to determine if you want alerts to appear in Notifications Centre. There may be additional options – depending on the app, these will let you control what style the alert should take (Banners or Alerts); if it makes a noise and whether you want the alert to appear on the lock screen.
4: Find my iPad
No-one wants to think about losing their iPad Mini. But if it does go missing Apple includes a useful feature that can help you track it down. Go to Settings – iCloud and activate Find my iPad. If your iPad goes missing in the future, head to iCloud.com, enter your Apple log-in details and you’ll see its location on a map and you can choose to play a sound or wipe it.
5: Take a screenshot
Particularly proud of a gaming score – so much so that you want to preserve it forever? Press the home and power button to take a screenshot, which will be stored in Photos andeyou can Tweet, Facebook, Message or Email it to whoever you want.
6: Do Not Disturb
Do Not Disturb is a new feature for iOS 6, head to Settings and activate Do Not Disturb and you won’t receive any alerts or notifications. To allow them from selected friends and family click Notifications – Do Not Disturb and specify Favourites. You can schedule in advance the time period Do Not Disturb is active – useful if you want an alert-free evening.
7: App tray
Customise the tray at the bottom of homescreen so it only includes the apps and features you use the most. Remove an app by pressing down and dragging it off onto the main screen and use the same process for adding up to five apps of your choice.
8: Quick search
Can’t find a specific email or contact? Scroll left to reveal the Search screen. Type the first few letters of the app, contact or event and it will search your iPad for matching content as well as letting you quickly search Safari or Wikipedia.
9: Mailbox settings
If you’ve got an email account set up on your iPad Mini, there are settings to help you determine the look of your inbox. Head to Settings – Mail, Contacts, Calendars – Mail and you can specify how many messages are displayed and the number of lines each message has. Choosing more lines means you’ll be able to see more of the message, which means you might not need to open it, but less emails will be visible per screen.
10: Picture Frame
If you’ve got lots of photographs to show off, you can turn your iPad Mini into a Picture Frame. Go to Settings – All Photo, select the photos or individual album you want to display, choose how long each photo is displayed for, the type of dissolve and whether to zoom in on faces.
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