Everyone says iPads are simple, but there are oodles of secrets hiding under the iPad mini’s shiny surface. We’ve burrowed into the tablet’s psyche to find all the skeletons in its closet, all those things you never knew it could do. Here are our top 50 best bits.
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Don't have an iPad mini already? Wondering whether you should buy one? We've taken a look at whether the iPad mini 2 is worth waiting for. It considers what the next dinky Apple tablet may offer, and whether the big "A" is likely to strike gold a second time. Have a read - iPad mini 2, should you wait?
Top 5 Tips in Video
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General Care Tips
50. Don’t use a screen protector unless…
Screen protectors are useful. They help you avoid display scratches, making your iPad much easier to sell further down the line. But they tend to spoil the finish of the screen, especially if they use an anti-reflective coating.
Apple hasn’t revealed who supplies the glass for its iPad mini screen, but it’s some form of toughened glass – possibly from Gorilla Glass-maker Corning. Treat it reasonably well and it should survive without earning too many scratches.
iPad Smart Case49. Do use a case
The aluminium rear of the iPad mini, however, is extremely easy to scratch. If your tablet is to spend much time at all out of the house, you’d be mad not to invest in some form of case. Apple’s iPad mini Smart Cover doesn’t provide adequate protection as it only covers either the front or back of the device, and never its sides.
For better all-round coverage, take a look at Apple’s new Smart Case, which surrounds the whole tablet, or a third-party alternative. We’ll look at some of the best later on.
Software
48. Turn off keyboard clicks
The nasty keyboard click of iOS devices is one of the most annoying things you’ll hear on public transport. Don’t become part of the problem. As standard iOS devices are set to emit a clacky tap sound every time you hit a key no the virtual keyboard. To turn it off go to Settings > Sounds. You’ll find the Keyboard Clicks slider right down at the bottom of the list there.
47. Multi-tasking
iOS 6 offers a basic form of multi-tasking, letting multiple apps more-or-less run at the same time. To bring up the multi-tasking menu, double tap on the Home button. This brings up a little menu at the bottom of the screen, featuring app icons. Flick left-to-right on this and you’ll reach a screen where you can control music playback, volume and brightness.
This menu is available no-matter where you are, letting you quickly load an app or game from within another.
multi-tasking
46. …and multi-tasking gestures
Apple offers another way to use the iPad mini’s multi-tasking features too, with multi-touch gestures. Swipe up with four fingers on-screen and the multi-tasking menu will pop up. Swipe sideways when in an app and you’ll move to the “next” app. Pinch on-screen with four fingers when you’re anywhere but the Home screen and you’ll head back there.
45. The quickload bar
One of the Home screen’s most important features is the quick-load bar – the dock of icons at the bottom of the screen. You can change what apps feature very easily. Hold down a finger on an app icon until it starts to jiggle. Then drag the app you want on the dock down to it. You can remove dock apps in the same way. Up to six apps can be stores in the quick-load dock.iPad mini 3
44.The notifications bar – how to use it
In iOS 5, released in 2011, Apple introduced an Android-like notifications bar. This is a quick-look update bar that you drag down from the top of the iPad mini’s screen. It will show you any recent updates – new messages, new emails, new app alerts and so on. More recently, this notifications bar was updated to let you post to let you Tweet directly from it – assuming you’re logged into Twitter within your iPad mini.
43. How to take a screenshot
The iPad mini lets you take a screenshot very quickly. Press the Home button and the power button on the top of the tablet at the same and then release them. You should see a white screen flash, indicating that what’s on-screen has been saved to your iPad’s camera roll image gallery as a picture.
iPad mini 242. Dictation keyboard
If you’re tired of tapping away at the iPad mini’s virtual keyboard, you can also talk to it. When connected to a Wi-Fi network, a microphone button will appear on the bottom line of the virtual keyboard. Tap this and you can freely talk to the iPad. The file will then be piped over to Apple’s servers and translated – Siri-style.
Customisation
iPad mini 141. How to change wallpapers
You’ve been able to choose your own wallpaper within iOS for some time now, and it’s the best way to put your stamp on your iPad mini. To change the wallpaper go to Settings > Brightness & Wallpaper and tap the images of your current wallpaper. You’ll then be able to choose your own image from the image gallery.
40. Wallpaper tips
For a perfect iPad mini wallpaper, your source image should be 1,024 x 768 pixels, the same resolution as the tablet’s screen. To keep your home screen’s icons looking vibrant, you may also want to darken or lighten the wallpaper image so that your tablet’s Home screen doesn’t look too busy. For Photoshop buffs, we recommend applying a black/white translucent layer of 10-30 per cent opacity over the image. To get the image onto your iPad, sync it using iTunes.
Battery life
39. Switch off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (and 3G)
If your iPad mini’s battery is running down quicker than expected, it’s probably because some errant app is trying to access the web more often than it should. Cutting down connectivity is a sure-fire way to keep stamina as strong as possible. The Wi-Fi and Bluetooth submenus are at the very top of the main Settings menu (just below Airplane Mode). Switch them off if not needed.
38. Turn off Push/fetch email
One of the worst offenders of trying to access the web when you’re not actually surfing is email. Getting quick email notifications is great, but it uses up battery. There are two ways to get your email updates, fetch and push. Push automatically sends the data from the server to your iPad mini as soon as it arrived for “instant” updates. Fetch makes the iPad look for the data every so many minutes. You can choose from every 15, 30 or 60 minutes, or choose to only look for data manually. You can take your pick in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
Security and Privacy
37. How to set a password
The iPad mini doesn’t offer that many security measures fresh out of the box, but you can set a passcode, which demands a four-number code is entered every time the device is locked, or once the iPad has been idle for a certain length of time (up to four hours). You can also set the iPad to completely format itself once the passcode has been wrongly-entered 10 times. Eek. These options are found in Settings > General, under Passcode Lock.
36. Switch off location services
Everyone knowing your location is one of the most legitimate “paranoid” concerns of the modern tech age. Plenty of iPad mini apps pinpoint you to a location, and will even make this public knowledge at times. You can turn this feature off if you’re worried, within Settings > Privacy. You’ll see the Location Services options at the top of this sub-menu.
35. Check out the Privacy menu to keep control
The iOS 6 software at the heart of the iPad mini keeps track of all the apps that ask for data from other apps – most often things like your calendar or your Twitter account. You can see which apps are trying to access this data in Settings > Privacy. Unless you’re downloading some seriously low-rent apps, you shouldn’t find anything to worry about, though.
34. Alerts and notifications
If you find that your iPad mini is bothering you a bit too much, you can turn off notifications for certain apps. This will come in particularly handy if you play free-to-play games – which are generally incessant naggers. Each of your apps gets an entry in the Settings > Notifications menu. You can select whether updates show up, how they appear and whether they pop-up on your lock screen or not.
33. Do Not Disturb – a godsend
For an even more carefree life, there’s Do Not Disturb. This is a mode that stops all notifications. It’s perfect if you fancy an afternoon snooze and don’t want to be awoken by the bleat of an attention-seeking iPad mini. The Do Not Disturb mode slider can be found towards the top of the Settings menu.
iPad mini
Video and Music
32. How to play your own video files
Getting a video library to play on the iPad mini can be tricky. Like any iOS device, it’s tied to iTunes and offers limited codec support. If your videos aren’t in MP4 or H.264 formats, they most likely won’t play. Already have these formats? No problem. Just add them to your iTunes library on your computer and select them to sync within the iPad mini page that pops-up when you connect.
If you use different formats, such as MKV, you need to do a bit more work. Option one is to transcode your videos using a piece of software like Handbrake – convert them to one to MP4 or H.264 and transfer them as above. Alternatively, you can use a third-party media player app like CineXPlayer HD or MediaPlayer HD Pro. These can play most formats without any conversion. To transfer files, you have to add them as “documents” associated to the app within iTunes.
31. You can set a volume limit (good for kids)
If your iPad mini is going to be used by young folk, it’s a good idea to set a music volume limit on it to avoid damage to their hearing. The iPad mini doesn’t go terribly loud, but better safe than sorry, eh? To set the limit, go to the Settings menu and scroll down to Music – which has an orange icon. Volume limit is the third item down this sub-menu.
30. iTunes Match – what is it?
iTunes Match is Apple’s alternative to Spotify – after a fashion. For £21.99 a year, you can stream your music collection without having it stored locally. Up to 25,000 songs can be added. You may end up streaming it at higher quality than you actually own too. iTunes Match streams directly from the iTunes library at 256kbps AAC. Up to 10 devices can use iTunes Match, making it a bit of a bargain if you have an iPad, iPhone, Macbook and Apple TV box. To use Match, you need to sign up using iTunes, then flick the iTunes Match switch that you’ll find in Settings > iTunes Match on your iPad mini.
iTunes Match
29. How to play FLAC files on an iPad mini
As we found with video, the iPad mini can’t play a great variety of files on its own. Apple offers its own lossless format, Apple lossless, but audio fans who have a big collection of FLAC or OGG music may not be satisfied with this. There are several apps that play FLAC and other audiophile files without conversion, including the £6.99 FLAC player, £5.49 Golden Ear and the £2.49 OPlayer HD. To transfer the files, you have to add them as app documents within iTunes.
28. iTunes U – what is it?
One of the more recent additions to the iTunes family is iTunes U. It’s a repository of free educational books, video and audio content from the world’s educational establishments. You can subscribe for free to these institutions’ feeds, making it much like subscribing to a podcast or a digital newspaper. iTunes U has its own app too. It’s the one with the mortar board on it.
Accessories etc.
27. Best accessories
Although the iPad mini has proved popular, there are still relatively few dedicated accessories available for it – many of the most interesting are still designed for use with a 30-pin socket, as used in the iPad 3 and iPhone 4S. Things like TV tuners, music controller docks, and super-size battery cases often aren’t quite up-to-date yet. There are a few gold nuggets, though. For example, iRig HD lets you plug a guitar into your iPad mini and make it function as your guitar amp. It’ll be a few months before accessory stalwarts like Mophie, Griffin and co. catch up.
iRig HD
26. Best cases
Forgetting the official iPad mini cases for now, other top-notch cases include the Otterbox Mini Defender, Tech21 Impact Snap and the radiation-reducing Pong iPad mini case. If your iPad is going to be out and about, we recommend looking for a case that protects both the back and front of the tablet. A Smart Cover just isn’t going to cut it.
25. How to use AirPrint
AirPrint is built into the iPad mini, and lets you print directly from many apps over your Wi-Fi network. It’s easy to use, as long as your setup meets a few basic criteria. First, your printer needs to be Wi-Fi enabled. Both your iPad mini and printer need to be connected to the same wireless network for AirPrint to function. Your printer also needs to support AirPrint. Search your printer maker’s website to check it is, and always make sure it’s running the latest firmware if you encounter problems.
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Siri Secrets
24. How to use Siri
Siri is the iPad mini’s virtual assistant. She was treated to a load of improvements with the introduction
of iOS, and can now do more than ever. To fire-up Siri, just hold down on the Home key. You’ll need to
be connected to the internet for Siri to work, though. Just talk to her and she’ll do her best to answer.
Here are a few of the new things she can do.
Siri logo
23. She finds movie times
Siri is now equipped with the ability to find out about films including reviews, cast lists and cinema
times. Before the iPad mini, she would boot you out into the web browser to find out these bits of info,
but now she can grab it herself.
22. She navigates through the streets
In a similar fashion, Siri can now give you directions to locations using Apple Maps. Apple’s maps are
notoriously flaky, though, so you may be best off just using Google Maps, sans Siri.
21. Siri is a sports expert
Siri also knows a lot about sports these days. She can find you the results of games, and future fixtures.
She’s not all that optimised for the UK, though, so can occasionally confuse UK teams for US ones.
Storage
20. How to use iCloud
iCloud is Apple’s Cloud storage solution. If enabled, it’ll backup all sorts of info to Apple’s servers. It’s
so important, it gets its own sub-menu within Settings. There you’ll find an on-off flick switch for all the
information types you can sync, including calendar, mail, contacts, reminders and photos. To see how
much data you’re using, tap the Storage & Backup button at the bottom of this sub-menu.
iCloud logo
19. Photostream
One of the most obvious uses for Apple iCloud is Photostream. This uploads all your iPad mini photos
to Apple’s servers for safekeeping. It’ll only do so over Wi-Fi to save you data (if you use a 3G iPad
mini). These photos can then be accessed from any other recent iOS devices – iPhones and iPod
touches.
18. iTunes Wi-Fi sync
Although your iPad mini is tied to iTunes, you no longer need to physically connect the tablet to your
computer in order to sync. As long as your Mac/PC are on the same Wi-Fi network, you can do so
wirelessly. To enable Wi-Fi sync, go to the General tab in your iPad mini’s Settings menu while the two
devices are hooked-up to the same network.
Browsing
17. You can switch search engines
Had enough of Google? Your iPad mini can use a couple of other browsers to search the web too. The
Safari browser can be set to use Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft’s engine Bing. To make your selection go
to Settings > Safari. The menu item is at the top of the list.
Search logos
16. Private browsing
Safari also offers a private browsing mode, which makes sure not to save any of your history, or any
cookies and so on while you’re using the mode. Once again, you’ll find this within the Safari sub-menu
of the Settings menu.
Hacking
15. Available hacks and how-to
iOS devices are hacked with bits of software called Jailbreaks. These crack the encryption of the iOS
software, giving you access to the heart of the device’s “brain”. Devs are working on a hack for the
latest Apple devices, but there’s a bit of a snag – in late 2012, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
deemed that jailbreaking of phones was legal, but doing the same to tablets was not. It’s down to the
legitimate uses of a jailbreak, and that there are more non-piracy related reasons with a phone than a
tablet. Hence, the jailbreak for iPad mini may never be released. We’ll keep an eye on this one.
Social and email
14. Adding a second email account
Apple likes to keep things simple, but sometimes this backfires. Try and add a second email account to
your iPad mini and you may find you can’t. That’s because the option isn’t within the email client itself
but – you guessed it – the entirely separate Settings menu. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars
and at the top of the sub-menu you’ll find the Accounts options. This lists all your current email accounts.
At the bottom is an Add Account option. iPad mini
13. FaceTime – a primer
FaceTime has been around since 2010. It’s an Apple alternative to Skype, letting you video chat for free
with other iOS device owners. You can now also chat over 3G. Previously the service was only available
over Wi-Fi. FaceTime has its own
12. iMessage lets you text iPhones
The iPad mini is not a phone, but you can “text” iPhones with one. Its Messaging app uses iMessage.
When iPhones are connected to the web, this is what they use to communicate with other iOS devices
instead of SMS. You won’t receive any of these messages when you’re not connected to the net, but it’s
a super-handy feature.
11. …Check out Whatsapp for other devices
There are ways to similarly contact people not using iOS devices, but you won’t get them from Apple.
By far the most popular communicator app like this is WhatsApp. It’ll let you talk to iPhone owners,
Android fans… and even the BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Phone underclasses. Unfortunately,
Whatapp only works with jailbroken iPads - it's designed for use with phones, and needs to be
validated with a phone number.
Apps and games
10. Download Appshopper for the latest freebies
One of the best app-finding resources for the iPad mini is AppShopper. It’s a website, and it’s also an
app, available for free from iTunes. It’s a supremely useful app for gaming and app obsessives, letting
you track the latest apps that people are actually downloading (rather than having to sift through the
stream of rubbish releases), and shows you the latest price drops and apps that have recently become
freebies.
9. Many apps have their own options within Settings
Apps frequently have additional menu options that you won’t find in the apps themselves. If there’s
something you want to change in an app, but can’t see how to do it, make sure to see if the app has an
entry in the iPad mini’s Settings menu. Here you’ll often find more advanced or techy settings.
8. Having problems? Close it down
The claim that iPhones and iPads don’t have bugs is pure nonsense. iOS just hides them well. If you
find that an app freezes or misbehaves, you can shut it down easily. First, hit the Home key to leave the
app. This won’t shut it down, though. You need to double tap the home key to bring up the multi-tasking
menu. Now, hold down a finger on the app in question’s icon on this pop-up menu until a little red “stop”
mini-icon appears on it. Tap this mini-icon to close the app. Press the Home button to make the multi-
tasking menu disappear and you should be able to run the app as normal once more.
7. Download Google Maps, stat
One of the worst parts of the iPad mini’s iOS 6 software is something that was meant to be a key
features - Apple Maps. This replaced Google Maps, but poor maps and journey planning earned Apple
a bucketful of scorn. For a while, we had to make do, but now Google Maps is available as a separate
download from iTunes. It is much, much better. So if you have any need to maps, get download it now.
6. How to delete apps
Deleting apps on the iPad mini is dead simple. You can do it directly from the home screen. Just hold a
finger down an app icon until the icons on-screen start jiggling. Tap the cross on an app’s icon now and
you’ll be asked if you want to delete it. Simple as. Any downloaded apps can easily be re-download
from iTunes, by heading into the App Store app, tapping Updates and then Purchased. Here you’ll find
a list of your previously-downloaded apps. iPad mini 1
5. How to get cheaper iTunes credit
Cheap iTunes credit is hard to come by, but occasionally you can save a chunk if you’re willing to buy a
decent amount. Supermarkets like Tesco and Morrisons, and retailers like Argos, sometimes offer
multi-buy deals on iTunes gift cards. Deals like two £25 iTunes cards for £40 are the most common.
An iPad mini for work
4. Pages is the best iPad mini Office suite
If you need to do some work on your iPad mini, rather than just playing games and browsing the net,
Pages is a must-download app. It’s Apple’s official Office suite, letting you make and edit documents,
presentations, spreadsheets – all the fun stuff. It costs £6.99, making it a fair bit more expensive than
most apps, but a decent office suite is essential for this sort of work.
3. The iPad mini can use Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard too
Although the iPad mini is a good deal smaller than the iPad 4, it can still use the Bluetooth keyboard
that Apple advertises for use with its other tablets. It’s a high-quality wireless keyboard that costs
around £57. Alternatively, you can use any number of cheaper third-party wireless keyboards.
Accessibility tweaks
2. Inverted colours – what it’s for no-one knows
Here’s an odd one. You can invert the colours of the iPad mini’s display – make white black, and
orange blue. We find it most useful as a prank to play on friends, but it’s actually listed within the
accessibility features of the tablet. It may come in handy for colour blind folk, and also cuts down on
screen glare if you’re reading web pages or books in the dark. To check out the mode go to Settings >
General > Accessibility and tap Invert Colors. iPad mini 2
1. "Zoom" mode
If your close-range sight isn’t so good, you may appreciate the zoom mode. Tap quickly three times on
the Home button and the screen will zoom in by about 30 per cent, making everything that bit bigger. It’s
just for a quick closer look, as it makes part of the screen inaccessible, and does simply stretch the
image, but we bet most of you haven’t come across it before.
And a bonus for good luck... VoiceOver, large text for those with poor sight
There’s another accessibility feature that completely changed the way your iPad mini works. It’s called
VoiceOver and uses voice synthesis to read out the name of anything you put your finger on. Names of
apps, text – just about everything. To actually select an item you tap twice rather than once in this mode.
Other accessibility options include being able to ramp-up text size and interface with external Braille
accessories (over Bluetooth). To find these options, head to Settings > General > Accessibility.
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