Table of contents for Issue 57 in iPad User Magazine

i PadOS allows you to connect an external drive to your iPad, whether it’s an iPad Pro with USB-C or a Lightning iPad (with an adaptor). We tested it using an iPad Pro and a powered USB-C hub. We were able to connect USB sticks, memory cards and USB hard drives. They appear in the Files app under Locations. Tap on a file and you can drag it to another location, even to a different external drive. Tap and hold a file, and a contextual menu appears, allowing you to Quick Look, tag and rename files, among other options. Sadly, Apple’s apps can’t see the external storage, so you can’t add a thumb drive full of MP3 files to Music, for example.…

Performance has improved significantly in iPadOS. Apple claims that apps launch twice as fast and that FaceID unlocking on the 11in iPad Pro and the latest 12.9in iPad Pro are 30% faster. App downloads are half the size they were, and updates 60% smaller. iPadOS also gets the privacy and security features that are in iOS, like controlling location data that’s passed to apps, and the anti-fingerprinting protection in Safari. And Sign in with Apple is available in iPadOS, allowing you to sign into apps and websites with your AppleID, and set up a unique email address for confirmation messages. Apps launch twice as fast, with downloads half the size they were Text editing is one area where iPadOS users may not benefit as much as iPhone users. Many iPad…

1 See what’s available When you’re writing a new message, you’ll see a little App Store icon to the right of the camera icon for taking pictures. If you tap on the App Store icon, you’ll be presented with a row full of colourful Messages app icons. 2 Tap and hold It’s not always obvious what each of these icons is actually for, so tap and hold on one to see what each really does. Swipe from left to right get to the start of the list: tap the blue App Store icon to be able to download more. 3 Choose your app We’ve chosen Giphy, where we can find memes to put in our messages. As you can see, tapping the app icon effectively opens a panel with the…

IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to share private family photos between iOS and Android devices YOU’LL NEED 23Snaps app, some pictures to share Thanks to our ever-present iPad or iPhone, we’re likely to take photographs at any time and in any place. This presents us with the challenge of sharing of our favourite shots (and video clips) with friends and family members. Apple’s Photos app enables you share albums via Cloud so that friends can post photos to the shared album and add comments to individual pictures. However, this only works if everyone involved has an Apple device and subscribes to iCloud. If you want to share photos between iPhones and Android devices then you can use the 23snaps - Family Album app instead. This cross-platform…

1 Scan a document In iScanner press the + icon. Tap to choose Camera. Point the iPad’s camera lens at the document. iScanner will automatically detect the file and isolate it from other items with a blue overlay. It will then snap a still. 2 Correct composition Tap the bottom-right icon to view the document. If the edges are untidy or the document is distorted tap the Crop icon. Drag the blue handles to lose unwanted edges and correct distortion. Tap Save. 3 Remove creases A folded document may suffer from creases. Tap the greyscale icon and then tweak the brightness slider at the left and contrast slider at the right until the shadows and creases vanish while the text is clear. Tap Done. 4 Convert to text You can…

Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 ★★★★★ £199.95 cambridgeaudio.com High-end hi-fi firm Cambridge Audio brings its knowledge to true wireless headphones, and the result is fantastic. Clarity and presence are the keywords here, qualities these headphones deliver in spades. Bass blooms and thumps, but never overpowers the rest of the mix, and vocals always stay crisp. Battery life is outstanding; you get nine hours from the buds themselves, with a further 36 hours of juice contained within their charging case. Ring Stick Up Cam Battery ★★★★ £179 ring.com The Ring Stick Up Cam Battery is a flexible, cable-free security camera that can be placed almost anywhere – indoors or out. Its feature list is impressive, too, with a 1080 HD video feed to the app, two-way audio, night vision and a siren…

Autumn is here, which for iPad users means only one thing: a new version of iOS to get excited about. Except this time it isn’t iOS, because for the first time, Apple’s tablet is getting its own software: iPadOS. iOS still exists on the iPhone, and almost all features are shared between the two systems, but the iPad gets some custom new tweaks for the bigger screen. Here, we’ll take you through the stand-out changes, from Dark Mode to new multitasking tools, to smarter Apple Pencil options, and more. Apple has been trying to turn the iPad into a computer for serious work ever since the launch of the first iPad Pro. It has been hindered though by decisions it took early on with iOS, like the lack of a…

The main new accessibility feature in iPadOS, like iOS, is Voice Control, but there is another that Apple hasn’t highlighted – the ability to connect a USB or Bluetooth mouse. You need to switch it on, and to do that you’ll need to dig deep into the Touch section of Accessibility in Settings. But once it’s activated, and you’ve chosen the device you want to use (and paired it if it’s a Bluetooth mouse) you’ll see a cursor on the screen that you’ll be able to move using the mouse. It’s currently set up to be used with the Assistive Touch menu, which allows you to do things you’d normally do with gestures, like go to the Home screen or see Control Centre. In short, not a mainstream feature, but…

1 More on screen The new Home screen features six columns of five app icons, plus up to 18 in the Dock, even when you have the Today View on screen. Today View can be set to be persistent, or appear when you swipe from the left of the screen. 2 Light and Dark The new Dark Mode looks great on the iPad, and can be set to alternate with Light mode at a schedule you set or from sunset to sunrise. Some of the new Wallpapers also change when Dark Mode is switched on. 3 Cycling through apps You can now have multiple apps in Slide Over, including multiple windows from the same app. You cycle through them by swiping along the bottom. To see all the instances of…

IT WILL TAKE 40 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to use VLOOKUP and tick boxes to auto-generate a summary sheet YOU’LL NEED iOS 12 or higher and Numbers installed and updated Summary sheets are commonly used to pull together useful information. In this example, we’re pulling out a subset of data from a table rather than compiling a new table from multiple sources, using a table of scores for a set of participants in a monthly test. How can we show each participant’s personal progress? Creating a separate table or sheet for every participant would mean a lot of manual duplication. Instead, we can make a single summary sheet that will update with the data for any participant we select. We’ve used a separate sheet for two reasons: firstly, it’s…

1 Set up a profile Tap Add Children. Browse to a photo and pinch to scale it to show your child’s face. Tap Done. Add details such as their birthday. Tap Save. This adds them to My Family. Tap Add Someone to add another child. 2 Add information Tap on the child’s profile icon in the My Family category. Tap the + icon. Tap on an icon to add their height, weight, status update or share a video clip. By tapping Story you can share a mix of text and images. 3 Share a story Give the story a title and describe the occasion. Tap to add photos. Choose shots from your Library. Tap Done. Tap Continue. Tap to tag family members to that you want to share the story…

IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to choose and configure a VPN YOU’LL NEED An iPad, a VPN app There are several VPN services with iOS apps, and many of them have free tiers Hooking up your iPad or iPhone to a public Wi-Fi network, whether on a train, in a shopping centre, or in a city  centre, is a great way to save data and improve connection speed. However, it also presents security issues. Your data passes through routers and servers owned by whoever is providing the Wi-Fi, and that means it’s at risk of being intercepted. At the very least, the Wi-Fi operator knows what sites you visit and services you use, and can target you with marketing and advertising on that basis. Protect your…

The beefed up Files app is another improvement that makes even more sense on the iPad than it does on iPhone. iPad Pro users especially will benefit from what is evolving into a desktop-like file system. In addition to connecting to external drives and servers, you can scan documents directly into Files and put them where you want them. Column view allows you to easily dig into nested folders, just like on macOS. Also like macOS, Column view displays metadata below the preview of the file. And Quick Actions enable you to rotate, markup, or create a PDF in Files. Search suggestions, keyboard shortcuts, and the ability to zip and unzip archives round out a feature set in an app that’s sure to become crucial to the development of the…

IT WILL TAKE 5 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to expand Messages with apps YOU’LL NEED iOS 10 or later Have you ever been chatting with someone in Messages and had to exit the app to find something, copy it and then  return to Messages and paste it into the conversation? Messages apps mean you may not need to do that any more. Apple has opened the Messages app up to developers, and they’ve responded with all kinds of apps designed to make Messages more capable. You can insert stickers, files, amusing images, social media links or pretty much anything else you might want to share. The App Store is positively packed with Messages apps. There are apps for translation, for arranging nights out, for banking and saving and travel…

1 Create a spreadsheet Open Numbers and tap Create Spreadsheet, then Blank. This creates a single sheet with one table. Unlike in Excel, you don’t get infinite cells. Tap the formatting brush, then Table to set the size – here it’s 13 columns. 2 Enter some data We want to summarise the data for each person, so start by entering names in the first column. (If you wanted your summary sheet to show data for each month, you could list months vertically and people horizontally.) 3 Autofill month headings Type ‘January’ as the next column heading, then tap Cell at the top right of the on-screen keyboard (or bottom right of the screen), tap Autofill Cells, and drag the right handle of the yellow box across to fill in 12…

IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to scan documents onto your iPad in easy-to-share formats YOU’LL NEED iScanner app, something to scan Your home office may contain hundreds of paper documents cluttering up rows of shelves. Even if you’re organised enough to put your paper work into labelled folders it can still be a time-consuming task to find a specific file. By scanning your paper documents via the iScanner app on an iPad and storing them digitally, you can free up physical shelf space. You can then pop the original documents in the attic in case they are required in future, but the scanned versions will be much easier to find and share. Scan and crop iScanner makes the scanning process quick and easy. The app doesn’t…

1 Choose an app Go to the App Store and search for ‘VPN’. Read the description, reviews, and terms and conditions of apps that interest you. Check how the service treats your data, whether it’s logged and whether the service displays ads. 2 Download the app Once you’ve chosen an app, check how its free service is structured. Most are free to download, though only offer a free trial version. Choose one that offers free service beyond just a trial period. Tap Get when you’re happy. 3 Launch the app You’ll need to create an account, so start by filling in email and password details. You’ll need to confirm your email address, too. Once you’ve confirmed your address, you’ll be able to switch on the VPN. 4 Give the app…