Table of contents for Issue 24 in iPad User Magazine

The App Store is one of the greatest strengths of the iPad – turning it from a shiny sheet of glass into… well, just about anything. And yet, a lot of what we do on the iPad happens in iOS itself, or in Apple’s provided apps. In this issue, we’re diving into some of the new and changed features of the iOS 9 update from the end of 2015. We’ll look at how you can search better for things online and on your device using the new Spotlight feature (and its useful Siri proactive suggestions), how to work more fluidly using Handoff and the expanded keyboard features, how to get to grips with the Apple News app, and how to use the powerful new email attachment options. We also look…

You might think there’s little else Apple can do with playlists, but Apple Music’s social side means some more useful features. Custom artwork When you create a playlist (either on iOS or in iTunes on a Mac), there are a couple of new personalisations you can make besides its name. If you’re going to share the playlist, you might want to fill out a description for others to read. Tap the camera on the artwork placeholder to add your own artwork – either by taking a new photo, or by picking artwork you’ve already stored in the Photos app. Share a playlist You can share a link to a playlist on social networks or privately by tapping the More Options button next to a playlist in the master list of…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU’LL NEED iOS 9.1 Apple’s News app provides you with a single place to catch up on happenings related to all your interests, whether that’s current affairs, technology updates, the world of entertainment or something else. If you’ve ever subscribed to a favourite website’s updates using RSS, you’ll be familiar with the concept – the difference here is that you don’t need to visit a site using the Safari web browser. Instead, news organisations and other types of publishers sign up to be listed in Apple’s catalogue of content providers, which you can browse in the News app and tap a button to add them to your customised digital newspaper or magazine, however you want to view it. Of…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it IT WILL TAKE 5 minutes YOU’LL NEED iPad, iOS 9 Few features in iOS change the way you use an iPad as radically as learning to use Spotlight, Apple’s one-stop shop for finding anything on your device. Accessing it is easy: to reveal the Spotlight Search bar, just swipe a finger down from the middle of the Home screen (or in practice, from anywhere below the top edge of the screen) or swipe right on the first Home screen of apps on your iPad. You can search for all kinds of things using Spotlight, and it’s the sheer range of options available that makes Spotlight so impressive. As well as the obvious things – Contacts, Music, Mail and Messages – you can also search…

Apple has at last introduced a music streaming service that, for a monthly fee comparable to similar services such as Spotify, gives you access to millions of songs by artists big and small. For £9.99 a month, or £14.99 to allow up to five other family members to use it too, you can explore hundreds of years of musical heritage and hear brand-new releases on your iPad, iPhone, Mac, Windows PC and Apple Watch – and more recently from your Apple TV, with Android devices to follow suit. Obviously, we’ve focused the majority of our tips on the iPad and iPhone versions (which are almost identical), but the features we describe also apply to iTunes 12.2 on your computer, though there are a few things that are possible only on…

The New and For You pages are key to discovering new music. The former shows new releases, much like the front page of the iTunes Store, and is worth checking out from time to time if you find that you rarely visit the store after subscribing to Apple Music. However, bear in mind that not everything that’s sold in the iTunes Store is available in the Apple Music library.) The New page has numerous categories for you to explore, some of which are persistently featured, while others are timed to major events in the music industry calendar. It works well as a summary, but with so much scrolling and tapping and no guarantee that you’ll find anything you like, discovering music this way can feel like a lot of work,…

SKILL LEVEL Taking things further IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes YOU’LL NEED iOS 9 For many of us, our iPhone or iPad has become just as much an essential tool for work as a Mac. We use it to make phone calls, send messages, record appointments, research things and, of course, send email. The last of those tasks, however, has been hamstrung by a glaring omission – the inability to add attachments. Sure, you could send a file as an attachment from within the app where it’s viewed or created, using share sheets, but you couldn’t add an attachment to an email in the same way you could on a Mac – while composing your message. That is, until now. Of all the new features in iOS 9, this –…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU’LL NEED iPad, iOS 9 Podcasts are audio and video shows made available online, the overwhelming majority of them for free. Some are professionally produced, but many are made by people who simply love their subject matter. Your iPad comes with a Podcasts app for listening to them, and Apple provides a catalogue of podcasts for you to browse, just like you would the iTunes Store or the App Store. There’s a huge range of podcasts available, and the topics are as varied as the people who create them. It’s easy to find shows that fit your interests; you can search manually, and Apple highlights notable shows and charts what’s popular. You can download individual episodes or subscribe to…