As you probably have heard, iOS 4.2 was released last week. It promised a slew of great features, such as multi-tasking, airplay and airprint. Here’s a quick review and a how-to, in case you got stuck with any of this stuff.
To my mind (and probably to most people’s), what makes Apple “special” is how easy to use their stuff is. There’s nothing great about their hardware – for the most part, they use the same guts – or even lower quality – than everybody else. It’s just that you don’t waste your time figuring out basic stuff. That being said, I wasted some time figuring out the iOS 4.2 update – more difficult for me than many as I don’t own an iPhone – most reviews say “just do this the same was as you do it on your iPhone” – so I thought I’d pass along some tips and my thoughts.
Multitasking: Not my biggest complaint about the iPad, as it already did multi-task in some important ways – eg, you could use the iPod functionality and web surf if that’s what floats your boat (I might have done this once or twice – FWIW, I almost never listen to music through my iPad). Now you can listen to music on Pandora and do the same thing.
TIP: to engage multitasking, press the “home” button (the only button) twice and then choose another app.
REVIEW: Unfortunately, you can’t do the kind of multi-tasking I’d actually like to do! That is, have actual working tabs in the browser, so I can listen to a video or audio in one tab and read content from another tab This is something I do all the time on my regular computer. Hope they fix this. Grade: B
AirPrint: At last! You can print from an iPad! This should open up a huge potential audience of folks who don’t need a “real” computer, but do need to print a boarding pass, a photo, a recipe, a letter, etc from time to time.
TIP: In case you haven’t heard yet, AirPrint does not work unless you have a brand-new HP printer with airprint built in. You won’t figure this out though – when you go to print something by clicking the square with an arrow icon in Safari, you’ll see a “Print” option. Then you’ll get a chance to “Select Printer.” Then you’ll get a “no printers found” message. Then you’ll waste 15-30 minutes of your life checking out your printers, your Mac sharing settings, and looking this up on Google till you find the awful truth. There are supposedly some apps that can work around this and allow you to print from an iPad, but they cost $10 apiece and I don’t really care that much so I haven’t investigated. I wasted about 15 minutes of my life before I sussed this out.
REVIEW: Are you freakin’ kiddin’ me? A colossal blunder and a huge wasted opportunity to sell millions of iPads to grandparents everywhere (or for their kids to buy them for them). Sure, force everybody to buy new printers. This rates high on my “Bad Apples” list. Grade: F
AirPlay: Gives you the ability to watch videos on your iPad on your Apple TV-connected TV.
TIP: when you open a movie in the Videos app, you’ll see a little icon to the right of the normal stop and play buttons. You can choose Airplay from there.
REVIEW: nice for the coolness factor, but the only real way I’d use this is to have the option of buying a video for $1.99 instead of renting one on Apple TV for $0.99, if I meant to watch it multiple times. Grade: A-
Find on Page: Almost an Easter egg, it’s hidden so well. In Safari, if you start a Google search, at the bottom of the dropdown list of “Google Suggestions” you’ll see “On this page”.
REVIEW: nice to have. Grade: A
Folders: You can now create folders to organize your apps.
TIP: to create a folder, you press your finger on an icon till it starts shaking, then drag and drop it onto another one. This was not apparent to me and I had to look it up…
REVIEW: Again, well hidden Apple! Had to Google this to figure it out. I found folders most useful for lumping together all the Apps I don’t use that much so they take up less desktop space. The apps and bookmarks I use all the time can now be seen on the first page and are still one click away. Unfortunately, if you really organized all your apps this way, you’d have to not only use an extra click to get anywhere, but you’d have to remember, “now where did I put Remote? In “Productivity” or “Entertainment”? Grade: B
Bottom Line: They really blew it with AirPrint, which is the one single feature that could have been a game changer. And it would have been nice if the features were a little more obvious to figure out. On the other hand, it’s free, so now that you know how to use it, go get it!