iPad User Magazine

welcome

I love my AirPods. I think they’re the one piece of Apple technology I value more than anything else I own. Of course, I use my iPhone and iPad all the time, but I tend to take them for granted. That might be because I don’t lose them as regularly as my AirPods, or it could be because they don’t need to be charged as often. But when I’m without my AirPods, due to either a flat battery or I’ve lost them (again), I really do notice it. I’m still using a pair of 2nd generation Apple AirPods, and haven’t found it necessary to upgrade to the AirPods Pro yet. I’m aware that when my AirPods have finally been worn to death I’m going to have to buy an expensive replacement,…

art apps for ipad

The iPad is the perfect platform for creating digital art. Not so long ago touch-based design interfaces were prohibitively expensive, but now anyone with an iPad – and one of the very affordable apps on the market – can dive into the world of design. It’s not just that iPad hardware has improved, though of course innovations like the Apple Pencil make working with graphics much more naturalistic. It’s also that developers have worked hard to make their apps advanced yet usable, bringing all the power and features of desktop design apps to the iPad platform in a way that hasn’t generally been achieved yet with other creative tools. Obviously, you’ll get the most out of design apps if you bring some design skills to the table, but the apps we test…

things to consider…

1 Learning curve All these apps allow you to create complex artwork, but it’s also vital that they’re accessible to beginners so that you can develop skills and progress. 2 Brushes At the heart of every art app is its selection of brushes and their versatility. In some apps these go way beyond simple textures, with incredible oil, blending and 3D effects. 3 Traditional or modern Some apps are geared towards creating more traditional paintings or drawings, while others lean towards modern typography, contemporary graphics, and design. 4 Output and sync More output options means more flexibility in terms of getting your work off your iPad. In some cases, cloud sync enables you to continue working on projects in other apps.…

procreate

All of the apps on test here require you to have a modicum of artistic skill. Some are better for traditional painting, others for logos and vectors, and all benefit from the addition of an Apple Pencil. Adobe’s Fresco is delightful for painting and sketching, while Illustrator is good at shapes, paths, and vectors. Affinity Designer is astonishingly powerful and for the price is an excellent buy for more heavyweight artists, however it could overwhelm less experienced users. Procreate is just a one-off £9.99, and strikes a fantastic balance of slick iOS workflow with an excellent and accessible feature set. Creating and tweaking is easy but powerful, with Photoshop-like layer effects and adjustments complementing more traditional drawing tools. Everything is quick to pick up, and the results look stunning. The Brush Designer, whether…

use a mouse to navigate microsoft office

IT WILL TAKE 5 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to pair a mouse with your iPad YOU’LL NEED A Bluetooth mouse, an iPad, Microsoft Office For many users, a laptop is becoming less of a necessity if you want to compute on the go. Ever since the iPad launched in 2010, it has gradually edged into Mac territory and the release of Microsoft Office for iPad four years later proved significant given its high standing in the workplace. Accessories such as the Magic Keyboard which rolled out earlier this year have closed the gap further and it’s now possible not only to use a mouse with the latest app versions of Word and Excel but a trackpad too – so long as your iPad has iPadOS 13 or later installed, that is. Assuming you do,…

save and manage your pdfs in books

IT WILL TAKE 5 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to download a PDF to the Books app on your iPad YOU’LL NEED An iPad, the Books app, some PDFs Your iPad is well-equipped to deal with PDFs. Not only can you mark them up by drawing or writing across them, you can open them in Mail, view via a browser and even enjoy them within apps. It’s even possible to turn webpages into PDFs using iPadOS – either tap the Share button, select ‘Print’ and zoom out of the Preview thumbnail, or tap ‘AA’ in the URL bar and select ‘Show Reader View’. In such cases, you can then copy the PDFs to Apple’s Books app, ensuring they’re neatly to hand and manageable. They end up in their own PDF section, but you can…