iPad work efficiency – Make a gesture

iPad work efficiency using gestures

With the amazing range of applications we have available now for using with our iPad we can get fantastic iPad work efficiency. It doesn’t matter what it is you want to do, there’s going to be an app for that. One of the ways to increase your iPad work efficiency is to make full use of the control gestures. I often use the four finger swipe to moving between applications. Then there is the five digit pinch. With this you can quickly get back to your home screen from whatever application you’re usinf. If you’re already on the iPad home screen and you do the four digit pinch, I found it will take you to the iOS search. It is easier to use the single finger swipe downwards on the home screen to get to your iOS search, but at least you have another option. If you have a lot of applications open and the app you require is going to be a few wipes away don’t forget you can double-click on the home button. Instead of double-clicking on the home button you can also do a four finger swipe upwards. It’s a good idea to use this rather than the button as it will save the wear and tear on a mechanical switch. This will take you to a view showing you all of the open applications on your iPad. If you feel the need to close down background applications this is where you go. With a swipe upwards you can completely closedown an application on your iPad. Because of the way the iPad works with the sand boxing it isn’t usually necessary to close down background applications. Having these applications sitting there in the background shouldn’t have any effect upon how well your iPad is working. So you shouldn’t notice your iPad slowing down just because you have a lot of background applications.

Moving around quickly and efficiently in Safari

I often find it very useful to have a look things are closer on a webpage. For this you have the pinch to zoom gesture. With two fingers or a finger and a thumb on the screen moving them either closer together or further apart you will be able to zoom in and out of the page view. If you’re having difficulty selecting something small on the screen uses pinch to zoom to get yourself in closer. There are times when we find ourselves on a very long webpage and we need to get back to the beginning. The quickest and easiest way to do this is to tap on the top menu. This is the menu at the very top which includes the time in the centre and the status of the battery over in the top right-hand corner.

iPad work efficiency with widgets and notifications

There are some handy widgets and notifications to use on your iPad. Swapping down with one finger from the very top of the screen will open up the view of the widgets and notifications. So if you want to get a quick view of a weather forecast or whatever you might have in your calendar for the day this is the place to look. You can get some marvellous iPad work efficiency if you’ve set up some of the widgets for the applications you use. I make a lot of use of the Day One application for journalling and that is at the top of my list for iPad widgets. The application Copied has a useful widget allowing you to have a look at whatever you save to your clipboard. I recommend that you should be using two factor authentication 2FA. To do two factor authentication recommend the use of the application Authy which has a widget given you quick access to the time sensitive one-off codes.

Swiping up from the bottom of the screen

This gives you quick access to a few of the basic features of your iPad in the control panel. If you need to adjust the brightness of the screen or turn on the orientation lock this is the place to go. I sometimes use this to get access to Airplay if I want to send a video on watching on the iPad to my TV. From this small screen you can gain quick access to your camera turn night mode on or off and access a timer. For me, I find the quickest way to set a timer is to use Siri.

Swapping in other applications

In Photos you can swipe between photos in your albums. There are photomanipulation applications which use gestures to apply effects. In some will move up and down on the screen with your finger to change between the effect available. Then you move to the left or to the right to apply the amount of that effect to the image. Generally the gestures used within an application have to be fairly simple or have to be well explained within help files. If the gesture is too complicated or unusual then is not going to use because people either won’t know about it or won’t remember it. Something for developers to remember when designing their applications with gestures to help us with our iPad work efficiency.

At the end of a fully post-PC experience

It’s been a better experience to write this application in Ulysses on my iMac. This is because of the speed and efficiency I get from using DragonDictate. It is good to know that because I’m short of time before going to work all of this document will be available to me to use on my iPad. I expect when I get a break at work to connect to the Internet via the iPhone personal hotspot and to publish this blog post. It’s great to have the best of both worlds with a full Apple system! Now I have iPad work efficiency combined with my Mac OS X desktop efficiency.