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Jennifer, I remember the first time I saw an iPad and I was struck by how few buttons
are on that thing. I know what you mean; the iPad is designed to be used primarily by touching
its surface, but there are a few physical buttons that we need to explore, along with
their functions. Let's start with the power button, or what Apple calls the wake/sleep
button. And this is located at the top of the iPad, which brings us to the question:
Where is the top? That's a great place to start, and let's solve this problem by first
taking a look at the iPad and holding it vertically. Make sure to place the circle button at the
bottom. We'll get back to this button in just a second. Next, locate the top edge of the
iPad and run your finger along it. The wake/sleep button is located here. Press and hold down
on this button to turn your iPad on. You're going to see the Apple logo when the iPad
is turning on before being taken to the homescreen. Once the iPad is turned on, this same wake/sleep
button can be used to save the iPad's battery by putting it into sleep by quickly tapping
on it once. Notice the screen will go black, but the iPad is still powered on. It's using
just a little bit of energy in this mode. Tap this button again quickly to wake the
iPad and to continue to use it. The last function of the wake/sleep button is to turn off the
iPad completely. If you know you're going to be done using your iPad for an extended
period of time, or simply want to power it off, press and hold the wake/sleep button
for about two seconds. You will then see the "slide to power off" notification. Use your
finger to swipe from left to right. Jennifer, that one button did a lot; I bet a lot of
people were not aware of all of its functions. Now, let's move over and talk about the function
of the home button. The home button is the only button on the front of the iPad, and
it has an icon of a square with rounded edges. Much like we saw with the wake/sleep button,
the home button has a number of different uses as well. Some are a little bit more obvious
than others. First, pressing the home button will wake your iPad if it is in sleep mode,
just like the quick tap of the wake/sleep button. Second, pressing the home button will
return us to the homescreen if we are using an app. That's super useful. Our next button
controls the volume, and it is located on the side of our iPad (remember having that
home button on the bottom). Good point of reference for us. Some models of the iPad
have just one button that controls the volume, while other models have two buttons to control
the volume. What you're going to want to do here is press the volume button closest to
the top to increase volume, and press the side button closest to the bottom to decrease
the volume. Jennifer, we have one last item to explore, something that's called the side
switch. This switch is set to mute your iPad without having to use the volume button, which
is super useful in a classroom full of kids. Yes, but this switch can be changed to play
a completely different role, something called lock rotation. This is done in the Settings
app, but don't worry about it now; we're going to talk about that in our iPad Intermediate
course. If for some reason lock rotation happens to be turned on, this means that someone else
has already set this thing up for you. Rich, I want to go a little further on lock rotation.
What that simply means is that the iPad can be forced to stay in landscape or portrait
mode when it is turned 90 or more degrees. Ultimately, it's going to be your choice as
to what you choose to assign to the switch. We covered all of the buttons and the switch
on the outside of the iPad, and now it's time to move on. Check out our next episode on
Basic Gestures to begin exploring how to interact with the iPad in a quick and easy way.