Summer days were made for kicking back and using your iPad while your kids are out bouncing on their Needak trampoline. However, if you find that the iPad is more of a headache than a relaxing tool, you will want to consider some simple shortcuts and tricks that will help you to reduce the stress you end up having.

Perhaps the most convenient will be the fact that your comma key will be able to do quite a bit for you. For example, those who swipe up quickly on the comma key will find that they can insert an apostrophe. If you do this same action with the period, you get quotes. This saves you additional scrolling to find both of these items that are hidden in the menu.

While most people know the basic keyboard shortcuts, there are some more advanced ones that you use. This will include things like, Control-E and Control-K which will help you with your cursor style, while the basic Control C, X and V will continue to aid you with the basic copy, cut and paste features you may have already experienced on other systems.

There are also virtual keys on the iPad and they can help you to do additional things as well. Simple hold down the virtual key that you see and they will provide you with alternative versions of the letters you can find. For example, you can find e or even é on the same key.

Autocorrect for many people will be a mixed bag on your system. Some people love the fact that it can help to quickly enter words, while others find it to be buggy and full of errors. Depending on your typing skills and how closely you pay attention to the content you are writing, you may want to turn on or off this feature.

Power is going to be something that you will want to keep track of when you are using your iPad. For this, you will need to understand that even when you close an application, they will continue to run in the background. To close programs that aren’t killing like they should, you can go to the home page and pull up the multitasking bar. From here, you can press any app and then hold down on it with your finger. This will give you the chance to click on a red circle on the apps you want close and you can restore the full operating power of your system by turning off these items.

One other area you may want to focus on is learning how you can speed up the process of launching apps. This can be done using Spotlight. Go to the home screen and then tap on it a second time to bring up spotlight. Then type the first few letters of any app that you want to open, you can then tap on it and you have launched a new app without having to key around your system.

The iPad doesn’t need to be a tool that you dread using. Instead, take a look at these tips and begin using the system to its full potential.

Post by Sam T. writer for Needak Mini Bounders.