Chapter 8

Multitasking and Mute/Lock Switch

In this chapter, we will describe how to use the App Switcher bar to multitask, or jump between apps on your iPad. Multitasking is a new and very welcome feature on the iPad, one that was not available when the first iPad launched. This feature means you can leave one app running in the background while you do something else. For example, you might take a quick break from a game to go and update your status on Facebook or send a tweet on Twitter, and then jump back to your game.

The App Switcher bar provides another nice piece of functionality that we'll cover in this chapter. On the first iPad, there was a hardware button that locked the screen orientation. When the software was updated, that switch became a Mute key. With the new iOS 4.3, you can use the App Switcher bar to dictate how you want that switch to behave as well as make adjustments in the Settings app for the Lock/Rotation switch.