6.6. Find Your Way with Maps

The iPad’s Maps app makes you forget all about those folded paper roadmaps that always end up stained and crumpled in the back seat of the car. Tap open the Maps app on the Home screen. Type any address into the Maps app—and you instantly see it on the screen, its location marked with a virtual red pin. All your usual iPad finger moves work on the maps, so you can zoom, scroll, pinch, and flick your way around the world.

Like Safari, though, Maps needs an Internet connection to pull its data down from the Web, so it’s not the best thing in the world for emergency directions when you’re lost in a bad part of town with only a Wi-Fi iPad. (If you ponied up the big bucks for a Wi-Fi + 3G model, you don’t have to worry about lack of an Internet connection, but you may still have to worry about getting mugged.)