23 Mobile Things: #2 Mobile Device Tips

It was fun to find new options for what I think of as an old device, my 1st gen iPad.  Here are some of the things I found useful:

• I learned a new way to lock orientation. I had enabled screen locking in my settings and was using the little switch above the volume. Double clicking on the home button and using the option on the far left is easier.
• I'm terrible at remembering to do a reboot so it was nice to get a reminder about that and the reasons it's important.
• I hadn't used the definition option before. That was handy and worked nicely.
• I found out I could use Emoji characters by enabling that feature in settings and accessing them via the International symbol on the keyboard.  I added the Spanish keyboard too.
• I had forgotten about double clicking the home button to see what's running, so that was a nice reminder.
• I'd like to try video editing when I have more time, but with no camera on this iPad, that will have to happen on another device.
• I tried searching for tips for the iPad first generation and found out I could use multitasking gestures, since the update to iOS 5.  That feature didn't come with the original iOS and somehow I missed that option with the last update.
• After helping a man at Drop-In eBook Help who'd lost his sight, I looked for the accessibility options he was using on his iPad, including triple clicking on the home button to have screen options read out loud.  That was a good lesson and a reminder to me that we learn tips in all kinds of ways - often from other people.

23 Mobile Things: #1 Blogging & Registering

Well, I've registered for the 23 Mobile Things and I'm just going to use my blogger account that I created for The 23 Things we did 6 years ago.  (This is a good example of how things live forever on the internet.  The blog is still here, alive and well in cyberspace, even though I'd for the most part forgotten about it).  It was fun to read what my impressions were 6 years ago, to see how things have changed and how some things have stayed the same. 

I plan to use my Android phone and my iPad for mobile devices, although visually I can't spend much time on my phone and my iPad is 1st generation so I might not be able to get all the apps we'll be encountering or maybe I'll get a stripped down version.  We'll see!

I love the convenience of a mobile device, but I still appreciate the richer interface on a computer screen and I struggle with typing on mobile devices.  I hope to learn about more ways to use my mobile devices and more about the ways our patrons use their devices and might be expecting to use our services on them.