My Mortifying iPad Experience

How Apple’s Famed UI Made Me Look Bad

I took my iPad to a consulting gig this week. Instead of impressing my clients, it embarrassed me. Granted, I'm still an iPad neophyte. I have been using it primarily as a personal entertainment center. I downloaded my favorite TV series. I carry around my photos, my music library, and a PDF of my latest book to show off. There are lots of things I haven't yet learned how to do. But determined to turn my iPad into a working asset, I turned up at a client engagement with two note-taking programs (Notes and Pages), a mind mapping application, and a wireless keyboard to make it faster to capture notes and thoughts. I carried both iPad and keyboard around in a simple padded carrying case. So far, so good. Very professional.

Until my iPad began bursting into song at very inopportune moments! I would be on a tour of a facility or sitting at someone's desk interviewing them and, all of a sudden, we'd hear a burst of a Beatles song, or the dulcet tones of Billy Holiday, or a rousing chorus from the Pirates of Penzance! A lot of fumbling would ensue, while I zipped open my carrying case, extracted my iPad and attempted to shut it up. And fumble I did, muttering apologies as I did so. I turned it off, but the music would keep playing. I put the audio on mute, and it would shut up for a while, but then burst into song again an hour later! Why was this happening? I was both mystified and mortified. My clients were bemused and surprised that I couldn't master this seemingly simple device.

I've had badly behaved devices before. I had a Blackberry that used to make unsolicited phone calls from my pocket. So I realized that it was probably being jostled into action. But I was still puzzled. I hadn't turned it on. I hadn't fired up the iPod application or the iTunes application. Yet my iPad was mysteriously turning itself on, opening an application, selecting a song, turning the audio on, and blaring it out.

I sent an SOS to my brother, Jonathan and his daughter, Nancy, both long-time Mac users and iPad early adopters:

"HOW DO I TURN OFF MY iPAD??"

"This is bizarre. I thought the on/off switch was the black button top right. But when I turn it off and carry it around in my briefcase, my ipad suddenly turns itself on and starts playing music from itunes (even tho I didn't think I had itunes "open" when I shut down and I definitely wasn't listening to music)."

What am I doing wrong??"

Within a couple of hours I had my answers. First, there's the "how do I turn this thing off? part." Jonathan patiently explained to me how to turn off the iPad. It was embarrassing for me to admit that I obviously wasn't being successful in turning the iPad off. Once my brother explained how to do it, I was abashed.

Even though I have an iTouch, I had forgotten that the way you "turn off" one of these Apple appliances is to hold the key at the top right down for a while until the red bar that says "Slide To Turn Off" appears at the top of the screen. I hadn't actually noticed this "Slide to Turn Off" button. I was in the habit of closing the leather cover of my iPad and then pressing the "sleep/off" button. So I was mystified that it wasn't turning completely off. When I opened it up to try to deal with it, I would only see the "slide to unlock" bar at the BOTTOM of the screen. I never even SAW the "slide to turn off" red bar at the TOP of the screen. Probably because a) I didn't hold the button down long enough, or b) when I did, I had the cover closed... How embarrassing...

  Nancy solved the "bursting into song" problem. She asked:

"Are you carrying your keyboard with you? I have a hard time telling whether the keyboard is on or off, and if it is on, and still connected to the iPad, jostling the keyboard will wake the iPad up. To be sure, I turn off Bluetooth when I am in transit."

That turned out to be the second part of the puzzle. Nancy's right. The Bluetooth keyboard's on/off switch is a button at one end of the keyboard. There's a tiny green light that comes on and then goes off to show that it's receiving battery power. It's hard to tell whether it's on or off. But once I turned Bluetooth OFF on my iPad, the random tunes are no longer playing. What a relief!

But I still haven't figured out how to name and save files on the iPad. Or how to print. (Even though I have the latest SW upgrade). So how long will it take me to master this "user-friendly" device?? And how long will it be before I'm no longer embarrassed by my ineptitude?

Two morals to this story:

1. If you want to look cool, practice in the privacy of your home, first.

2. When you're designing a system, try not to make your customers feel stupid.

Comments

[Patty Seybold]

Thanks, Carlos--
As it turns out, there is nothing in any Apple manual that tells you to turn off BlueTooth when carrying your Bluetooth keyboard with your iPad.

The problem I had was due to the unexpected interaction between the BlueTooth keyboard and the iPad--now I know what to do.

Thanks for your comment!

[Carlos]

All technologies have a learning curve and most gadgets do not magically reveal their features to their users through osmosis. The user would do well to read a product's manual (http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPad_User_Guide.pdf ) and/or in this case, view tutorials (http://www.apple.com/ipad/guided-tours/).

Studying is a sure fire way to avoid being or looking stupid.

[Patty Seybold]

My holiday present to myself:

JD Biersdorfer's book: iPad: The missing manual!

[Patty Seybold]

Thanks, Thomas--
I was coming to the same conclusion you pointed out: that it's the Bluetooth I need to turn off, not the iPad itself. Unfortunately you can't turn the Keyboard off and KEEP it off jostling in a bag. The Keyboard on/off switch is mild pressure at one end of the keyboard. AND there's actually no way to know if it's in the "on" or "off" state without pressing the button.

[thomas]

There is absolutely no reason to completely shut down the iPad. Apparently your Bluetooth keyboard triggered the iTunes app, so yes it's a good idea to disconnect the keyboard when you stuff everything into your bag. The hardware buttons on the iPad itself won't trigger any app by accident.

[Patty Seybold]

Brockway---
You're right! I should have remembered how to turn my iPad off--I had done it a few times that way. The user error was to close the leather cover first, and then press the button at the top right -- which turns the screen off. Since the cover was covering the screen at the time, I never saw the red "slide to power off" bar.

Patty

[Patty Seybold]

Thanks... I know how to turn mute on and off and how to use the rocker switch to increase the volume, but what happened to the switch that used to let you lock your iPad in one orientation so that the screen wouldn't rotate from vertical to horizontal when you don't want it to (e.g., when you're reading a book or watching a movie??)

[Peter Horne]

Here, Here.

I had an iPad moment this week too...

When I play Angry Birds lying on the couch you often are at an angle where the iPad decides to rotate the screen. The black switch on the iPad in the first version of iOs (who cares what number it was) used to turn off screen rotation. When I upgraded IOS (for no other reason for being told by my son James that I had to do it), the darn switch started to turn the sound on and off. I thought I had done something wrong... I looked EVERYWHERE to try and find what setting it was that I had fiddled with to make it go away. I even reset my iPad.

So in a fit of desperation caused by a lost round of angry birds due to a mistimed screen rotation, I googled on bing for the solution... it took a while but I finally found an irate journo who had blogged about the fact that apple had re-wired the switch to turn the sound on and off. The reason; that's what the switch on the iPhone does so they thought it was better to be consistent. Think about it; iPhones ring. You want to turn ringing off without having to go through a sign in and change the settings ceremony... Now how many iPads ring and need a volume off switch? I have yet to see someone holding an iPad to their ear making a phone call... they don't ring. BUT THE STUPID THINGS ROTATE ALL THE TIME WHEN YOU DON'T WANT THEM TO AND I DON"T WANT TO GO THROUGH A CEREMONY TO FIX IT.

For those of you who do have an iPad and want to know the secret ceremony; it is:

click the iPad button
click the iPad button
swipe the multitask bar to the right
press the icon at the far left.

Incidentally, this also showed me how iPad multitasking works; I was wondering how to find it...

Some cracks in the varnish, perhaps?

[Anonymous]

Funny story.

I agree with your first recommendation. As to your second recommendation I believe that Apple has worked harder than anyone to do this. Unfortunately the iPad is so simple to use that it gives some people the idea that they could bring their iPads to work without knowing how to do the most rudimentary things. As a programmer you can do many things to simplify a device to make it easy to use. Unfortunately sometimes some of the things that are designed to make things easier, like the play button on a remote keyboard, can cause problems in the wrong hands.

Things to know before bringing your iPad out in public.

1. How to hit the mute button.
2. How to adjust your volume.
3. How to plug in your headphones.
4. How to use an external keyboard.
5. How to turn off an external keyboard when not in use. This is one that you probably wont forget anymore!
6. How to fully turn off an iPad.

[ex2bot]

By the way, if you hold the volume rocker button on the side of your iPad, it will mute all sound.

[brockway]

"When you're designing a system, try not to make your customers feel stupid." Now you can't blame Apple for that. Turning off your device is a pretty basic thing to learn. It's right there in the user guide on page 8 after the bold heading "Turn iPad off". The big red arrow and pulsing text "slide to power off" when you hold the sleep/wake button down should also have been a clue.

Though the keyboard thing - turning the music on and off - that may have befuddled me at first too.

[ex2bot]

I wouldn't be embarrassed if I were you. Apple provides only the barest of documentation (if you're lucky), and it takes exploration to learn the thing.

Your iPad (or iPhone) apps will save your files automatically, so you don't have to worry about it. I don't own Pages, but I believe it shows your files as thumbnail images that you can rename if you wish.

In order to print, you have to have one of the new HP printers that are set up to print from iOS (iPhone/iPod touch/iPad). There is a way to print to a printer via your computer, but it's an unsupported hack. Search Google for "airprint activator". Hopefully more computers will be added soon.

[Chip]

Apple's not the only one who designs their systems poorly, only to embarrass their customers. What about carmakers?
When I fail to turn the engine off and take the car out of Drive, the damn thing just takes off without a driver! How stupid of design is that?

[BrianM]

you can also turn off the bluetooth keyboard by pressing and holding down the power button for 3 or 5 seconds

[Greg]

It's called an "iPod Touch", not "iTouch". There is not a product from Apple called the iTouch.

http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/

Everything you need to know about printing in iOS 4.2.1 is on this page (Only officially works on about 16 HP e-print compatible printers unfortunately)

http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/airprint.html

Everything else you'll probably need to know is here, including saving files if you watch the Pages/Keynote/Numbers videos.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/guided-tours/

It's amazing how user friendly It'll become.

[Mdawson]

3. RTFM.

[Scott Jordan]

I'm new to the iPad experience, having just picked mine up Thursday. So, my iPad Moment is yet to come.

Your experiences remind me of the time about twelve years ago when I was driving myself around Germany for the first time. Heading to Flughafen Frankfurt to catch my flight home, I found the road forked: thisaway for Lufthansa and thataway for All Others. Two terminals, well separated. I was flying on United, so I went thataway. Got rid of the rental car, hauled my bags into the terminal, and... where the hell is United? I wandered around cluelessly for a while, then found an information desk. Asked the clerk where United was. "It is in the Lufthansa terminal," he sniffed. "Everyone knows that."

Ever since then, the phrase has been a favorite among my colleagues and family. I can assure you, if it were me wondering how to access an arcane moving-target of a feature in my iDevice, one of my kids, or my wife, or a colleague would skewer me with it with deadpan glee. I never miss a chance either.