iPad: The Missing Manual, 7th Edition

Chapter 17. Settings

The Settings app is like the Control Panel in Windows or System Preferences on the Mac. It’s a tweaking center that affects every aspect of the iPad: the screen, ringtones, email, Web connection, and so on.

In this book, you can read about the iPad’s preference settings in the appropriate spots—wherever they’re relevant. And the Control Center, of course, is designed to eliminate trips into Settings.

But so you’ll have it all in one place, here’s an item-by-item walkthrough of the Settings app and its structure in iOS 8.

Two Settings Tricks

The Settings app starts as a master list of panels—left side; tap the Settings category (Notifications or General, let’s say) to view the corresponding options on the right portion of the screen.

Even then, you may find that you’re not done “drilling down.” You may have to tap, for example, General, then Keyboard, then Shortcuts, burrowing deeper into that right-side pane each time. It’s a lot of navigation.

Fortunately, you have two kinds of shortcuts.

First, you can “back out” to an earlier Settings screen by tapping the button in the upper-left corner.

Second, you can jump directly to a particular Settings ...