iPad For Dummies, 7th Edition

Chapter 1

Unveiling the iPad

In This Chapter

Looking at the big picture

Touring the outside of the iPad

Checking out the iPad’s apps

Congratulations! You’ve selected one of the most incredible handheld devices we’ve ever seen. Of course, the iPad is a combination of a killer audio and video iPod, an e-book reader, a powerful Internet communications device, a superb handheld gaming device, a still and video camera, and a platform for over 1.2 million apps at the time this was written — and probably a lot more by the time you read this.

Apple has produced nine iPad models so far: The original iPad (2010), the iPad 2 (2011), the iPad third generation (Spring 2012), the iPad fourth generation (Fall 2012), the iPad mini (Fall 2012), the iPad Air and the iPad mini with Retina display (Fall 2013), and the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 (Fall 2014). To avoid confusion, we refer to the four original full-sized iPads — the ones that don’t have Air as their surname — as first-, second-, third-, ...