iPad Basics

Wallpaper and sounds

As you learned in our lesson on Security and General Settings, there are lots of ways to customize your iPad. If you want to make your iPad more personal, you might want to choose your own wallpaper or change the sound effects.

Remember, you can access Settings by tapping the icon on the Home screen. In this lesson, we will focus on:

• Wallpapers and brightness: From here, you can customize the iPad's display.
• Sounds: From here, you can customize the iPad's sounds.
  
  

General settings

Wallpaper and brightness

To change your wallpaper:

To make your iPad more personal, you can add your own background wallpaper.

1. Tap the Settings icon on your Home screen.
2. Tap Wallpapers & Brightness in the left pane.
3. Tap the area under Choose Wallpaper.
   
   Changing the iPad's wallpaper
   
4. Tap Dynamic or Stills to view the built-in wallpapers that came with your iPad, or choose a picture on your device from the albums below. In our example, we'll tap Stills.
   
   Selecting an image library
5. Tap an image to open a full-screen preview.
   Selecting an image
6. Use the menu bar to apply the wallpaper to your Lock screen, Home screen, or Both. To exit the preview without changing your wallpaper, tap Cancel.
   Previewing and applying wallpaper

Setting the wallpaper from the photos app

If you're already looking at pictures in the Photos app, you can set any picture as the wallpaper without opening Settings. Simply select the picture, tap the Share button in the bottom-left corner, then select Use as Wallpaper.

Setting the wallpaper from the Photos app

Screen brightness

If you're having difficulty viewing your iPad's screen, you may want to adjust the screen brightness. Decreasing the screen brightness will also help to save battery life. From the Wallpapers & Brightness settings, drag the slider to increase or decrease the screen brightness. You can also change this at any time by swiping up from the bottom of the screen to access the Control Center.

Adjusting screen brightness

Auto-Brightness automatically adjusts the brightness for current light conditions using a built-in light sensor. Just tap the Auto-Brightness control to turn this feature on or off.

Sounds

The Sounds settings allow you to change the sound effects for different alerts (like a new email or calendar event), as well as your ringtone for the FaceTime app. You can also adjust the volume for these sounds and enable or disable system sound effects like keyboard clicks and lock sounds.

To edit sound settings:

1. Tap the Settings icon on your Home screen.
2. Tap Sounds in the left pane.
3. Customize the sound settings as desired. For example, you can choose a new ringtone for the FaceTime app or a new alert tone for email messages. Take some time to test different sounds and settings to find the ones you like best.
   
   Customizing the iPad's sounds

You can also use your iPad's side switch to mute or unmute all sounds.