As you spend more and more time using your iPad a pattern will emerge. There are certain Apps that you will find yourself opening on a daily basis.
But even if these Apps are located on the iPad first page or Home screen, depending on our location, you may still need to swipe back and forth to get to the App you are looking for.
Unless… you populate your favourite Apps onto the iPad dock.
What is the iPad dock?
The iPad dock is a fixed toolbar or menu that is located on the bottom of your iPad screen. By default, it comes with 4 Apps: Mail, Safari, Music and Messages.
As we can see from the examples below, the Apps on the dock can be swapped and/or new Apps can be added.
Putting Apps on the dock has the advantage that they will be visible at all times even when we browse through the pages on the Home screen.
App limit on Dock
On iOS 6 and iOS 7 you can have up to six Apps on the iPad dock.
Adding new Apps to your iPad Dock
To add new Apps onto your iPad dock. From the iPad home screen, tap and hold on any App icon until all Apps start wiggling.
Tap and drag the App that you want to move into the dock. In this example, I’m moving The Weather Network (TWN) App onto the dock.
Once you are satisfied with the location of the App on the dock, click the iPad home button. The App icons will stop wiggling.
Removing Apps from your iPad Dock
In a similar way, you can remove Apps from the iPad dock. Tap and hold on any App icon until it starts wiggling.
Tap and drag the App that you want to move out of the dock.
Once you are satisfied with the location of the App outside the dock, click the iPad home button. The App icons will stop wiggling.
Questions? Thoughts?
Which Apps do you use the most on your iPad? Would you put them on the iPad dock?
I would love to hear from you! Leave me your comment below :)
Yes, I do use this but there is space on the dock for only one more app! ( or am I wrong?)
Hi Gavin,
There’s actually space on the dock for 6 Apps in total. Four are there by default so you can add two more…
The trick is that you can actually remove any of the default Apps (like Mail or Safari) from the dock and add others that you use more often.
Hope this helps!
Gabriel
Actually a great idea is to move a selection of often used applications into a folder. Folders can be added to the dock, which I have found to be more useful than flipping through multiple screens. (Of course going beyond 9 apps in the folder will cause you to swipe within the folder to reach the other apps, thus negating the flipping through pages motion you saved by putting the folder in the dock)
That’s a great suggestion Joe!
I just added a folder on my iPad Air dock with frequent used Apps. I really appreciate your feedback!