Apps provide all kinds of functionality for your iPad, from the ability to plan travel, manage finances, and find local restaurants and gas stations to hard-core business productivity and serious gaming fun. You get them from Apple's App Store.
Searching the App Store
The App Store is one of the iPad's built-in apps. This portal will get you to thousands of great apps for everything from games to bean counting. Here's your quick introduction to using the App Store to obtain whatever apps your heart desires:
Tap the App Store icon on your iPad Home screen.
At this point, you have several options for finding apps:
Tap in the Search field, enter a search term, and tap the Search button on the onscreen keyboard to see results.
Tap the Previous or Next arrow to see more selections, or tap the See All link to display all selections.
Tap one of the images of an app in the Spotlight area at the top of the screen to see more details about it.
Tap the New or What's Hot tab at the top of the screen to see those categories of apps.
Tap the Top Charts button on the bottom of the screen to see what free and paid apps other people are downloading most.
Tap the Categories button to search by types of apps.
Getting apps from the App Store
Once you have an account, you can use the saved payment information there to buy apps with a few simple steps, or download free apps. In this example, you can download the free iBooks app.
With the App Store open, tap the Search field and enter iBooks.
Tap the Price button (which in this case reads "Free") for iBooks in the results that appear.
Note that, to get a paid app, you'd tap on the Price button, which would display the cost of the app at this point.
The Price button changes to read Install App (or in the case of a paid app, the button changes to read Buy App). Tap that button.
The app downloads; if you purchase an app that isn't free, at this point your credit card is charged for the purchase price.
Only pre-installed apps are located on the first Home screen of your iPad by default. Apps you download are placed on additional Home screens, and you have to scroll to view and use them unless you move them to a different Home screen.