last year i made a short video on how to
text using your iphone link in the
description below today's video is all
about texting on your ipad you know i
finally get texting but when this
phenomenon first rolled out a number of
years ago i just thought it was a giant
step backwards i mean honestly
why type out a message when you could
just make a phone call but then i
realized phone calls require someone to
answer the phone even if it's an
answering machine
text messages are very different and
i'll show you why
[Music]
hi my name is rich i make simple easy to
follow how-to videos for seniors and
beginners if this video helps you out
please consider subscribing by tapping
the subscribe button and the little
thumbs up as well there's no cost to
subscribe and it helps the channel grow
so what is it about texting that makes
it great well the answer is easy
asynchronous communication i mean that's
the whole thing right there you can send
a message know that the recipient got it
and wait for a reply this is especially
handy for short conversations now i
don't think texting has replaced phone
conversations you know sometimes it's
just nice to hear another person's voice
but for those times when you need a
quick answer to a question you just
can't beat texting so in today's video
i'm going to give you five tips that'll
have you up and running in no time i'm
going to show you how to back up your
messages to icloud because you don't
want to lose any of them how to set up
text message notification so you know
when you received a text message
the connection between the messages app
and the contacts app that's important
how to compose a new text message that's
pretty easy and then how to pin
favorites in the messages app let's get
started
[Music]
okay the first thing i want to talk to
you about is how to back up your text
messages to icloud
what does that mean it just means that
you are saving your text messages so
that you can get to them when you need
them and it's very simple how to do that
let me show you the first thing you do
is go into
settings
and then you tap on your name
up at the very top
and then you tap on icloud
and then you scroll down to you see
messages right here
and you make sure that that's
turned on that it's green i'm not going
to disable it so i'm going to hit cancel
but you can make sure that that's green
and that's all there is to to backing up
your text messages to icloud only takes
you a second to do that but it's
important that you do that
next thing i want to talk to you about
is how to set up notification so
when you get a text message it's
important that you know that you've
gotten the message and the ipad will
notify you when you've received a text
message if you tell it to and this is
how you do that so you go back into
settings
you scroll down till you get to
notifications
and then you go down to messages
and then you'll see allow notifications
when you first open
um the settings app you may see that it
looks like this and you don't have
anything down here then you just turn on
allow notifications and then you can
choose the type of notifications you
want to allow
time sensitive notifications i would
leave that on that's if somebody texts
you and they need a response back very
quickly
and then you have a choice of what type
of notifications you receive there's the
lock screen notification that's where
your ipad is just sitting on the table
beside you it's dark it's not even
turned on you're watching tv and if
somebody texts you a message will pop up
on the screen and show you
notification center notification center
is if you swipe down from the top you
have all these notifications right here
and your text messages will be in there
if that's how you want to receive your
notifications
and then banners
a text message will pop up across the
top and stay there for a few minutes or
for a few seconds long enough for you to
see it so that you know that you have a
text message and then lastly you have
badges down here if you'll notice
i've received a text message right here
and there's the number one that's a
badge
and that's what it means when you have
badges turned on but that's up to you
you can just choose however you want to
be notified but i think it's probably
important that you do turn notifications
on if you're going to be texting with
family and friends
okay the next thing i want to talk about
is the connection between apple contacts
and messages actually apple contacts is
connected to a lot of the apps on the
ipad so
in the contacts application and i've
made a video on that i'll include it in
the description below you can put in
your family and friends you add their
names their addresses their telephone
numbers their email addresses and that
sort of thing and it once it's in there
it connects with all of your other apps
so if you have
um your
family birthdays in there when you open
up your apple calendar all the birthdays
just automatically show up on the
calendar
if you have
an address in there for one of your
friends and you tap on the address it'll
open up apple maps and give you
directions on how to get to your
friend's home and if you have your email
or telephone number of your family or
friends in the contacts app you can tap
on that and it'll take you directly into
messages and let you create a message
let me show you how that works if you go
down to contacts i happen to have the
icon right here in my dock
and tap on it
there's my wife
and you can see her mobile number is
here her email address is here
and if i want to message her i can just
tap on the little icon that says message
just like that
and it'll automatically create a message
going to my wife i'm in messages right
here
and that's how you can text message
directly from
the contacts app but the easy thing to
do is just open up text messages and
begin texting from there
let me show you how to compose a new
message
so if you tap on the messages icon
and you go up here and you tap on the
little square with a pencil in it
that'll let you do a new text message
and you type in the name of the person
you want to text now if you don't have
them in your contacts list
you'll need to type in either their
email address or their phone number you
the messages app needs to know where to
send it
but in this case i'm going to send a
text to my wife so i'm just going to
type in her name
right there it is and i'm going to text
a message and say
how is
our
grandson doing
and there i've composed a new message
and to send that message to her all i
have to do is tap the little green arrow
like that and now it's off and if you'll
notice if you can see this on camera it
says delivered that means she received
that text message now the next thing i
want to show you how to do
is how to delete a text message
and if you have a whole bunch of text
messages over here in the left hand
column
you can just take your finger and slide
over until you see the little garbage
can and tap on it
and delete it
and that deletes the text message now
i'm not going to delete this because i
want to show you something else but
that's how you also delete a text
message
okay so the last thing i want to do is
show you how to pin favorites
you may have a whole list of people
you've texted in your messages app
and it just you have to scroll through
it to find who you're looking for but if
you have family that maybe or friends
that you text regularly you can just pin
their names to the top and tap on their
name and everything will come up for you
automatically let me show you how to do
that
so here my daughter lindsay has sent me
a text i had sent her a text asking her
how she if she was having a good day and
she said i am are you
and i'm going to type back i'll respond
quickly and say yes
so now she's got that so now if i want
to pin lindsay
to the
top it's very simple i just
take it and scroll over
until i see
and then i tap on the pen and now she's
right there and i can do the same thing
with my wife
i can scroll over
and tap it so now if i want to look at
text from my wife i just tap her name
and if i want to look at text from
lindsay i just tap her name
and you can add up to
i think it's nine people you can pin
uh on the apple messages app so you can
put your nine best friends right up
there it's kind of like speed dial for
messages
you know the messages app on the ipad is
just a great way to communicate with
family and friends and while you're
probably most familiar using the
telephone to communicate
there are a lot of scenarios that
texting just makes the most sense
i can't believe i'm saying that but it's
true
well
i hope you learned a few things in this
short video just stick with it and
you'll be up and texting like a pro in
no time
as always thanks so much for watching
and i'll see you in the next video