You have probably heard of iCloud by now but just in case you are unfamiliar with it, it is a free backup service you can use for storage and syncing of multiple devices and it is of course for use with the Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod so if you own any of these or plan to buy one, setting up iCloud is one of the first things you should do.

First things first, you need to sign up, but in order to do this you need to make sure you are using either iOS 5 or later, or Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later. Windows users can use iCloud but accounts must initially be created through an Apple device. The good news is, you are entitled to up to ten iCloud accounts per device but it is highly unlikely that you will need more than two or three.

You will need an Apple ID to create your account but if you do not have one, it is not hard to get one. Simply go to the iCloud settings screen and either tap on “Get a Free Apple ID” if you are using an iOS device or click on “Create an Apple ID” if you are using a Mac. Fill in the requested details and then choose between using an existing email address or creating a new iCloud-specific one. If you already have an Apple ID ready to use then it should already be entered when you get to the iCloud login screen. If you wish to convert it into an iCloud account, simply log in to the iCloud preference screen and it will guide you through.

Setting up iCloud on an iOS device is simple and the service can be accessed through Settings. From there, open iCloud and sign in, selecting “Get a Free Apple ID” beforehand if required. When your account is set up it should all start working automatically, syncing your email, contacts and much more. By default it syncs everything but you can go into Settings and be more selective by toggling the switches by each synced item. If you wish to create a backup, which is highly recommended, open Settings, select iCloud, then Storage and Backup and finally Back Up Now.

If you are using a Mac, go to System Preferences and open the iCloud settings pane. The setup procedure is the same as on iOS devices and once you log in with your Apple ID, it will guide you through the steps to set it up. The only option that is not automatically synced when you get started is Back to My Mac, which you will need to enable manually. As is the case with iOS devices, if there is any data you do not wish to sync, you can manually disable it. You cannot back up a Mac completely with iCloud but you can still store any data that is compatible with it.

We all know about purchasing books electronically for your iPhone and iPad but did you know you could save a lot of money if you just borrowed them instead? It makes sense when you think about it; libraries already provide a free way to borrow books in real life, so why not offer the same service for e-books? If you ask around at your local library you may find that it already provides a digital catalogue as an alternative means to borrow a book and if it doesn’t, there is a good chance that it has plans to do so in the near future. More libraries are extending their range of services to cover e-books and it is a great way to get a book, magazine or even audiobook on your device for free.

While many libraries will offer this service, they will usually partner up with a service provider to actually take care of loaning books out. Possibly the most popular one is OverDrive Digital Downloads, which is used by over 18,000 libraries worldwide and caters to millions of readers. You will need to check with your own library but this will probably be one of the options. Borrowing an e-book through OverDrive is an incredibly easy process that means you will never have to set foot in your library again, although personally I quite like visiting the library but it’s up to you.

To get started you will obviously need to open an account at your library but assuming you have one set up, you will be free to borrow a certain number of books at any one time and the same goes for e-books. You will then need to choose your e-reader and you can indeed opt to use Amazon’s Kindle service on your iPhone, iPad or Mac, otherwise OverDrive offers its own e-reader client, which is compatible across all of these platforms.

Once all of this has been set up you can move on to actually borrowing a book. There will be a library of e-books available that you can browse online and whether you use Safari in OS X or iOS it should work just fine. The process is simple; browse the books until you find one you like, in which case you can then download it. As is the case with real books, the number of each e-book available is limited but there is also an option to reserve books you wish to read that are currently all taken.

If a book is reserved then you will be notified on its availability, otherwise you can get on with downloading it. Depending on the choice you made, the book will either be downloaded to the OverDrive e-reader on your device or to your Amazon account, if you registered your library with it. Either way, once you have downloaded it you will be able to access it and read it the way you normally would with a purchased book, the only difference being that you have a time limit before it is returned and, best of all, it will be completely free.

There are a lot of productivity apps out there but they are generally pretty vanilla. They may have bright colours and encouraging messages to cheer you on and praise you every time you cross a task off of your to-do list and, to be fair, many of them are effective and succeed at what they set out to do. But at the same time, they don’t really have much personality. You may not think this is important and I certainly didn’t, not until a new app popped up that had a very unique and slightly abusive personality. Now I have seen it, I never want any other app to tell me what to do again. If you need to be more productive and think a personal attack will motivate you a bit, you need to put Carrot on your iPhone.

Carrot is a productivity app with an attitude and a sense of humour, although it is usually at your expense. If you need something done and you’re letting yourself be too lazy about it, Carrot will give you a kick for just $0.99. Carrot has two personalities, depending on whether you please it or not, but either way it is a lot of fun to use. If you do your chores then Carrot will praise you, although it may be in a rather backhanded way, but if you let Carrot down, which is very easy to do, you will be insulted relentlessly for your insolence. While the whole point is to get things done, sometimes it is more fun to make Carrot angry.

Essentially Carrot is a very basic to-do list with no fancy features. All you do is add a task and swipe it away once it is complete. No customisation, just tasks and completion, but that is all it needs and the real reason to download it is because an abusive relationship with an app is surprisingly fun. It helps that it takes the form of a game in that it awards you points for completing a task. Carrot rewards you for productivity and punishes you for laziness and it has a very low threshold. Sometimes it will remind you that you haven’t been useful for a while, whether you have any specific tasks to do or not. Even the praise seems a bit sour and you get the impression that Carrot is waiting for you to fail so it has an excuse to abuse you.

If you prefer angry Carrot you can in fact provoke it by poking the blue eye depicted by the app. You can also communicate to an extent and if you tell Carrot you are bored, it will find something for you to do, whether you have the means to do it or not. As a productivity app, Carrot does not offer much more than the basic function of listing your tasks but if you want to have a bit of fun while you are taking care of your chores, no other productivity comes close. If you just want the basic features and a good laugh Carrot is perfect, although it will constantly remind you that you are not.

The iPad is great fun to play around with and there is nothing like the excitement of getting to grips with one for the first time. But whether you are new to the iPad revolution or have been using them ever since the original model first emerged, there is a very useful feature that you may not even be aware of. While navigation of the iPad is intuitive enough, there are in fact a number of shortcuts that can be triggered by various gestures. They are the Multitouch gestures and they will speed up your iPad sessions significantly. Here’s how to do them:

First of all you will need to enable them but that only takes seconds and it may be the case that they are already turned on when you first start up your new iPad. Simply go to Settings and select General, then scroll down to Multitasking Gestures and make sure the switch next to the heading is set to On. You will now be able to use four or five fingers to carry out various actions. However, be aware that only iOS 5 or later is capable of Multitouch gestures so if you are using an older iPad, this feature will be unavailable.

Here are the four basic Multitouch gestures:

To close apps and go back to the home screen:

If you would like to close the current app you have open and go straight back to the home screen you can do it with a pinch, using four or five fingers. All you have to do is put your fingertips on the screen, with your hand open as if it is ready to grab something, and then pinch your thumb and fingers together.

To show the multitasking bar:

When you double click the Home button, you will see a multitasking bar that pops up and provides a quick way to get to open other apps and features. However there is an easier way to summon it as all you have to do is swipe upwards from the bottom of the screen to bring it up. Swiping down will quickly close the app bar again.

To switch between apps:

A sideways swipe will provide a faster way to alternate between any apps you have open and they are effectively set up in a row, each one filling the screen. By swiping from left to right or right to left, you will be able to cycle along the row of apps. If you get to the end though it will simply bounce back into place when you try to swipe away from it.

These Multitouch gestures may be simple without adding much to your iPad experience but that is what makes them useful. By applying these simple pinches and swipes, you can quickly and easily navigate through whatever apps and programs you have open without being slowed down by multitasking. If you do not have access to them then it may be time to consider a new iPad, or at the very least, finally downloading iOS 5.

We all know how good the iPhone and iPad are as a means to make notes, especially the latter option due to its larger screen, but of course a decent device is only half the battle and to really do it properly, you need a good note-taking app to go with it. While you are spoilt for choice when shopping for such an application, one that might be worth checking out is Write 2 HD, which works across different iOS devices, can be synced accordingly and is available now from the App Store for just $2.99.

Write 2 HD is a simple and efficient app for taking notes that offers all the basic features and throws some decent security measures into the mix. While it is not exactly exceptional, it gets the job done and the ability to sync it across your devices is certainly appealing. When you begin to create a file you start with a blank page but a neat little touch is a crumpled effect that gives it the appearance of a real piece of paper that has been handled a little, if not written on. This is the default theme but there are others to choose from, although if you want to be boring you can opt for a completely blank screen.

Notes can be made by typing on the onscreen keyboard, which includes a row for numbers and features a keyboard icon that will present further commands for you to use. This last feature is not available on the iPhone version, which just has the basic keyboard, so if you want to get the most out of the app, you should stick to the iPad version, although working across multiple platforms also has its benefits if you enable the autosync feature. This requires you to link the app to your Dropbox account but once it is all set up, you can edit a note on any synced device and the changes will be applied to all of them. This makes it much more convenient, especially if you leave your iPad at home by accident, but it essentially allows you to work on your writing anywhere.

When your work is complete you then have all the standard options you would expect from an app of this nature, including attaching it to an email to send it out, putting it in your Dropbox, printing it or converting it to PDF. What you do with it then is up to you. So far so unexceptionally good but what makes Write 2 HD stand out is its superior security features, including a PIN for privacy. Another great feature requires a separate download of an accompanying app, WriteMate, which will allow you to use one device as a keyboard for another, which declutters the main screen and provides you with a more workable keyboard. WriteMate is from the same developer and free so it is worth adding to this package.

Overall Write 2 HD is a fairly standard offering that doesn’t bring anything new to the table. But if all you need is a simple way to write notes that is reliable and functional, this app will be more than adequate.

There is a vital feature on our iOS devices that is all too easy to ignore and that is the privacy settings. It may not sound particularly important but chances are your iPhone or iPad is full of all kinds of private data, whether it is personal information or an important document you are working on. It doesn’t matter what exactly that data is however, as the real issue is whether that data is available to others. If it is private then there are steps you need to make to keep it that way.

I can’t speak for everyone but my phone is an important part of my life as I use it for more or less everything, especially staying organised. Calendars, contacts, to-dos and deadlines, it’s all there on my phone because I have a habit of not writing things down, but then who does these days? The problem however is that all the apps you install can actually access a surprising amount of data on your phone and there is nothing to stop it being sent back to the developers. In many cases, the app is trustworthy and it does not use any data you have not permitted it to but there are more malicious people out there trying to dig their way into your device so you need to keep an eye on those privacy settings.

The best place to start of course is the Privacy section, which can be found in Settings. Here you can look at a list of all the various types of data you have and by selecting one you can set more specific privacy settings. For example, tapping on Contacts will take you to a list of all the apps that might try to access your contact information. Each app has a switch next to its name so you can manually toggle privacy on and off for each one. This can be changed anytime so if you originally refused an app access to information, you can come back here and grant it access.

Worth looking at in more detail is the Location Services section as misuse of this could have your every move tracked by an app and it can be quite a drain on your battery if your apps are following you around too. if you look at the icon for Location Services, you may notice that it has appeared next to various services in a number of colours. This means your location information has been used one way or another, based on which colour is used for it. Scroll to the bottom and the colours are explained. This section will be able to show you which apps are requesting your location and which ones already have access to it. Of course, some applications will be more useful if they are able to track you, such as Google Maps but otherwise, you can restrict their access here.

Finally, you can also avoid ads that are targeted towards you. These only appear because information has been accessed that shows the type of ad that would appeal to you but you can put a atop to this by opening Settings, going to General and then About. On this screen, scroll down until you get to Advertising and select it. There is an option here called Limit Ad Tracking and enabling this will stop services accessing your Apple Advertising Identifier. Tailor-made ads may be useful to some but the fact they exist is a little bit creepy. It’s better to block them and search for them yourself.

A lot of people share the dream about travelling but for many of us it remains a dream that we never follow through. We all have our reasons, although they usually involve time and money, but more often than not these are obstacles that we can actually work around. All we really need is a decent plan to follow and a trip abroad suddenly becomes do-able. Fortunately there are some decent travel apps out there that help plan a trip in a lot more detail than Google Maps’ route planner can and with a flexible trip tailored around our own needs and preferences planned, those dreams can become a reality much more easily. TimeTraveler is available now from the App Store and it is completely free.

Yahoo! TimeTraveler is a new travel guide that easily holds its own against the competition and it could certainly be the one you are looking for. The price may be especially attractive but do not think for a second that this is just a cheap imitator. First of all, we know that Yahoo! Is a trustworthy company and secondly, this app is really rather good. With TimeTraveler you can create a travel plan using preference, locations and the amount of time you have available as criteria. Put them in and suddenly all your possibilities are presented to you. For a free app, it is incredibly well informed. It earns its name from the fact that it can create a travel plan based on your time limitations, but you can also edit it manually if you wish.

The travel plans in question guide you through all the landmarks and tourist attractions you will encounter, complete with estimations of how long you are likely to spend visiting them and how long it will take to travel between them. You can even choose from walking or driving times for more accuracy, while a slider allows you to adjust which types of attractions show up on the journey so if you don’t like museums for example, you can phase them out of your plan completely.

Most of the cities included are based in the US but there is also a decent selection of locations abroad that can be downloaded. There are already 30 installed when you download the app but additional cities can be downloaded at no extra cost. Each map will show you streets and rivers by default but you can also add other markers for food, hotels and other features you would like pointed out, while reviews for these places come courtesy of Yahoo! Travel.

There are minor flaws, such as the lack of ability to rate places yourself in the app but the main glaring omission is that there are no step-by-step directions and all we have to go by are pointers on a map so it is not quite so useful for navigation. But overall it is a great app that will prove a useful tool when planning your travels and it is an essential app for anyone wanting to explore a city.

There are only so many ways you can introduce a photo-editing app. After all we all know how crowded the App Store is with them and several more seem to be crammed in on a weekly basis so when a new one does present itself there is rarely anything original to say about it. The next app to join the ever-growing line of photo-editing software is a very simple one that allows you to add basic enhancements to your photos and for what it is, it is very effective. Swipe is available now from the App Store for $0.99.

Which photo app you download depends on what you need it to do but even when you narrow it down that much there is still a multitude to choose from and captioning apps are no exception. However Swipe is a strong contender so if captioning is what you want then this is a perfectly good place to get it. Swipe is the ideal kind of app when it comes to design as it is very neatly laid out and the interface is simple and intuitive enough for you to jump straight in and get to work.

The first thing you need to do on starting Swipe is take a photo, which is done by tapping a button within the app, although you can of course use an existing one from the camera roll instead. Either way, once the photo is ready a quick gesture will allow you to add text to it. The app’s strong point here is the range of features on offer that give you a lot of freedom to customize the caption. Fonts may be an obvious feature but a lot of apps do lack a decent range so it is nice to have more than 100 of them here. But there are more options than mere fonts and you can really personalise your photos the way you want them with font size and colours, transparency, rotation and alignment. These can all easily be adjusted with a handy sliding scale while the caption can be moved around just by dragging it.

Once you are happy with your caption a final tap will confirm its completion and allow you to save or share it. All the usual sharing options are present and correct, including Instagram, Twitter and Facebook among others, while the app also has its own photo gallery where you can store all your enhanced images and edit them again if you so desire. Swipe does lack any kind of tutorial so it is unfortunately up to you to figure things out on your own but thanks to the easy controls this won’t take long and the only other flaw is an occasional lag on the sliders, which can be annoying.

Overall Swipe is good at what it does, even if it does ultimately offer a very basic function. The app specializes in adding captions and this is what you get. It might not be loaded with features but everything you need to create a customized caption for your photos is included and it definitely offers value for money.

Despite several imitators YouTube has more or less been established as the definitive video viewing platform and as such, it attracts millions of views every day, while its iOS app has also performed excellently, and it more or less dominates the realm of the internet focused on video sharing. However there is now a new app on the block that claims to be, in the words of its developer Stephen Gauch, “THE missing YouTube app for your iPad”, and clearly as every intention of replacing Google’s offering, on the iPad at least. So there is a degree of hype that it has to live up to but how does it measure up? TubeExplorer is available now from the App Store for just $0.99 and it is exclusive to the iPad.

TubeExplorer is one of many YouTube clones that follow in the grand tradition of trying to emulate something popular and improve on it. Does it manage it? Not exactly but it is not a complete failure either so if you are looking for an alternative client to YouTube, this one is worth a look. Of course, every variation needs its own hook to make it stand out from the competition and if TubeExplorer has one, it is its abundant simplicity.

TubeExplorer really is as simple as an app of this nature can be and it manages this by collecting all the various features neatly and non-intrusively in one place for easy access. A tab bar located on the left side of the app contains all of the video browsing options you could need and the whole interface is laid out in a neat way, complete with icons, that is easy to navigate and not unpleasant to look at, although the appearance is ever so slightly dull but that is hardly a reason to dismiss the app.

From this menu you can then quickly access the various sections with a simple tap and these include Featured, Top Rated, Subscriptions, Favourites, Watch Later and Uploads. There may be nothing here you haven’t seen before but then these controls are a standard and it would definitely be off-putting if they were not included. Controls are just as simple and familiar when viewing videos and you can select the desired quality up to 720p, while browsing during videos is also possible. Browsing in general is an easy process and there are enough filters and categories to help you narrow your search down and find what you are looking for.

Adding comments and rating videos are other standards that have made it into this app, while other options will encourage you to browse through related videos as well as others from the same user. The app is far from perfect and unfortunately it does crash occasionally although this is a problem that could easily be ironed out by future updates. If you have ever used YouTube you will know what to expect and this is a perfectly adequate way to search for and view videos. It is good, if unexceptional, and certainly worthy of your time if you need a decent video client.

Sometimes it is not enough to take a mere photograph of a view. Sometimes a location is so stunningly vast and epic that it is just too wide to squeeze into the size of a regular photo frame without stepping back several miles in order to capture the full view at once. However this is not always possible and it also results in a lot of empty space above and below the view that takes some of the majesty away from it. Fortunately we now have panorama features on our iOS devices, which allow us to take several photos and then stitch them together to create one big photo that captures the glory of the original view. However the quality of these panoramas can vary and the only way you can guarantee consistent quality is to pay a little extra for a specialist application. Fortunately such an app is available and also very affordable. AutoStitch Panorama is available now from the App Store for just $2.99.

This version of AutoStitch Panorama is not its original incarnation and there is in fact a version available in the App Store for $1.99, which does actually work on the iPad but it is optimised for the iPhone 5 so if you really want the best quality on your iPad, you should spend that extra dollar for the superior version. As its name suggests, AutoStitch Panorama is an app designed for taking panoramic photos and while it still requires a steady hand from you during the initial photo-taking phase, it is the “Auto-” part that results in a superior, more natural-looking image.

The app is incredibly simple to use anyway but just in case you need the extra help, step by step instructions guide you along as you go but the interface is intuitive and self-explanatory so you shouldn’t have any problems with it. All you have to do is point and press the relevant button to capture the image. When it comes to taking the next picture to join onto that image, there is a green outline that helps you line it up smoothly and signifies when the camera is in the optimal position. Additional help comes from orange and red outlines that warn you when you are out of line so it is in fact very difficult to make a mistake.

This simplicity is not just relegated to the photos and when it comes to the editing phase, you will also get through the process with ease. This is where the Auto part really comes into play as the app will adjust the exposure and cropping of the individual images automatically to ensure they all match up. However there is also an option to make manual adjustments too if you so desire, while the individual images can also be saved for future reference.

Overall AutoStitch Panorama is an excellent app that looks a lot better on the iPad’s screen than the slightly cheaper version. If you are into photography and need something to help you make the perfect panoramic photos, this could be the one you need.