Chapter 3: How Do I Configure My iPad?
Connecting Your iPad with a Bluetooth Headset Your iPad is configured to use a wireless technology called Bluetooth, which enables you to make wireless connections to other Bluetooth-friendly devices. Most Macs come with Bluetooth built in, and they can use it to connect to a wide range of Bluetooth devices, including a mouse, keyboard, cell phone, PDA, printer, digital camera, and even another Mac. Your iPad can at least connect to a Bluetooth headset, which lets you listen to music and movies without wires and without disturbing your neighbors. In theory, connecting Bluetooth devices should be criminally easy: You turn on each device’s Bluetooth feature — in Bluetooth jargon, you make the device discoverable — bring them within 33 feet of each other, and they connect without further ado. In practice, however, there’s usually at least a bit of further ado (and sometimes plenty of it). This usually takes one or both of the following forms: Making your device discoverable. Unlike Wi-Fi devices that broadcast their signals constantly, most Bluetooth devices only broadcast their availability when you say so. This makes sense in many cases because you usually only want to connect a Bluetooth component such as a headset with a single device. By controlling when the device is discoverable, you ensure that it works only with the device you want it to. Pairing the iPad and the device. As a security precaution, many Bluetooth devices need to be paired with another device before the connection is established. In most cases, the pairing is accomplished by entering a multidigit passkey — your iPad calls it a PIN — that you must then enter into the Bluetooth device (assuming, of course, that it has some kind of keypad). In the case of a headset, the device comes with a default passkey that you must enter into your iPad to set up the pairing.
Making your iPad discoverable So your first order of Bluetooth business is to ensure that your iPad is discoverable by activating the Bluetooth feature. First, check to see if Bluetooth is already on: In the status bar, look for the Bluetooth logo to the left of the battery status icon, as shown in Figure 3.10.
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