What File Formats Does the iPad Support?
The Apple iPad is a tablet that you can use to browse and view media such as music files, digital photos, videos, and even digital books. You can load your personal media on to the iPad with the iTunes software, or purchase music, movies, and books directly from applications on the device. The iPad supports very specific file types for the various kinds of media, so if you do load your own files, it's important to make sure they will be compatible.
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Audio File Formats
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When you put music on your iPad, you do so by syncing it with the iTunes software, so the iPad is able to play any file format that can be played in iTunes. Both the iPad and iTunes support the most common digital audio file formats, including MP3, M4A, WAV and AIFF files. The iPad is also able to play digital music files that you purchase from the iTunes Music Store, which come in the M4P format.
Image Formats
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The iPad displays your digital pictures in the "Photos" app, and it supports virtually all image file formats available, including JPG, PNG and GIF. If an image file has pixel dimensions that are larger than the iPad's 1024x768 screen, when you view it on the iPad, it will get scaled down so you can see the entire photo at once. No matter what size or file format an image is, you can also also pinch the touch screen with your fingers to zoom in and view a portion of the picture in more detail.
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Video Formats
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The iPad can play a variety of video formats, primarily those based on the MPEG-4 standard. The "Videos" app easily plays files in the MOV, MP4 and M4V formats. In addition, some videos purchased from the iTunes Store will be in the M4P file format, which indicates an MP4 that has been purchased and licensed to a particular user. If you download a third-party video player such as "OPlayer Lite," the iPad will be able to play additional video file types, such as AVI and MKV files.
eBook Formats
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With the "iBooks" app, you can use your iPad as an eReader and download both free and paid digital books to read. The iBooks application works only with EPUB files, and when you sync your iPad with iTunes you can also load any books you happen to have in the EPUB format. There are also several third-party apps you can install on your iPad that support additional eReader formats. For example, the Amazon Books app supports the MOBI format of digital books.
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