iPad Nation Daily Tip: How to Turn Your Favorite Websites into Apps on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch

Here's a little user-friendly tip that's so simple that you may have overlooked it.

While it may seem that there's an app for just about everything these days, we aren't quite there yet. But if you have websites that you like to check in on regularly with your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch, it's easy as 1-2-3 to turn them, effectively speaking, into "apps" that will show up directly on your Home screen and open directly with a single tap. No need to open Safari or another browser and find these sites among your bookmarks or, worse, have to type in a URL.

Instead, you'll do all the work the first time and turn it into a one-step process for the future:

1. Bring up the website in question either by typing in the URL or using a link or bookmark to go there.
2. Tap the + sign that appears to the left of the browser's URL field on your iPad or at the bottom of the display on your iPhone or iPad Touch.
3. From the popup options, select and tap "Add to Home Screen" and follow the prompt to type in the short name (preferably 10 letters or less) by which you will recognize the ap, er, website, on your Home Screen.

The website will now reside on your Home Screen amongst the photos and Scrabble games and Pocket Ponds and ebook apps, ready to open whenever you want it with a single tap.