To use AirPlay on your iPad, you'll need a Wi-Fi network and at least one AirPlay receiver device - this can be a speaker dock with AirPlay built in, the Apple AirPort Express Base Station or the Apple TV. The latter is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get AirPlay up and running, and it consists of a small box that connects to your HDTV over HDMI. For this tutorial, we're going to assume that you have an Apple TV hooked up to your home wireless network.

If you have an iPad 2, setting up your TV to mirror your iPad's display is simple. Switch your telly to the correct input source (the HDMI port that the Apple TV is connected to) and double-press the iPad's Home button. Swipe the application switcher bar to the right and tap the arrow button to the left of the volume slider. A pop-up will appear with two options: 'Apple TV' and 'iPad'. Select 'Apple TV' and your iPad's screen will be mirrored on the TV at 720p resolution. Audio from your iPad will also be piped through to your TV as soon as you start playing content with sound.

If you have an iPad 1, AirPlay playback will be limited to certain system apps such as Photos, Music, Videos, Safari (for embedded videos), YouTube and FaceTime, as well as a few dozen third-party apps and games. However, you can still get a lot done with AirPlay, even without the option of video mirroring.

The best use for AirPlay on your iPad is 'seamless' media playback, where you move your music listening and movie watching between your iPad and other output devices, depending on the medium that's most appropriate. With this setup, all of the content you're currently watching and listening to is stored on your iPad, which you use to drive playback to any of the other screens or speakers in your house. The beauty of this configuration is simplicity. You could start watching a movie at home using AirPlay streaming to your HDTV and then when you need to leave the room, you can switch the display back to your iPad and continue watching there. This setup also works for music.

You can use AirPlay for other things as well. Gaming, particularly with a group of people, works especially well. Real Racing 2 HD has a special party play mode that splits the screen for up to four players over AirPlay. Another game you can use with it is Scrabble; while it doesn't have an AirPlay feature per se, you can output the Scrabble board to an HDTV using AirPlay mirroring from an iPad, and use it in conjunction with the free Scrabble Tile Rack on other iOS devices for a local multiplayer Scrabble session. There's a productivity element, too: you can use AirPlay for transforming the iPad into a de facto workstation (just add a Bluetooth keyboard and the relevant software) and it can substitute for a notebook when it comes to running presentations, as the combination of an iPad and Apple TV is still smaller and lighter than many notebooks.