I have a WiFi iPad and have an gmail account that *worked* fine until:
I opened a message from my Inbox, read the message and clicked on the 'sender's' name and clicked 'Add to contacts' thinking that would add that person's name to a new contacts list (I have not imported/synced any contacts list so far).

Instead it froze the mail app. The message I was reading is still visible but looks grayed out a little but tapping anywhere on the screen (icons on the top/right, the message, etc) does nothing. So I shut the iPad off and turned it on again and went to mail - still same froze screen.

All other apps work fine.

Any suggestions?

Thanks
Robert

Try "killing" the mail app. This works for any app that is misbehaving...but it may not fix the underlying problem.

From the app that is misbehaving (in your case, open Mail)
Press and hold the Sleep button until youget the"Slide to power off" screen.
Instead of sliding, press and hold the Home button
This will exit Mail and dump you back to the Home screen (behind the scenes, it's releasing the memory and processes for whatever app you were using when you did this)
Try Mail again

I've used this mostly for webpages that freeze up Safari.

Good luck!

Thanks for the 'Reply'. Just about a minute before your posting appeared I tried this (found in the forum):
"Hold sleep and home buttons down until you get the shutoff screen. Then restart the ipad by pressing the sleep button."

That worked - but it scared me for a moment when all that appeared was the Apple logo - after a bit the 'home' screen appeared and the mail program worked again.

Thanks again for your 'Reply" - I'll save your answer, just in case.

Robert

What you did is a soft reset. Sometimes it can take a long time to reboot. My iPhone was on the Apple logo for 5 minutes once. But it's a surefire way to clear memory/app leaks.

The steps I mention takes three seconds...and in my opinion, should be tried first before doing a soft reset anytime something goes wrong.

Purpleorchid, again, thanks for your feedback - it's always appreciated when someone takes the time to provide real information. On other forums I often see answers such as 'No" or other Replies w/o any useful information.

OT, how do you like your Zagg InvisibleSHIELD. I have been tempted to get this on my new iPad (buy and have it installed at BestBuy) yet I read in many other places that the iPad screen is almost scratch proof and really does not need protection. Others believe it absolutely must be protected.

Does the InvisibleSHIELD in any way make the iPad screen less responsive to touch and sliding the finger across it?

Thanks again
Robert

Screen protection is a personal preference. Some people must have it, some people think it's useless. There's no right/wrong...just what fits your usage pattern.

I like keeping things looking nice, so I have them on my 1st gen Touch, 2nd gen Touch, iPhone and iPad. And the same kind of stuff as paint protection on my car.

The iPad seems to like fingerprints a lot, despite the oleophobic glass or whatever it's called. The Invisibleshield still collects fingerprints, but it doesn't look as greasy as the iPad screens I see at the Apple store.

Less responsive to touch? Not at all.
Less responsive to sliding your finger? It's a little more tacky, but after a day of using it, you forget about the difference from the naked glass.

Invisibleshield has a slight orange peel look to it when looked at an angle, but doesn't distort the screen. Some people say it does, but I think it's not noticaeble unless you stick your nose really close to the glass.

There's another company called GhostArmor which does the same thing as Invisibleshield, but apparently doesn't have the orange peel look. I have no experience with it...haven't even seen it on a device yet, but that's what I hear from reviews.

I just use Invisibleshield because that's all that was available way back when I got my 1st gen Touch. Now there are many companies that make these similar films.