I’m on my first flight with a cellular iPad and Magic Keyboard. It was incredible to be able to type away on iMessage right before takeoff…iPads don’t need to be stowed like MacBooks!
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All iPads Flying with iPad
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You could type iMessages on an iPhone and it’s much smaller. I agree an iPad seems better for flying if you’re wanting to watch a movie and the smaller 11” is more compact.
100% a great experience. When my flights have those small finicky displays that aren’t bright and show the most basic content with ads my iPad really is a lifesaver. I can download movies and tv shows and watch in its native resolution with my AirPods in Spatial Audio.
On my flights this month, passengers were told to stow "tablets with attached keyboards". I presume that the reasoning is that, even though most passengers have two functional hands, they're not likely to be holding onto the device(s), but rather have fingers hovering over the keyboard.
Personally I think the smart folio is more comfortable on a flight, especially with the larger sized tablet.
11” iPad. It’s way faster to type messages on the iPad with the Magic Keyboard. And I can watch a movie in PiP or split screen while doing other laptop-like things during taxi and takeoff.
I’ve just done 20 hours of flights on A380 from Australia to Rome with my iPad 13”. It was great for watching movies and is excellent for managing my photos now we are here. However the Magic keyboard did not fit well on the tray table with the seat reclined. So yesterday I bought the folio case which should be better.
ipad is a great media consumption toy but yeah the magic keyboard viewing angle…maybe it’s just me but my god why doesn’t hinge like just 5-10° more or something it’s soo close to a nice angle…anyway…
but if i want to use my ipad i definitely have my iphone which means hotspot + imessage sync so i probably will never understand most use cases for cellular ipads
but if i want to use my ipad i definitely have my iphone which means hotspot + imessage sync so i probably will never understand most use cases for cellular ipads
Never had any problem with 12.9 iPad Pro/Magic keyboard. I travel multiple times a month, never had to stow. If the flight doesn’t have much space between seats or the pouch can’t hold, it could be an issue on small aircrafts.
I have an 11" M2 Pro. The Apple folio case is spot on for plane usage. It fits on even the crappiest of economy airline tables 
From personal experience, American Airlines requires the keyboard to be detached during takeoff and landing. They interpret FAA rules about laptops to be anything with a keyboard. Carriers enforce the rules slightly differently, and flight attendants have wide latitude on how to enforce the rules. First class tends to have a lot more 'looking the other direction' from the flight attendants than main cabin. The regional carrier flight attendants (Piedmont, Envoy, Endeavor, etc.) tend to be 'by the book' compared to mainline flights.
The cellular iPads also have GPS, which is useful when you need more reliable map data. Some carriers choke hotspot speeds, or impose data limitations. Hotspot creates excessive heat and battery drain for the iPhone in my experience. Having a separate data plan is handy for these cases. You can also hotspot from the iPad too.
I've owned both over the years, and I'd say it's more of a convenience. I also like the peace of mind of a constant connection, no need for unsecured public wifi networks. Find My works offline nowadays, but an online connection is more accurate, and eSIM can't be removed by thieves. Overall, it depends on how often you're out and about, and using a data connection.
I used to (until just recently) travel a lot with work and the iPad was a far better device than my MBA/P, it fit better on the table tray but also, native apps, allow downloading of shows/films and played back with spatial audio.
Stowing laptops/tablets was not an issue for me as it was only a small part of the journey, so I would happily stow an iPad if asked.
Stowing laptops/tablets was not an issue for me as it was only a small part of the journey, so I would happily stow an iPad if asked.
I do love traveling with my iPad Mini. On a recent trip to Japan it was awesome on the way there, but it did suck that some of the streaming apps that I had downloaded movies/shows in refused to launch while on the airplane ride back to the US two weeks later. Thankfully AppleTV+ still worked so I had a few things to watch within that.
Just a guess, but I bet one driver behind the “anything with a keyboard” policy is they don’t want to have to figure out (or argue about) if something is a tablet or laptop and whether the rule should apply.
Being able to just quickly walk down the aisle and scan rows to make sure nothing “laptop shaped” is there is probably about as much as FA’s can reasonably be expected to do before takeoff and landing.
That may also explain some of getting a bit of a pass in first class, where you have an assigned flight attendant who can take the time to look more closely and/or ask.
I’d have to look at the FAA rules myself, but there’s not a ton of interpretation that usually goes on there. Stuff’s either allowed or not—by industry consensus, in the case of an ambiguous rule, rather than by carrier discretion. And there’s usually *very* little looking the other way for an actual FAA rule, at least within the cabin of a commercial passenger flight, which makes me suspect there isn’t a clear requirement there.
I have a feeling the pragmatic reality of the above may be the major (and justified imo) reason, and the “we interpret” part comes down to passing the buck.
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I was so relaxed, typing on my keyboard. Watching my movie. Super amazing dude.
It boiled down to having not launched certain apps for a couple of weeks and them requiring a connection to the internet to launch since they hadn't been launched in that timeframe. Had I known that I would lose access to certain apps due to them being unable to call home during my return flight I would have opened each app while connected to the internet prior to boarding. An example is Paramount+. I had zero issues watching downloaded shows and movies in that app on my way to Japan because I had loaded the app the night before my flight there. I wasn't so lucky on my return flight 16 days later having not launched that app simce the first flight. Lesson learned for me. Check every app that I intend to use on a flight immediately before boarding it.
I agree, it’s annoying how limited the viewing angle is (using original MK). It seems like the secondary hinge could angle back quite a bit more and still be balanced, especially if the primary hinge adjusted forward a little to compensate.
Doing so could even maybe enable it to be a comfortable enough angle for drawing. Currently drawing on the MK is a no go. Although while drawing, one might have to rest their other hand on the keyboard base to keep it from tipping, but I’m used to doing this anyway from using keyboard shortcuts. But I digress.
Man that’s mega lame, but good to know.
I just turned on airplane mode and tested a few video apps on my iPad. Caveat is some of the apps were launched for the first time because this is a somewhat new iPad, so maybe I would have gotten different results on those apps if I had already signed in beforehand.
- ATV+ loaded straight to my downloaded videos, didn’t even show any sidebar or anything else. This was the first time launching it on this iPad, so the downloads must have synced from the backup restore of my previous iPad. So ATV+ is good.
- Netflix and Disney+ both loaded, but I did launch these apps before but can’t remember when. I didn’t have any downloads but I was able to navigate to the downloads section, so I’m pretty sure they would have shown there if I had any. But since I don’t remember the last time I opened them, N and D+ are questionable.
- Fandango was same as NF and D+, except Fandango was launched for the first time. But since I didn’t have any downloads to show/test, I’d say Fandango is probably good.
- Prime and Peacock didn’t load, both never launched before. So they’re probably bad.
They really should all load straight to downloads when offline like ATV+. No idea why the developers would make it any other way.