Interference with IP and Corporate Networks...WTF?

[Lamplighter77]

Brought my iPad to the office today to show it off to everyone and I just got an email from my IT guy asking me to turn the wifi off. I did, then I explained to him that it would be staying at home after today, some people in the office wanted to see it. He then replied to that email with this explanation:

"Figured as much
Apple has a much more interference with IP and corporate networks.

Thanks,
Chris"

This seems like complete crap to me. If I am just using it to check email and maybe browse a website or two, is there really any negative effects on the network? How is it any different than a PC on the network?

I know the wifi ipad's had that issue where they weren't giving up the IP address once it was no longer connected or something but I don't think that has anything to do with this particular claim.

 

[thankins]

HAHA - sounds like a load of crap to me. I am a system admin for a very large manufacturing company (I am sure you have their item on your desk right now) and I can tell you that is complete crap.


IP interference? The only thing I can think of is that he isn't an Apple guy and heard the stories about the IP issues you mentioned and doesn't fully understand them.

 

[Lamplighter77]

The only thing I can think of is that he isn't an Apple guy

This is what I was thinking. We had three IT guys and one had drank the Apple kool-aid just like myself. Since that IT guy left, the other guys have blocked iphones and ipod touches. I should have figured this would happen but had never actually gotten an explanation about why until this morning with the ipad.

 

[kenmarable]

It's just a handful I think have had a problem with properly releasing IP addresses (says they are released but keeps using them, causing IP conflicts).

1 university (I forget which, one of the fancy ones ) diagnosed the problem with a few on campus and Apple has been notified and is trying to fix the problem.

But, yeah, unless yours happens to be exhibiting that problem (but considering how fast he notified you, probably didn't cause any IP conflicts yet), he's just full of it and/or paranoid. I doubt your iPad even tried to release it's IP in that amount of time and then another computer tried to grab it causing the conflict.

So bottom line - SOME can SOMETIMES cause problems (and I wouldn't be surprised if there is a fix pretty soon anyway), but that guy is probably full of it.

 

[Warbrain]

If that's a direct quote from the email I'd question if he even knew what was going on and was just spitting whatever he read on some gadget blog a few weeks ago.

 

[Lamplighter77]

If that's a direct quote from the email I'd question if he even knew what was going on and was just spitting whatever he read on some gadget blog a few weeks ago.

That was a direct copy and paste of the whole body of the email...Thing is, this guy is not by any means a stupid guy. I think its just that whole anti-apple attitude. If I gave him an 3GS and a ipad I bet his policies would change with a quickness.

 

[Warbrain]

That was a direct copy and paste of the whole body of the email...Thing is, this guy is not by any means a stupid guy. I think its just that whole anti-apple attitude. If I gave him an 3GS and a ipad I bet his policies would change with a quickness.

Yea, he may be smart but he's just spitting out whatever he reads.

 

[za9ra22]

It doesn't much matter if the guy is talking nonsense or not - as the 'IT guy', he can just about say anything he wants to.

What I would do is ask him for an explanation of the problem 'so that you can report it to Apple for their attention', and for an idea of how it could be resolved in the meantime.

My first thought was that your corporate network may be set up to provide very short term IP leases, and like Princeton, aggressively re-use timed-out IPs. That would create duplicate IP errors on affected workstations. However, such a DHCP configuration is not all that common, and as Princeton found out, is relatively easy for an iPad owner to overcome pending Apple possibly resolving it (presumably via a firmware update).