I bet if you used the adapter on the Mac it would do the same. Macs has usb issues as well so it may not be the iPads fault. Yes the Mac has a headphone jack but still.
A bit of dust can get under any device in production as well. Can happen to the next iPhone, iPad etc.
I don’t plan on returning mine at all, since I came from the iPad Air this thing is everything I want in an iPad. But yeah this WiFi thing is a bit of a pain but it is what it is.
Oh and thanks MR for responding to my email/ pff
I don't think everyone should return their 11". If you love it enjoy it!
I tested the dongle on my 12" MacBook (2015 Retina) without problems. I will do a longer test and let you know if I can reproduce it on the MacBook.
I have owned the MacBook since 2015 and have maybe 10 different USB-C devices and dongles. I have never experienced any sort of problem with USB-C on the MacBook. The videos I found where people did experience the problem seemed to be with somewhat wonky looking USB-C peripherals (maybe low quality). Thats a bit different than experiencing it with actual Apple brand peripherals.
I agree that dust can be an issue on any LCD screen. However I have purchased approximately 20 iOS devices since my first iPhone; and this was the first device I have received with dust. It was just one clue in the set of clues that gave me the gut reaction that this device was rushed. I could very well be wrong; and there may be MANY that are absolutely perfect. This is just my opinion. But it is the opinion of a tech consultant with 30 years professional experience with Apple products (starting with the Macintosh II in 1987).
I really wanted to love my new iPad as well. It truly saddened me to return it. But I try my best to be unemotional with tech because I have a limited budget; and devices just have to last for me.
My conclusion to this issue is I replaced my 11" iPad Pro with a 10.5" model. Here are my findings:
The 10.5" I replaced it with has:
Pros:
- Headphone jack <- big one for me
- Optical image stabilization on the camera (yeah, I do occasionally use my iPad as a camera. shoot me.)
- Has a much more robust feeling case structurally. I believe the curves actually improve structural strength.
- Has a home button; not as cool as Face ID...but notably faster to tap/double tap than to swipe up for multitasking
- $699 shipped new (BH Camera sale $100 off). $250 savings over 11". There are likely to be many more deals on the 10.5" vs. the new shiny 11" and 12.9"
- Works with my daughters old Apple Pencil so I can borrow it. I don't use it enough to buy one for myself.
- Maybe I had bad speakers on my 11"; but the 10.5 inch sound seems more precise to me, and I don't have the balance issue I was experiencing (was shifted toward left side on my 11").
Same Same:
- 4GB RAM, 256GB Storage
- Same exact weight to the ounce
- Exact same color accuracy and brightness as 11"
- Still has USB 3 speed over the lightning port for my camera card reader; its actually exactly the same 5GB/s as when you plug the camera card reader into the new USB-C iPads
- Works with the dozens of lightning peripherals and chargers I have everywhere in a house with many devices
- This is still considered a "new device sold in 2018" by Apple. It has 4GB RAM. My guess is it will support exactly the same future revisions of iOS as the 11" for the exact same number of years.
Cons:
- No Face ID. I really liked this and will miss it. Animoji was really cool also! However, I would have likely used Animoji like twice with to make my wife laugh...and then never again.
- When in landscape orientation (my normal use case) has same height as 11" (1668 pixels same as 11") but is 7% smaller horizontally to make room for the button (164 fewer pixels horizontally...2388-2224). I always say "if it's less than 20% I probably won't notice it"; and this seems to be true of most things. I do however miss watching 16:9 videos on the 11".
- Slower CPU by 25% in single core and probably 50% in multi core. Also GPU is around 30% slower. I don't actually think I can tell the difference in any real applications.