iPad with cellular: why?

[EugW]

I’m in the UK and although I don’t use cellular that much I always buy the cellular iPad “just in case”. I buy this sim with 24GB on, put it in the iPad and forget about it. The sim’s data can be used over 24 months but I don’t keep my iPad’s that long so this suits my needs.


Three Mobile Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband 24 GB data SIM https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01M3VJ2B2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_rxmbFbXWCZREF

£43.78 for 24 GB over 2 years seems like a very good deal.

I am in Canada on a 4 GB CAD$10/£5.86 monthly plan, but I'm actually only paying CAD$5/£2.93 per month as part of a 2 year promotion, until 2022. At <£3 per month for 4 GB, it's a no-brainer.

 

[bevsb2]

My first generation iPad Pro has LTE (Verizon) and I love it. It works great when the power is off and is very convenient when traveling. I don’t trust public WiFi. All of my future iPads will have LTE.

 

[Drk89wng]

I have the cellular option too from T-Mobile but I just got it to be on JOD to get a chance to get the new iPad once they finally decide to incorporate miniLED or microLED. I have a grand fathered unlimited hotspot that I use from my iPhone. I just wish that the message stating the iPad doesn’t have a sim didn’t come up every time I connect to the hot spot on the go.

 

[mikedude86]

You may want a different cellular provider on your iPad than your iPhone in case one has no service where you are but the order does. AT&T + Verizon is a good way to go for coverage.

I love this idea, but aren’t stand alone data plans typically more expensive vs an add on with current phone carrier?

 

[pshufd]

I love this idea, but aren’t stand alone data plans typically more expensive vs an add on with current phone carrier?

I take this approach when on vacation so it's just a month for cellular backup. I really like the UK thing where you pay for a big chunk of data for a small fee and get to keep it for two years.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I love this idea, but aren’t stand alone data plans typically more expensive vs an add on with current phone carrier?

Yes, they are. A stand-alone plan can often exceed the price of your iPhone cellular service, and that high price isn’t for unlimited data.

I pay $20 a month for unlimited iPad on my T-Mobile plan. While I could conceivably get by using my phone as a hotspot at times, doing such chews up battery and hotspot speed can be slower. I rather pay the $20 a month and have unlimited. I typically use 50 - 60GB a month on my iPad.

 

[DoubleFlyaway]

I pay $10 a month for unlimited on Verizon-- it's a benefit of the unlimited plan for my phone-- half off a tablet plan.

 

[mikedude86]

Yes, they are. A stand-alone plan can often exceed the price of your iPhone cellular service, and that high price isn’t for unlimited data.

I pay $20 a month for unlimited iPad on my T-Mobile plan. While I could conceivably get by using my phone as a hotspot at times, doing such chews up battery and hotspot speed can be slower. I rather pay the $20 a month and have unlimited. I typically use 50 - 60GB a month on my iPad.

Yeah AT&T wants $30 a month to add a Tablet data line, on an unlimited plan. I don’t travel enough and don’t use my iPad for work purposes, so don’t really care much about being on public WiFi (I’m sure there are 100 valid reasons I probably still should be concerned but I’ll happily be ignorant for now). I recently upgraded my ATT plan to include 30GB of Hotspot data per line, per month and I think that’s more than enough for me when needed. I do want to get my mom an iPad, we recently got her an iPhone and she now talks about sitting on YouTube for hours some nights, so I’d like to get her something with a bigger screen. I prefer to tether her iPhone 8 to a base model, maybe, 7th gen WiFi only iPad, but I worry about connection issues tethering, since she is in another state so I can’t easily troubleshoot with her. She does not have internet at her home and refuses to get it. She would always be home, so I don’t see battery draining as a big issue, because she can be plugged into a charger at all times if need be.

I prefer to pay just the extra 20 a month for the new plan I’m on now, it gives all 4 lines on my plan 30GB of Hotspot and HBO Max vs 30 a month, to spend an extra 150 on a cellular iPad, that only one person would be able to utilize the data on.

 

[riverfreak]

I have the iPad Pro with cellular and really don't see the point of it. I have the T-Mobile 200MB/month for life deal and the only times i ever needed to use it are when my Wi-Fi went out, and another time i was at a hotel and the Wi-Fi was so slow that it was unusable. And now that i can enable personal hotspot on my iPhone with AT&T, i wouldn't be stranded in a situation with no Wi-Fi.

Im thinking of getting the 10.5" without cellular this time but I'm scared that i might regret it later.

To all iPad owners with cellular, what situations have you been in where you genuinely had use for the cellular?

Most of the globe doesn’t have wi-fi coverage.

 

[easycure1974]

I would never buy an iPad without cellular. I travel a lot and the WiFi is often more or less useless on many hotels and using public hotspots is a big no for me even using VPN. And messing with internet sharing from my iPhone is another big no. So I use the cellular data a lot and would never ever get an iPad or laptop without it

 

[Wreckus]

Just added LTE/Cellular to my new ipad mini and I can already see myself surfing the net on that while travelling instead of my phone.

 

[pshufd]

Just added LTE/Cellular to my new ipad mini and I can already see myself surfing the net on that while travelling instead of my phone.

The aspect ratio makes it nicer for reading e-books and watching videos.

 

[Wreckus]

The aspect ratio makes it nicer for reading e-books and watching videos.

Haven't really tried videos yet. However, for books, it's the best IMO.

 

[pshufd]

Haven't really tried videos yet. However, for books, it's the best IMO.

The big phones are really long so I think that you end up with black stripes. Especially with traditional movies.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Back when I was looking at the difference, the only reason I was told to go cellular was for the ability to use the iPad as a GPS device when driving. I can see that, but so many cars now have GPS built-in, and most phones now have that too. I used to travel a lot, and I can see the cellular iPad creating some huge surprise cell bills upon return. Yikes...

 

[pshufd]

Back when I was looking at the difference, the only reason I was told to go cellular was for the ability to use the iPad as a GPS device when driving. I can see that, but so many cars now have GPS built-in, and most phones now have that too. I used to travel a lot, and I can see the cellular iPad creating some huge surprise cell bills upon return. Yikes...

I have a Garmin Nuvi as a primary GPS but I've seen issues with GPS (phone, car) where they screw up directions and having a backup is nice. I think that you can use a phone as a backup but the larger screen of the iPad makes it easier than using a phone. The other thing is that you don't need to use Cellular data to use GPS if you use the offline maps feature of Google Maps.

 

[LibbyLA]

I don’t have an iPhone. My Verizon cell plan is less than $90/month for 2G data plus 2G bonus data plus rollover. It would cost me over $100 to go to unlimited. Also, Verizon signal is poor at our camp, which is where I use cellular most. I pay $70/month to AT&T for the two iPads, which is a good bit less than I would pay if I increased my data and used my phone as a hot spot.

My neighborhood was hit with an EF1 tornado a couple of weeks ago and we were without power from about 5 AM until about 8:30 PM. I really appreciated having cellular iPads, as I did last night when my internet was acting flaky and I had to troubleshoot it.

I carry my Mini 5 with me when I go out. It’s a lot more convenient using it than my phone for most things.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I have a Garmin Nuvi as a primary GPS but I've seen issues with GPS (phone, car) where they screw up directions and having a backup is nice. I think that you can use a phone as a backup but the larger screen of the iPad makes it easier than using a phone. The other thing is that you don't need to use Cellular data to use GPS if you use the offline maps feature of Google Maps.

I got that, but how many people take the time to download maps before they leave.

But, truth, I have had 2 cellular capable iPads, and have only enabled that service once, and for a month. And I got so lost with my iPhone and maps, I was over an hour late to a meeting. The hilarious part was that I hit a three-way intersection from each of the tree ways! I then just went into 'pirate mode', and followed the sun. I knew a major road bisected the area east-west at some point south, and I just kept going south. Eventually I found the major highway and was there in less than a half hour. (I was that far off)

So, known where you are going, and if a 'shortcut' takes you int he wrong direction, Pay Attention... DOH!!!

I did wonder if a GPS enabled iPad would help me. Having your errors on a bigger screen must just make them larger, right? *shrug*

The only saving part of the excursion was that there was an accident on a major highway, and apparently a lot of people were waylaid by it. I just nodded when people asked. Weird...

 

[pshufd]

I got that, but how many people take the time to download maps before they leave.

But, truth, I have had 2 cellular capable iPads, and have only enabled that service once, and for a month. And I got so lost with my iPhone and maps, I was over an hour late to a meeting. The hilarious part was that I hit a three-way intersection from each of the tree ways! I then just went into 'pirate mode', and followed the sun. I knew a major road bisected the area east-west at some point south, and I just kept going south. Eventually I found the major highway and was there in less than a half hour. (I was that far off)

So, known where you are going, and if a 'shortcut' takes you int he wrong direction, Pay Attention... DOH!!!

I did wonder if a GPS enabled iPad would help me. Having your errors on a bigger screen must just make them larger, right? *shrug*

The only saving part of the excursion was that there was an accident on a major highway, and apparently a lot of people were waylaid by it. I just nodded when people asked. Weird...

I always have maps on my Phone and iPad downloaded for New England. If I'm planning a trip, I download maps for the area as I will do trip planning and having the map data stored locally means that analysis is far faster with not having to reload map data. I'd guess that you could download the whole country in about five GB if you wanted to. Once you download them, Google will update them automatically when you are in the App and you are connected to WiFi. Offline maps are a great way to greatly decrease cellular data consumption.

I was on a road with my daughter heading to Logan airport one day from New Hampshire and I was on Route 495 heading North to get to 93 South to Logan I was at one point and it said drive 45 miles on 495 North. At that point, I told me daughter to reboot the Garmin. She asked why? I said that we'd be in the Atlantic Ocean if we drove 45 miles from where we were.

I usually have a copilot when I'm on a trip so the copilot can operate the iPad Mini while the Garmin Nuvi is running. We also have my phone as a third backup. Worst case, I also have a GPS-enabled watch with maps of North America on it. But that's more designed for walking, hiking and running. What matters more is having different map sources. Google Maps is one that you can use offline. You can download Here maps as well (I have a relative that works in their mapping group). You can use Garmin as well. The main thing is to have maps with different sources. Hopefully you don't have multiple sources of maps with the same errors.

I generally scout an area with Google Maps or Apple Maps on a PC to get a feel for the area and I save locations of places to visit and places to shop and program the locations in the Garmin so that I can navigate to places using voice commands.

One other benefit to having two devices: navigation systems operate in a directions mode when you tell it to guide you. It tells you what's immediately ahead and how you are going to turn when you get to the next waypoint. Nav systems are usually poor at giving you an overview. That's where the iPad really shines.

 

[LibbyLA]

Something else the iPad does for me with navigation that my Nuvi doesn’t is warn me about traffic problems. I’m not in an area where traffic data seems to be available on my Garmin, but it is on the iPad.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Something else the iPad does for me with navigation that my Nuvi doesn’t is warn me about traffic problems. I’m not in an area where traffic data seems to be available on my Garmin, but it is on the iPad.

Traffic has been the sketchy part of the Garmin offerings. It can be badly off at times. I often don't pay attention to it unless it's saying it's a 100% blocked. I use Sirius/XM's 'traffic channel' for the big city near me. It's often, like Garmin's data, off, but does seem to be more accurate. *shrug* 'Traffic happens'...😂

 

[pshufd]

Traffic has been the sketchy part of the Garmin offerings. It can be badly off at times. I often don't pay attention to it unless it's saying it's a 100% blocked. I use Sirius/XM's 'traffic channel' for the big city near me. It's often, like Garmin's data, off, but does seem to be more accurate. *shrug* 'Traffic happens'...😂

Garmin relies on radio-based traffic reports which are often delayed 5-10 minutes while the mobile platforms with cellular data use near-real-time traffic flow data and accident reporting. So no contest. The difference is that you don't have cellular data charges for using a Garmin. They're also designed for vehicle-use.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

At one point Garmin did charge for traffic notification. They provided devices with 'lifetime' traffic, and others needed to pay, but I think many didn't. You needed their special antenna cable to get the data. They charged for that cable too. Just saying... I wondered where the data came from. I thought it was police reports.

 

[pshufd]

At one point Garmin did charge for traffic notification. They provided devices with 'lifetime' traffic, and others needed to pay, but I think many didn't. You needed their special antenna cable to get the data. They charged for that cable too. Just saying... I wondered where the data came from. I thought it was police reports.

Their site indicates different technologies from different products. Some of them have access to live traffic data using the cellular data link from your phone. Traffic data is provided by Here.