Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Out of the box, how happy are you with 3G iPad?
- Thread starter kirchnrd
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I'm honestly having buyers remorse. I'm sitting on my couch after playing with my new 3G. And this thing is great for what it does. I won't deny that at all.
But I sit here and stare at the iPad, my iPhone, and my MBP and I'm having a hard time justifying keeping this thing. I don't need it for anything and part of my daily web surfing routine is just better handled by a laptop.
Don't flame me. I'm mostly am just venting. I get why people love this thing, it's great. I just can't decide if it's worth the price of admission for ME. I am seriously considering returning it.
But I sit here and stare at the iPad, my iPhone, and my MBP and I'm having a hard time justifying keeping this thing. I don't need it for anything and part of my daily web surfing routine is just better handled by a laptop.
Don't flame me. I'm mostly am just venting. I get why people love this thing, it's great. I just can't decide if it's worth the price of admission for ME. I am seriously considering returning it.
Did you do any research at all before buying an iPad? Neither of your top two complaints were addressed by this device from day one. You might just have well made a list like this:
1) I want it to have a i7 chip and run Snow Leopard
2) I want it to print perfect $100 bills from a slot in the side
3) I need it to play all my Xbox 360 games
I just don't understand some people.
It's what I expected, which is good. I haven't tried 3g yet (haven't even signed up for the service). I would like a better case. I got an InCase thats' basically a big skin. I would like something with a hand strap or a folding cover that would make it easier and more book-like to hold. The Apple case was sold out.
I think it's fine; the 3G isn't really worth it. I'm definitely not renewing it once I change my iPhone to a microSIM.
If you hold 'Option' while you click any checked box, it will uncheck all the checked boxes; and vice versa.
If you hold 'Option' while you click any checked box, it will uncheck all the checked boxes; and vice versa.
Not at all happy
I spent the entire afternoon and early evening fighting with Apple and AT&T trying to get the 3G service started on the new iPad. I keep getting an error message telling me to "verify my billing address" every time I click on the continue button after entering my billing information. I tried multiple credit cards and combinations of user names and billing name all in a vain attempt to get it to work.
Finally in desperation I gave up and went to the AT&T store figuring that they could just turn on the data plan. "Nope, go see Apple we have nothing to do with the iPad." grr Off to the Apple store. Mind you this is all 50 mile one way trip from my house. So I get to the Apple store and they say "oh my, let us get you to a genius right away."
What a joke. I spent the next 3 hours standing in that very loud, over heated, and over lit store getting no where at all. The genius decided that I needed to call AT&T and spent 15 minutes finding a phone number to do that. So I stood right there at the genius bar and called AT&T who said "who us? we can't do anything, we can see nothing, it is totally Apple's responsibility to activate the iPad and everything else to do with it.
I explained with some amount of despair that I was standing in an Apple store and that Apple said I needed to talk to them. End result; a conversation between the Apple genius and the AT&T rep (after AT&T had gone through 3 different reps including their Manager.) A conversation that produced nothing by the way.
This resulted in the genius turning me over to the Store Manager who decided that we should start over with a nice shinny new iPad right out of the box. (Even asked me to open the box to relive the opening experience. I wish I was kidding about that).
More fruitless attempts to activate the 3G service including going to my bank account on line and demonstrating that yes indeed I really did know my own address associated with the credit card and was indeed typing it in correctly.
In the middle of all this the Manager starting firing emails all over the place asking for help and in the end got a reply from some one in Cupertino telling him he should check to see if my home address had 3G coverage because if it did not then the 3G plan would not activate. Now I live out in the woods a seriously long way from anything. The only internet service to be had here that even partially resembles broad band in by Satellite so no I don't get a 3G signal at my house. I do get Edge interestingly enough. I mentioned to the Manager that I could not care less if I had 3G coverage at my house as I have a Wi-Fi router and that the whole purpose in waiting all this time had been to get 3G on this "mobile" device.
So, bottom line seems to be so far that the "geniuses" at Apple and AT&T were not smart enough to take my kind of situation into account. The Manager reasons that AT&T does not want to sell the data plan if their coverage maps do not show coverage at the billing address. My comment was that was incredibly ridiculous as they are already supplying me with lots of nice unlimited service on the 3 iPhones my family uses all with out a single 3G signal at our house.
The bottom line is that what was supposed to be a really nice present to my wife today has turned out to be a bitter disappointment. I think the Genius and the Manager were both shocked when she commented to me that I should just return the darn thing as it was perfectly capable of living with out it. I tried to explain to her that in the "magical" world of an Apple store they just would not be able to understand that attitude but I don't think she got it.
So to sum up my answer to the op. Bitterly disappointed, furious at both Apple and AT&T, and seriously considering returning the bloody device.
I spent the entire afternoon and early evening fighting with Apple and AT&T trying to get the 3G service started on the new iPad. I keep getting an error message telling me to "verify my billing address" every time I click on the continue button after entering my billing information. I tried multiple credit cards and combinations of user names and billing name all in a vain attempt to get it to work.
Finally in desperation I gave up and went to the AT&T store figuring that they could just turn on the data plan. "Nope, go see Apple we have nothing to do with the iPad." grr Off to the Apple store. Mind you this is all 50 mile one way trip from my house. So I get to the Apple store and they say "oh my, let us get you to a genius right away."
What a joke. I spent the next 3 hours standing in that very loud, over heated, and over lit store getting no where at all. The genius decided that I needed to call AT&T and spent 15 minutes finding a phone number to do that. So I stood right there at the genius bar and called AT&T who said "who us? we can't do anything, we can see nothing, it is totally Apple's responsibility to activate the iPad and everything else to do with it.
I explained with some amount of despair that I was standing in an Apple store and that Apple said I needed to talk to them. End result; a conversation between the Apple genius and the AT&T rep (after AT&T had gone through 3 different reps including their Manager.) A conversation that produced nothing by the way.
This resulted in the genius turning me over to the Store Manager who decided that we should start over with a nice shinny new iPad right out of the box. (Even asked me to open the box to relive the opening experience. I wish I was kidding about that).
More fruitless attempts to activate the 3G service including going to my bank account on line and demonstrating that yes indeed I really did know my own address associated with the credit card and was indeed typing it in correctly.
In the middle of all this the Manager starting firing emails all over the place asking for help and in the end got a reply from some one in Cupertino telling him he should check to see if my home address had 3G coverage because if it did not then the 3G plan would not activate. Now I live out in the woods a seriously long way from anything. The only internet service to be had here that even partially resembles broad band in by Satellite so no I don't get a 3G signal at my house. I do get Edge interestingly enough. I mentioned to the Manager that I could not care less if I had 3G coverage at my house as I have a Wi-Fi router and that the whole purpose in waiting all this time had been to get 3G on this "mobile" device.
So, bottom line seems to be so far that the "geniuses" at Apple and AT&T were not smart enough to take my kind of situation into account. The Manager reasons that AT&T does not want to sell the data plan if their coverage maps do not show coverage at the billing address. My comment was that was incredibly ridiculous as they are already supplying me with lots of nice unlimited service on the 3 iPhones my family uses all with out a single 3G signal at our house.
The bottom line is that what was supposed to be a really nice present to my wife today has turned out to be a bitter disappointment. I think the Genius and the Manager were both shocked when she commented to me that I should just return the darn thing as it was perfectly capable of living with out it. I tried to explain to her that in the "magical" world of an Apple store they just would not be able to understand that attitude but I don't think she got it.
So to sum up my answer to the op. Bitterly disappointed, furious at both Apple and AT&T, and seriously considering returning the bloody device.
Then go ahead and return it. I think it's pretty obvious that you are in the overwhelming minority of people who have had such an experience.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)
Was he pretending to be a majority voice? Your reply sounded a bit patronizing for some reason. I found his story quite interesting as it happens.
Hope he finds a solution one way or another.
GamecockMac said:
Was he pretending to be a majority voice? Your reply sounded a bit patronizing for some reason. I found his story quite interesting as it happens.
Hope he finds a solution one way or another.
Maybe--maybe not
That is what I have always loved the most about this community. The warm feeling of support you get from you fellow Apple enthusiasts. /sarcasm The op asked a question and I answered it. That is it. Today's experience was less than pleasant and incredibility stupid on both Apple's and AT&T's part for not forseeing this kind of situation. All they needed to do was have a screen pop up warning me that 3G coverage was not available at the billing address and ask me to acknowledge that I understood that and wanted to proceed.
Instead I have waited all this time and now have to either jump through ridiculous hoops to arrange for credit card billed to an address that is inside 3G coverage area or loose much of the functionality I waited for.
I really did not need the attitude. What I could have used was a simple comment similar to "wow that really sucks, I hope they get it straightened out soon" So thanks for nothing. By the way, don't be fooled by the Newbie label. I've been following MacRumors for years. I just had nothing I felt strongly enough to comment on before. So blow it out your ear and keep your Apple fanboy comments to your self for awhile.
That is what I have always loved the most about this community. The warm feeling of support you get from you fellow Apple enthusiasts. /sarcasm The op asked a question and I answered it. That is it. Today's experience was less than pleasant and incredibility stupid on both Apple's and AT&T's part for not forseeing this kind of situation. All they needed to do was have a screen pop up warning me that 3G coverage was not available at the billing address and ask me to acknowledge that I understood that and wanted to proceed.
Instead I have waited all this time and now have to either jump through ridiculous hoops to arrange for credit card billed to an address that is inside 3G coverage area or loose much of the functionality I waited for.
I really did not need the attitude. What I could have used was a simple comment similar to "wow that really sucks, I hope they get it straightened out soon" So thanks for nothing. By the way, don't be fooled by the Newbie label. I've been following MacRumors for years. I just had nothing I felt strongly enough to comment on before. So blow it out your ear and keep your Apple fanboy comments to your self for awhile.
Thank you.
Thank you sassenach74. The whole point of the post was to answer the op's question and to share the experience for those who might be in a similar situation so they could avoid the hassle. There is not pleasing some people.
Thank you sassenach74. The whole point of the post was to answer the op's question and to share the experience for those who might be in a similar situation so they could avoid the hassle. There is not pleasing some people.
Not really. OP asked how happy you are with the 3G iPad. He didn't ask how your purchase/activation experience was, and if you live in B.F.E. and AT&T doesn't provide iPad 3G service for you, that really doesn't have a damn thing to do with the device itself, that's a wireless carrier's decision.
I guess it does suck for you that it took so long to get this issue figured out, but that's sometimes how things work, you just can't please all of the people all of the time.
AT&T Data Plan Requirements
I did take a look at AT&T's wireless service agreement which led me to their plan terms. While the voice plans do state that the purchaser must live and receive a bill within an AT&T service territory the Wireless Data Service Terms and Conditions say nothing of the sort. To quote AT&T:
They then go on to state in the Service Availability and Access/Coverage section that:
So in the end I really don't see the problem. I am an informed buyer. I want the service for when I am away from my house where I have Wi-Fi. I think they basically just blew it.
I did take a look at AT&T's wireless service agreement which led me to their plan terms. While the voice plans do state that the purchaser must live and receive a bill within an AT&T service territory the Wireless Data Service Terms and Conditions say nothing of the sort. To quote AT&T:
"I. GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLICABLE TO AT&T'S WIRELESS DATA SERVICES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, FEATURES THAT MAY BE USED WITH WIRELESS DATA SERVICES AND WIRELESS CONTENT.
General Requirements: AT&T provides wireless data services, including but not limited to, features that may be used with wireless data services and wireless content and applications ("Services"). The absolute capacity of the wireless data network is limited. Accordingly, service is only provided for prescribed purposes and pricing for Data Services is device dependent and based on the transmit and receive capacity of each device. A pricing plan designated for one type of device may not be used with another device. Some devices or plans may require you to subscribe to data plan. If AT&T determines that you are not subscribed to the required plan(s), AT&T reserves the right to switch you to the required plan or plans and bill you the appropriate monthly fee. The Services may be subject to credit approval. An activation fee of up to $36 may apply to each new data line. Compatible data-enabled wireless device required."
General Requirements: AT&T provides wireless data services, including but not limited to, features that may be used with wireless data services and wireless content and applications ("Services"). The absolute capacity of the wireless data network is limited. Accordingly, service is only provided for prescribed purposes and pricing for Data Services is device dependent and based on the transmit and receive capacity of each device. A pricing plan designated for one type of device may not be used with another device. Some devices or plans may require you to subscribe to data plan. If AT&T determines that you are not subscribed to the required plan(s), AT&T reserves the right to switch you to the required plan or plans and bill you the appropriate monthly fee. The Services may be subject to credit approval. An activation fee of up to $36 may apply to each new data line. Compatible data-enabled wireless device required."
They then go on to state in the Service Availability and Access/Coverage section that:
Service Availability and Access/Coverage: AT&T does not guarantee availability of wireless network. Services may be subject to certain equipment and compatibility/limitations including memory, storage, network availability, coverage, accessibility and data conversion limitations. Services (including without limitation, eligibility requirements, plans, pricing, features and/or service areas) are subject to change without notice. When outside coverage area, access will be limited to information and applications previously downloaded to or resident on your device. Coverage areas vary between AT&T BroadbandConnect, EDGE and GRPS. AT&T BroadbandConnect only available in select markets. See coverage map(s), available at store or from your sales representative, for details. AT&T BroadbandConnect download speeds only available on the AT&T BroadbandConnect network. Actual download speeds depend upon device characteristics, network, network availability and coverage levels, tasks, file characteristics, applications and other factors. Performance may be impacted by transmission limitations, terrain, in-building/in-vehicle use and capacity constraints.
" So in the end I really don't see the problem. I am an informed buyer. I want the service for when I am away from my house where I have Wi-Fi. I think they basically just blew it.
3G Issues
Final comment and I'm out of here for good. There are 3 full pages of discussion thread over at Apple Support with people screaming about the very same issue I brought up. So I guess I'm not really in the vast minority after all. I predict that if they don't get this solved quickly they will be receiving a boat load of 3G iPads back.
Link to Apple support thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2417114&tstart=0
Out of here now. I don't need the attitude.
Final comment and I'm out of here for good. There are 3 full pages of discussion thread over at Apple Support with people screaming about the very same issue I brought up. So I guess I'm not really in the vast minority after all. I predict that if they don't get this solved quickly they will be receiving a boat load of 3G iPads back.
Link to Apple support thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2417114&tstart=0
Out of here now. I don't need the attitude.
Nor do you deserve it. The holier than thou attitude some internet warriors here display is pathetic.
Boy, that really sucks! At home, why would you want 3G? Most people have home wifi which is faster. The reason to get 3G is to use the device away from home!
Thanks for the info. It's too bad you had to find out the hard way. Also, I believe you are right about this being a major issue. Before release, this definitely should have been a known issue.
The problem I'm having...
Convincing my children to give it back to me.
Now that they're asleep I finally get to play with my new toy.
Convincing my children to give it back to me.
Now that they're asleep I finally get to play with my new toy.
It seems that for me, the anticipation was all of the excitement. I brought it home, then went to work out. Then came home for a protein shake AND LEFT AGAIN. Stayed out for awhile, came home and took a NAP. During this ENTIRE TIME I was contacted by SO MANY people who knew how excited I was, each of them SURPRISED AS HELL that I hadn't opened it.
My wife came home and opened it because she had been so excited from MY excitement. She couldn't really enjoy it until I synced and downloaded the apps, so I finally did. Played with it for awhile and went to bed. Here I am replying on my iPhone. Go figure. Still love the iPad though--(Love all that real estate!!!) it just seems that the portability of the iPhone is greater to me. Go figure.
My wife came home and opened it because she had been so excited from MY excitement. She couldn't really enjoy it until I synced and downloaded the apps, so I finally did. Played with it for awhile and went to bed. Here I am replying on my iPhone. Go figure. Still love the iPad though--(Love all that real estate!!!) it just seems that the portability of the iPhone is greater to me. Go figure.