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Will 3G Solve problems ?

Don't be surprised if the 3G iPad has weaknesses of its own. Those maps shown in the TV ads starring Luke Wilson are for phone coverage, not 3G data coverage. The 3G coverage throughout the U.S. is sparse. Here in Portland, OR, it is frustratingly spotty and weak.

Also the GPS is a battery "eater." That won't be addressed until the fall when OS 4.0 is released allowing you to limit what apps use it.

Lastly, don't forget that early adopters are Apple's beta testers. All things considered, I say Apple has done very well with iPad 1.0.
 
Nash Bridges said:
When there have been thousands of messages posted by owners regarding this how can you totally discount it?
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Where are these thousands of messages? The article I linked to above says there are roughly 300 or so people with problems posting on the Apple forums. Here it's less. How are you getting "thousands?"
 
barefeats said:
Lastly, don't forget that early adopters are Apple's beta testers. All things considered, I say Apple has done very well with iPad 1.0.
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Yep. I have had no real issues so far with mine. A few glitchy things have happened, and every time I just say, meh it's a glitch.
 
Well I have, and my 14 day return window is running out. In fact as I was typing this, I was prompted to retype my password. Looks like this unit is going back for sure. It has works fine last two days, but I had to wipe everything and reload. It is asking for passwords again today, and I am NOT gonna go through all of that again. I thought I had it fixed.
 
Sat it down, and when I went to pick it back up to check the thread, guess what, I had to retype my password......
 
Exactly. If it is because of going into some battery saving mode, I'd rather have a 5hr battery than to have to reconnect like this. However I'm not sure thats the reason, because I have been typing and then prompted to retype password, so its not just happening when it reawakes.

Do anyone know that if I get a replacement iPad, everything I purchased on this one can get moved back onto the new iPad once I sync it to my iTunes account, provided that right before I take it back to Best Buy I sync it? My purchases aren't lost right?
 
ah, I just tracked down the AT&T version. Very deceptive. Yes, their map includes all the EDGE areas.
 
Well just lost the connection again, this time it won't even take the password, so I am typing to everyone on my Mini now while I sync this ipad one last time so I can take it back to Best Buy when they open. my luck they will not have one in stock. Am I better off to go to Apple Store? Could Best Buy later claim that "that isn't the serial number of the iPad you bought from us if I later have to deal with them for anything? Don't want to walk away from Best Buy with no iPad and them having my $600 bucks "until my replacement arrives". Anyone had to return their yet? Everything else I have that uses my wifi has NO problem, so this must be an iPad issue. Apple I don't care if 3% (and I doubt that number) is all that are having issues. This needs fixed.
 
I can tell you right now those maps are bunk.
I've been tons of places all over the country with my MacBook and my AT&T 3G card and I almost always have a full signal.
Spent 6 months all over the state of AZ with flawless coverage... Looking at the map pic, you would think AZ has barely any coverage.
I've gotten Full signal in many places this map claims "no coverage"
 
bludodge said:
Well just lost the connection again, this time it won't even take the password, so I am typing to everyone on my Mini now while I sync this ipad one last time so I can take it back to Best Buy when they open. my luck they will not have one in stock. Am I better off to go to Apple Store? Could Best Buy later claim that "that isn't the serial number of the iPad you bought from us if I later have to deal with them for anything? Don't want to walk away from Best Buy with no iPad and them having my $600 bucks "until my replacement arrives". Anyone had to return their yet? Everything else I have that uses my wifi has NO problem, so this must be an iPad issue. Apple I don't care if 3% (and I doubt that number) is all that are having issues. This needs fixed.
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Agreed, I felt compelled to post by all the naysayers claiming this isn't a widespread issue, I'm one of the affected users who haven't bothered posting until now.

100% of my iPad sample set of 2 :) are affected by the issue. I bought one for myself & one for my dad on launch day, and we set them up on my dad's wifi network which is simply an old G network running dd-wrt with wpa2 encryption. Both units had the issues, losing connectivity regularly and being prompted to re-enter the wpa2 password. All the while, my Macbook Pro remains connected without an issue.

I then brought my unit home where I actually do have a dual-band 802.11n router, but it's already configured as Apple instructs by using different SSIDs for the 802.11g and 802.11n networks, and I continue to have the same problems here at home. Again, my mbp never has an issue, I have 2 aTVs that never have an issue, a full-time 802.11n wireless bridge (Linksys wga600n connecting to netgear wndr3700 router) that never has an issue, etc., etc.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with either network, I make my living as a Cisco network engineer and my home network is as solid and stable as one would expect from a professional network engineer. The iPad has wifi problems, period.
 
jim.arrows said:
Agreed, I felt compelled to post by all the naysayers claiming this isn't a widespread issue, I'm one of the affected users who haven't bothered posting until now.

100% of my iPad sample set of 2 :) are affected by the issue. I bought one for myself & one for my dad on launch day, and we set them up on my dad's wifi network which is simply an old G network running dd-wrt with wpa2 encryption. Both units had the issues, losing connectivity regularly and being prompted to re-enter the wpa2 password. All the while, my Macbook Pro remains connected without an issue.

I then brought my unit home where I actually do have a dual-band 802.11n router, but it's already configured as Apple instructs by using different SSIDs for the 802.11g and 802.11n networks, and I continue to have the same problems here at home. Again, my mbp never has an issue, I have 2 aTVs that never have an issue, a full-time 802.11n wireless bridge (Linksys wga600n connecting to netgear wndr3700 router) that never has an issue, etc., etc.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with either network, I make my living as a Cisco network engineer and my home network is as solid and stable as one would expect from a professional network engineer. The iPad has wifi problems, period.
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Whats your plans Jim? I am hoping I just got a dud. Worse thing for me is my 7yo loves it, so if i don't replace it, he will be sad, but I'm really frustrated.
 
If I knew something was being worked on to fix the problem, that would be one thing, but I am inclined to just return it and get my money back and take the 15% restocking hit which is about a $90 "stupid tax" I guess.
 
alex2792 said:
Wep key is computer generated, it's just random numbers and letters while Wap is a key you can make up yourself. Generally Wep sucks for security so Wap or better yet Wap2 is highly recommended.
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Can you or someone school me on this? My router admin page suggest WEP over the others. I have what looks like Wap and Wap2 also to chose from, but WEP is "recommended". I'm using WEP and having issues with the iPad always asking for my password.
I keep reading conflicting info on which is the best to go with.
 
bludodge said:
Whats your plans Jim? I am hoping I just got a dud. Worse thing for me is my 7yo loves it, so if i don't replace it, he will be sad, but I'm really frustrated.
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I'm confident Apple will fix this, I suspect they're being overly aggressive with power management in order to get every last drop out of the battery and can tweak the wireless drivers to fix the issue. I have the luxury of waiting since I bought both units at Bestbuy, I'm a "Premier Silver" reward zone member which means I get a 45-day return policy with no restocking fee. I've already decided I'm going to upgrade to the 3G version when it's released, so if they haven't fixed the wifi issues by then I'll be able to do a direct hardware comparison to see if the replacement unit makes a difference (I suspect it will not). I will then have another 45-day window to evaluate, and if they haven't fixed the problem by then I'll just return it and wait for version 2.0.

The wifi is the only issue I've had, and while I've enjoyed the iPad thus far the wifi has really been frustrating and has taken a lot of the fun out of the new user experience. If they don't get it fixed I'll be able to patiently wait for the next revision now that I've had a "taste" of what the iPad experience is like. But as I said at the start, at this point I'm fairly confident they'll get it fixed... if I only had a 14-day return window and actually had to pay the restocking fee, I'd probably hold on to it and hope they make it right. I'd hate to pay that restocking fee only to have them release the fix a couple days later. But there's definitely some risk involved that they did just have a "bad batch" and we're sitting with defective hardware that can't be fixed via software update, it's a tough call.
 
bludodge said:
Can you or someone school me on this? My router admin page suggest WEP over the others. I have what looks like Wap and Wap2 also to chose from, but WEP is "recommended". I'm using WEP and having issues with the iPad always asking for my password.
I keep reading conflicting info on which is the best to go with.
Click to expand...

WPA2 is best assuming all your wifi devices support it, the only reason to use WEP these days is if you have older devices that don't support the newer standard. The wireless encryption hierarchy (best to worst) is:

WPA2 > WPA > WEP > Unencrypted
 
Well DAMN, it just asked for my password again everyone. Geesh. doing the same thing on WAP/WAP2 that it was on WEP. so I am guessing that is NOT the issue. Take it back?
 
I have not had the first problem with my iPad on wifi and I have used it on my home, office and probably about 6 other wifi sites and it has worked without flaw. I only hope my 3G unit does as well when it arrives.
 
sandydlc said:
If you have WEP security on your network, try disabling and use Mac filtering instead. I set up my Sprint Overdrive like this today and my wifi connection issues are gone.

My belief is that the iPad is set up to disconnect from the wifi when it senses no activity in order to conserve power. When it attempts to reconnect it sometimes loses the password settings for your router. By disabling WEP and using Mac filtering instead, you create a more stable and more secure environment since you are explicitly defining the users allowed to connect to your network.

I haven't had wifi issues when connected to public networks but at least for secured networks, this seems to resolve the problem. After several days of aggravation I was grateful to have resolved my problems!!

Sandy
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You should never use WEP. Only WAP is secure. Just Google it.
 
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