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Wonder how long 'til TSA decides how to treat the iPad

Manatee

Manatee

Contributor
Original poster
Oct 20, 2003
596
169
Washington DC
I wonder how things will go with TSA and the iPad? Leave it in the bag, like an iPhone? Take it out and place it in a separate bin, like a laptop? In function, it's more like a big iPhone. In volume, it's more like a tiny laptop.

I've never understood why laptops are treated differently from any other electronic device. I used to think it was the volume of the device, and how much C4 could be stuffed inside. But I can send other devices, with greater interior volume than my laptop, through the scanner inside my bag.

Anyone have experience with airport security and other iPad-like devices?
 
They'll make you take it out, turn it on, then hand it to them. :D

Why? They are only human.
 
MacDawg said:
I suspect it will be treated like any other laptop/netbook computer
Click to expand...

old story, but just be careful when you travel overseas, the iPad being a new device and all.
"A woman traveling to Israel is questioned by security officers who are suspicious of her bag. So they take it out the back and shoot it, killing her MacBook. Amazingly, the hard drive survived.

“The Israeli security’s decision to shoot my laptop was nonsensical on multiple levels – unprovoked, unduly aggressive, a waste of government funds, etc.” the woman, Lilly Sussman, wrote on her blog.

Someone in the comments added: “These guys shoot every day at unarmed people, even children. Why so much surprise about a simple laptop?”


 
Another problem is customs. These guys will levy fines on anything that looks or smells like a second laptop, even if it's not one according to Steve :)

Depends on the country, YMMV
 
1. Passport/Ticket in hand
2. Present to guy who shines a flashlight on it, checks you, checks ID, checks you, checks ID, uses highlighter on ticket, says move along
3. Remove shoes, place in bin
4. Remove jacket, place in bin
5. Remove laptop, place in bin
6. Remove belt, keys, coins, cell phone, place in bin
7. Wait behind grandma who hasn't flown ever...
8. Get waived to come forward
9. <machine beeps>
10. Turn out pockets, go through again
11. <machine beeps>
12. Get "wanded"
13. Wait for items to come through scanner
14. Put on shoes
15. Put on jacket
16. Place laptop in backpack
17. Pickup keys, coins, cell phone
18. Shake head/roll eyes and walk to gate

Long live freedom!

lol
 
I cannot stand the TSA's treatment of laptops sometimes. I had my aluminum 13" MacBook in one of those neoprene sleeves in my backpack. I took it out beforehand to show them and they asked to see it outside of the sleeve. The guy grabs it and drops it from about 6 inches into one of those plastic bins. He didn't even have the courtesy to set in in the bin nicely or hand it back to me so I could do it myself. What did I end up with? Multiple scratches each about 2-4 inches in length on the TOP of my MacBook. Couldn't have at least been on the underside to make me feel a bit better; he had to throw it in upside down. Of course I went to complain to the supervisor, knowing fully that they wouldn't give a damn. And of course, I was right, they didn't care at all and told me it was standard procedure.

So in short, they better let me leave my iPad in a case, because I don't want to have another one of my beautiful aluminum electronics effed up by some lazy TSA agent.
 
Prolif1k said:
I cannot stand the TSA's treatment of laptops sometimes. I had my aluminum 13" MacBook in one of those neoprene sleeves in my backpack. I took it out beforehand to show them and they asked to see it outside of the sleeve. The guy grabs it and drops it from about 6 inches into one of those plastic bins. He didn't even have the courtesy to set in in the bin nicely or hand it back to me so I could do it myself. What did I end up with? Multiple scratches each about 2-4 inches in length on the TOP of my MacBook. Couldn't have at least been on the underside to make me feel a bit better; he had to throw it in upside down. Of course I went to complain to the supervisor, knowing fully that they wouldn't give a damn. And of course, I was right, they didn't care at all and told me it was standard procedure.

So in short, they better let me leave my iPad in a case, because I don't want to have another one of my beautiful aluminum electronics effed up by some lazy TSA agent.
Click to expand...


It may be futile, but I would have raised hell up the chain of command. That's BS.
 
aerospace said:
1. Passport/Ticket in hand
2. Present to guy who shines a flashlight on it, checks you, checks ID, checks you, checks ID, uses highlighter on ticket, says move along
3. Remove shoes, place in bin
4. Remove jacket, place in bin
5. Remove laptop, place in bin
6. Remove belt, keys, coins, cell phone, place in bin
7. Wait behind grandma who hasn't flown ever...
8. Get waived to come forward
9. <machine beeps>
10. Turn out pockets, go through again
11. <machine beeps>
12. Get "wanded"
13. Wait for items to come through scanner
14. Put on shoes
15. Put on jacket
16. Place laptop in backpack
17. Pickup keys, coins, cell phone
18. Shake head/roll eyes and walk to gate

Long live freedom!

lol
Click to expand...

You are free to choose not to fly.
 
Prolif1k said:
I cannot stand the TSA's treatment of laptops sometimes. I had my aluminum 13" MacBook in one of those neoprene sleeves in my backpack. I took it out beforehand to show them and they asked to see it outside of the sleeve. The guy grabs it and drops it from about 6 inches into one of those plastic bins. He didn't even have the courtesy to set in in the bin nicely or hand it back to me so I could do it myself. What did I end up with? Multiple scratches each about 2-4 inches in length on the TOP of my MacBook. Couldn't have at least been on the underside to make me feel a bit better; he had to throw it in upside down. Of course I went to complain to the supervisor, knowing fully that they wouldn't give a damn. And of course, I was right, they didn't care at all and told me it was standard procedure.

So in short, they better let me leave my iPad in a case, because I don't want to have another one of my beautiful aluminum electronics effed up by some lazy TSA agent.
Click to expand...

So you ignored all those posted alerts telling you to place your laptop in the plastic bin?
 
Prolif1k said:
So in short, they better let me leave my iPad in a case, because I don't want to have another one of my beautiful aluminum electronics effed up by some lazy TSA agent.
Click to expand...

+1

I've had two MBPs scratched by the TSA.

In both cases I had placed the laptop carefully in a plastic bin, only to have a TSA agent roughly move the bin causing the unit to slide around and bounce off the side scratching the bottom.
Perfect.

I've never seen a bigger waste of time and money, all for an appearance of safety.
 
aerospace said:
1. Passport/Ticket in hand
2. Present to guy who shines a flashlight on it, checks you, checks ID, checks you, checks ID, uses highlighter on ticket, says move along
3. Remove shoes, place in bin
4. Remove jacket, place in bin
5. Remove laptop, place in bin
6. Remove belt, keys, coins, cell phone, place in bin
7. Wait behind grandma who hasn't flown ever...
8. Get waived to come forward
9. <machine beeps>
10. Turn out pockets, go through again
11. <machine beeps>
12. Get "wanded"
13. Wait for items to come through scanner
14. Put on shoes
15. Put on jacket
16. Place laptop in backpack
17. Pickup keys, coins, cell phone
18. Shake head/roll eyes and walk to gate

Long live freedom!

lol
Click to expand...
I remember when we (in the U.S.) use to make jokes about the U.S.S.R. and not being able to travel from one part of it to another without have the right paper work.
 
Do this: get some clear contact paper, the kind that is only a little sticky. Put it on both sides of the iPad before you leave the house. After you are through security, peel it off and throw it away (make sure you have enough of the roll with you that you can repeat the process on the return trip).
 
Since I've been leaving my MacBooks in a neoprene sleeve when I put them in the gray bin (about two years), I've never been asked to take it out, or had an agent handle it. Maybe I've been lucky.

I don't know a whole lot about how the scanners work, but I don't see why they'd have a problem with a layer of neoprene around the device. What if a laptop where made with a layer of the same neoprene embedded inside the housing of the device, and the device were placed -- naked -- in the gray bin. Would the scanning device have a problem with that? I doubt it.

I have no problem with standardized procedures for something like aircraft security if they make sense. If the procedures are arbitrary, inconsistent, or not based on the actual needs, then it bugs me. It's not the time or inconvenience that bothers me. I also don't blame the agents for doing their jobs as required.
 
flynz4 said:
I'll race you to Fiji. You drive, I'll fly.

/Jim
Click to expand...

No big deal.....Don't give a fig about Fiji, or any of those creepy islands.

If you can't drive there, then it doesn't even matter.

Never been on an airplane and never will be.
 
hmm.. i wonder if differs depending on the person in charge. Ive gone thru the checkpoints plenty of times, but what i do is take me laptop out of the case and lay the case on the bottom of the bin and place my MBP on top and usually is good enough as it has always just come thru w/o the TSA ppl bothering with it.

For the iPad, i think they will make u pull it out mostly because its size and so they will believe its a computer regardless of anything. But oh well, since the checkpoints are there for our security its all good :)
 
darngooddesign said:
So you ignored all those posted alerts telling you to place your laptop in the plastic bin?
Click to expand...

If you read my post, I said that the agent didn't let me. He took the laptop out of my hand and flipped it over, looked at both sides, then dropped it in a plastic bin himself. I didn't get a chance to do it myself.
 
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