Tablet/Kindle Fire question (Latest: new iPad available March 16; post 32)

[thebruce44]

I thought that you were calling the design of the store pompous.

 

Still don't get the joke. Not trying to be argumentative, I just don't see what you are saying.

[pretendastronaut]

Some places (e.g. Best Buy) offer longer return periods than the 15 days that Apple offers. That may cause me to go elsewhere if I think the possibility of a return exists.

 

Unless it has changed in the past couple of years, Best Buy only gives you 14 days to return computer equipment. After that, they send it back through the manufacturer. I found this out the hard way, much to my aggravation.

[twofistedslopper]

Yeah, I think I may need a keyboard for mine iPad... I can't effectively type very fast on it. I will look around online unless anyone has suggestions on where to get accessories for a good price.

 

I don't even own an iPad so I have no personal experience using this product (eventually I will be purchasing the new model). Anyway, I saw somebody using this and had to ask him about it. Logitech makes pretty good products IMO and this would take care of the case situation as well.

 

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/keyboards/keyboard/devices/keyboard-case-ipad

[berniebrewer4life]

I thought that you were calling the design of the store pompous.

 

Still don't get the joke. Not trying to be argumentative, I just don't see what you are saying.

 

 

He was taking the meaning of the word pompous as ceremonially grand(which is how it can't be both that and minimalist), where as you meant it as self important, which obviously it can be both.

[MJLiverock]

Somewhat related: I just returned from a vacation at a resort and was taking note of the consumer electronics devices people had (I'm a stock analyst so i like to look at things like that). The resort was toward the higher end range so that probably skewed the sample somewhat but I would guess that of the roughly 200 people reading by the pool over the 2 weeks that it was split 70/30 Kindle to physical book/magazine. I noticed 1 Barnes and Noble Nook, that's right 1 person was using the Nook while the Kindle was standard. I guess that just reinforces Barnes & Nobles terrible Nook sales lately. I didn't really notice anyone using the iPad as a reader, the iPad users were primarily surfing the net or playing games judging by the number of hand motions and what I saw on screens walking by. I also didn't really notice many Kindle Fire's, almost all the readers were the plain Kindle device.

 

The only tablet I saw was an iPad, I saw zero Playbook's, Samsung Galaxy, HP, Lenovo, etc. On the plane it and in the airport it was pretty much the same. A good mix of Android phones but even those people usually had the iPad. I saw one business traveler with what looked like a Samsung pad.

[JoeHova]

So, I'm going tomorrow morning to try to get 1 or 2 (hopefully that's not overly optimistic). I'm leaning towards starting with just 1 to see if we like an iPad but you never know what will happen once we get in the store. Anyway, what size would people recommend getting? I'm leaning towards the middle one (32 gb, I think) just because 16 gb seems a little too small but I would feel kind of sick paying $200 extra for 48 GB of storage. What kind of experiences have people had with filling up their iPads?

[1992casey]

I've been thinking of taking the iPad plunge (although I'd likely wait a few weeks). I've also been wondering about capacity. My initial thoughts mirror JoeHova's (16GB not being enough but not wanting to plunk down $200 for the largest capacity).

 

Subscribing to iTunes Match would likely help considerably with music storage. However, movies could add up fast.

 

I'm also concerned about Gmail. I have 456MB on Gmail's server, but duplicate copies of stuff cause it to balloon to almost 3GB on my computer's hard drive. I have no idea how an iPad would handle this, but I do know that I wouldn't want to dedicate 3GB to e-mail.

 

I'd probably choose the Verizon LTE model. The new iPads can be used as WiFi hotspots, however AT&T doesn't offer that capability. Unlike phones, Verizon isn't charging extra for hotspot capability on iPads.

 

For those who are trying to decide between the iPad 2 and the new third generation model, here's a MacWorld article.

 

Choosing between a new iPad and an iPad 2

 

I haven't found this totally spelled out, but it appears that the 3G iPad 2 can now handle both Verizon and AT&T. The new iPads have separate models for each service. Apparently, it's not feasible to combine both flavors of LTE at this point.

[endaround]

Well it is, the carriers don't want it.

 

As for size, the new aps are supposed to be larger to deal with the higher resolution so depending on what else you plan on putting on ther 16GB could be tight.

[endaround]

No other company in the world could get away with screwing its customers the way Apple manages to in terms of storage capacity.

Have you heard of the Sony Vita?

[thebruce44]

No other company in the world could get away with screwing its customers the way Apple manages to in terms of storage capacity.

Have you heard of the Sony Vita?

 

While their proprietary memory cards are also a slap in the face, the prices are no where near what Apple gets away with. And you can swap them out as need be. And that thing looks like a total failure.

 

As others have said, 16gb is going to fill up real fast with the higher res screen. All of the apps are going to be much larger when they do get updated (that may take a while as well, another reason to wait for an upgrade). I would put as much stuff in the cloud as possible.

[1992casey]

Apparently, it's not feasible to combine both flavors of LTE at this point.

Well it is, the carriers don't want it.

My gut says that battery life and space are probably the greater concerns at this point. These were the reasons that the iPhone 4S didn't include LTE. Outside of AT&T and hotspots, Apple's been pretty successful at getting carriers to do what it wants.

 

It seems that LTE is "barely big league ready" at this point. Once the technology matures, I think we'll see both Verizon and AT&T in the same unit.

 

All of the apps are going to be much larger when they do get updated (that may take a while as well, another reason to wait for an upgrade).

Apparently, some low resolution apps do just fine on the new iPad while others look lousy. Amazon's Kindle App fell into the "looking lousy" category, but an upgrade was released the day after a review pointed that out.

 

For an initial iPad purchase, I'd just go with the flow with apps. If one is looking to upgrade, it may pay to research current apps to see if they've been upgraded or if the older version looks OK.

[thebruce44]

My gut says that battery life and space are probably the greater concerns at this point. These were the reasons that the iPhone 4S didn't include LTE. Outside of AT&T and hotspots, Apple's been pretty successful at getting carriers to do what it wants.

 

It seems that LTE is "barely big league ready" at this point. Once the technology matures, I think we'll see both Verizon and AT&T in the same unit.

 

I think this is what Apple wants it's loyal customers to think. The Razr Maxx goes days without a charge, and is thinner with a much larger screen than the 4s. Its been possible for a while, Apple would just have to eat into those profits.

[JoeHova]

Hmm. So, I (actually, my wife) picked one up this morning. I was too asleep to go with her at 6, she's a little mad about that. Oops. Anyway, it seems much less intuitive than most Apple stuff, not to mention less intuitive than Android.

 

My bigger problem though is that the internet connection continually stops working. I mean, every 5 minutes it stops, even though, according to the thing itself, it's getting full bars from my router. I have a lot of other things connected to the router at a given time and none of them experience this issue. So, we have to keep going into the iPad setting and turning the AirPort off and then back on, which is kind of unacceptable.

 

And we bought an Apple TV too so we could do the mirroring, which sounded cool. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be what I thought. Pretty much the only thing you can mirror, apparently, is stuff on iTunes, which you can just play directly on the Apple TV, so who cares? I don't get what the point of that is.

 

Very disappointed so far.

[JoeHova]

On the bright side, the only problem I really have with the Apple TV is that the remote also controls my desktop, which actually is pretty annoying. I don't want to have to keep my computer turned off (instead of just leaving it asleep) but I guess I'll deal with it.

[1992casey]

There must be an easy solution for the remote as you need to have your computer turned on to use its iTunes library on the Apple TV. Does this help?

 

Apple TV: Pairing and unpairing the Apple Remote

 

Otherwise, call tech support.

 

Get started with your new iPad might help you get going.

[JoeHova]

thanks for the pairing suggestion casey. I feel a bit foolish that I hadn't thought of that. I paired my desktop with its remote and that solved the problem.

 

Still having the bizarre and annoying problem of the ipad not recognizing that it is on the internet though. This afternoon we listened to the Brewers game and a couple others over mlb.tv on the ipad. It streamed that audio with no dropouts for like 5 hours. But if you try browse the internet of the app store and just read an article for a minute, when you're done, the internet doesn't work until the airport is turned off and then on again. Super frustrating.

[thebruce44]

With Apple, you pay to get this kind of thing taken care of for you. I would take advantage of their support.

[endaround]

Did you get an LTE one or is it WiFi only? I ask because t sounds like it is in some sort of data saver mode.

[1992casey]

thanks for the pairing suggestion casey. I feel a bit foolish that I hadn't thought of that. I paired my desktop with its remote and that solved the problem.

 

When you're frustrated, you don't think of the obvious. I have two DirecTV receivers in the same room, so I have to do some configuration with the remote to keep things straight.

 

Definitely call Apple's tech support. They're usually very good. (I've run into a few duds, but they're the exception.) They'll stick with you, though, and they'll elevate you to a higher level guru if necessary.

 

I assume that your WiFi is working properly with your other devices. That'd be an important thing to tell Apple as it would confirm that the issue is in the iPad rather than elsewhere.

 

As I mentioned earlier in this topic, I've gotten great mileage out of AppleCare (extended support). I believe you have a month to decide whether or not to purchase it for an iPad. One thing that's nice about AppleCare for iOS devices is that you have some accidental damage protection.

[JoeHova]

I'm going to have to return this piece of garbage iPad, unfortunately. It won't stay connected to my wi-fi no matter what I do. I called Apple customer service like thebruce and casey suggested. They were nice but mostly only gave me the old "IT Crowd" line of "have you tried turning it off and on again?" I had already tried that multiple times. I was a bit disappointed that no more help was forthcoming. I could buy a new router but it seems crazy to reward Apple for their failure by buying another of their products, plus there is no guarantee that would fix the problem anyway.

[thebruce44]

I'm going to have to return this piece of garbage iPad, unfortunately. It won't stay connected to my wi-fi no matter what I do. I called Apple customer service like thebruce and casey suggested. They were nice but mostly only gave me the old "IT Crowd" line of "have you tried turning it off and on again?" I had already tried that multiple times. I was a bit disappointed that no more help was forthcoming. I could buy a new router but it seems crazy to reward Apple for their failure by buying another of their products, plus there is no guarantee that would fix the problem anyway.

 

Have you gone into the Apple Store to see if they can hook it up to their Wifi? If so, it seems the problem has to be your particular network. Then I guess you would need to decide if it would be worth it to fix the network or get another option.

[Baldkin]

I'll assume you saw something like this....

[JoeHova]

Baldkin- I did see something like that. I checked and my router's firmware is up to date. It's not a very old router, I bought it in December 2010 so it's barely a year old.

 

thebruce- no, I haven't taken the iPad anywhere. I got it solely for home use (just to watch games and browse the internet) so I didn't plan on taking it anywhere else (except maybe an occasional road trip). My network seems fine with the other 9 things I have hooked up to it, including the apple tv I bought the same day I got the iPad. I mean, there are hiccups once in awhile (I'll sometimes get kicked off xbox live or whatever) but I thought they were nothing to worry about.

[1992casey]

I'd go online and make a Genius Bar appointment at the Apple Store. That way, you get one on one help, and you'd also be testing on their network.

 

If the Genius Bar guru can't make it work, exchange it with the provision that you can return the new one if necessary.

 

If you do determine at some point that you need a new router, you certainly don't need to go with Apple's Airport Extreme. It's very nice, but it's also way more than most people need (although it's priced comparably with similarly-featured routers).

 

EDIT: The point of testing on another network is troubleshooting. The process of elimination can help isolate issues.

[thebruce44]

EDIT: The point of testing on another network is troubleshooting. The process of elimination can help isolate issues.

 

This is the point I was making. I understand you got it for home use, and it isn't working at home. I would still see if it works on other networks to determine if the issue is localized or if it is in fact a hardware problem.

 

Or if you are just done with it, take it back. It sounds like you are invested in the Apple ecosystem though so not sure how much you would like an Android tablet, even if you waited for the upcoming Nexus tablet.