Grrr mumble iPad

[thistlechaser]

It took me 35 minutes before I was finally able to reach the ever so graphics heavy Google main page. I haven't been able to successfully load a page other than that in an hour and a half. I still have the same 0-3 (generally 1 or less) bars as this morning, but suddenly no pages will load.

I have 14 days to return this thing (so 11 or so left), and I lose 10% of my purchase price if I return it. Plus postage, I'm sure, and it's a darned heavy little thing. So if I return it, I'm out about $100, plus all the time I've spent waiting and dealing with this, stressing over it, and the ever so fun trip to the mall yesterday. (Which I won't repeat, so I'll be out the $70 more for the case and special earphones.)

Mumble. I'll keep it through Friday (the end of jury duty week) and then decide over the weekend what I'm going to do. I was willing to deal with slow-as-hell loading pages, but totally not working is just pointless.

Comments

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

Huh, I don't have any of these problems. Maybe this is why some people seem to bitch endlessly about AT&T!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I didn't have problems at home (maybe 10 minutes from here), so it might be because I work in a big office building, away from any windows? Or should it work the same no matter if I'm outside or far inside?

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The AT&T network in the Bay Area is saturated due to all the iPhones and now iPads.

(And so I don't have to make a new comment:
Not to mention, as you're probably familiar with, that just the physical environment of the Bay Area makes cell reception for all carriers spotty in non-predictable places.)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I was suspecting something like that. I wonder why it explains that I was barely limping along this morning, then this afternoon suddenly nothing worked -- more people trying in the afternoon instead of early morning hours when they were all asleep?

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

Is this on 3G or wifi? My mom had a page load issue and it was because her sim card was a smidge dislodged, so you could try popping it out and blowing on it and putting it back in to see if that helps.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

3G. No wifi for me at work, alas!

[avocado-love.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's a common complaint with AT&T's service. I'm not sure if you should keep the thing if it's annoying you this much already. I'm on the fence with getting the iPad, myself. I was going to get it just with Wifi, though.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I think it's really a fun toy. If the network worked, I'd be 100% happy with it. If you're in a situation with good wifi, then I would think you'd love it. The graphics are so nice and sharp, and it's just plain cool! I'm still semi-tempted not to return it just so I can keep playing with it, but... it's awfully expensive for just a cool toy. (Wifi is cheaper than the G3 version, so that's good for you!)

[ani-mama.livejournal.com]

Sounds like too much aggravation for me. It is too expensive not to do what it promised to do.

AT&T network coverage is spotty no matter where you are. My cel phone is always dropping out, anywhere between the boonies and Spokane(which, technically is still the boonies.XD)...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

My cell phone uses Verizon and that sucks, so I was sort of hoping AT&T would be better. Alas, it seems worse!

And yeah, I'm still leaning towards sending it back. It's awfully fun and cool, and I'd love it to death if it worked where I need it to, but... that's a heck of a lot of money.

[fealubryne.livejournal.com]

See, I've always felt the opposite about AT&T. Occasionally, once every couple of months I'll have a few minutes of it being spotty, or some nights things might be a bit slow on my iPhone, but for the most part it's never been particularly annoying. Actually, I'm usually the one mocking my friends because of their dropping calls and cruddy signals, mine rarely if ever cuts out.

Of course, trying to use the intarwebz on my phone is a pain in the aaaaaaaarse sometimes. Slow and annoying, and considering the tiny screen the sucker has it's usually more trouble than it's worth. If I'm desperate/bored enough or I'm mucking about with simple apps it's not an issue and I'm really grateful for it because it's definitely better than nothing... but if there's nothing important I'm doing I often don't bother.

Here's a thought, though -- I know the internet was a big part of why you got the thing in the first place, but weren't there other reasons too? Watching TV shows, maybe some cool apps you can use that won't be so slow? I dunno, just a thought. If you can find other ways for it to be useful/worthwhile at work even with the shitty connection it could still be an investment...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm trying to think of other reasons to keep it. TV shows turned out to be a lot of trouble -- I'd need to convert them from .avi to .mov (I found a tool to do that, but haven't tried it yet), but the bigger part seems to be finding an app to move it from my PC to the iPad. Most of them seem to go over the network, even when I have the darned thing hooked up to my computer. Waste of bandwidth!

There's still using it as an ebook reader, though it's a tad large and heavy for that. (I forgot to put that into the cost though, I've already bought ebooks on it...)

I don't know. I want to keep it, I might keep it, even if that's not the best idea...

[doxxxicle.livejournal.com]

Getting stuff into iPhones/iPads is harder than it should be since Apple keeps a pretty tight grip on that sort of thing. Your best bet is to get the TV show into iTunes (or buy it on the iTunes store) and then sync to your iPad.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'll try that! That syncing is sneaky -- yesterday at work I discovered the pad had every single piece of music I had on my computer at home! Surprised the heck out of me.