iPad altitude limit

[coz707]

I was looking at the iPad specs the other day and I noticed that the iPad has an 'altitude limit'.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/ (look at environmental requirements)

It says 10 000 ft but don't planes usually go above this. Will my iPad be usable on the plane??

I also wanted to mention that during the iPad keynote steve jobs, when talking abou battery life, he states how you can watch a movie on a plane from tokyo to new york and it will still have charge??????????

Thanks

 

[arkitect]

I was looking at the iPad specs the other day and I noticed that the iPad has an 'altitude limit'.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/ (look at environmental requirements)

It says 10 000 ft but don't planes usually go above this. Will my iPad be usable on the plane??

Joke, right?


A pressurised cabin is not quite the same as hanging off the wing…
Your iPad will be quite OK. In fact you'd be dead before it becomes unusable.

 

[Chundles]

The plane may be at 30,000+ feet but the fuselage is typically pressurised to ~8000 feet if I recall correctly.

If they didn't pressurise the plane everyone would die.

 

[greemie]

I just used mine on a plane, so it's safe to say that you can use it on a plane.

 

[elmancho]

Joke, right?


A pressurised cabin is not quite the same as hanging off the wing…
Your iPad will be quite OK. In fact you'd be dead before it becomes unusable.

hahahaha, this made me laugh so hard xD

 

[cheeseblock]

Just don't take your iPad to the top of Mount Everest

 

[pfft]

Joke, right?


A pressurised cabin is not quite the same as hanging off the wing…
Your iPad will be quite OK. In fact you'd be dead before it becomes unusable.

Brilliant

 

[wombat888]

There are a few places people go that are above 10,000 feet and are not extreme environments. The capital city of Bolivia is at 11,800 feet, for example. I'm curious how serious the 10,000-foot limit is or if they're just being conservative.

 

[tiguk]

There are a few places people go that are above 10,000 feet and are not extreme environments. The capital city of Bolivia is at 11,800 feet, for example. I'm curious how serious the 10,000-foot limit is or if they're just being conservative.

Winter Park, CO is higher than 10,000ft. I had no problems breathing, or skiing, or using my iPhone (which has a similar height limit).

 

[Learjet035]

I didn't think about this until it was too late but, I fly an
airplane that has an unpressurized external baggage compartment and took
my pad to 45,ooo ft.
Ooops
it is heated so it didn't have to suffer the temp changes, but it's still working fine after that little trip so I'd have to say don't worry about it.

Don't plan on doing that regularly tho.

BTW my MBP survived many trips out there as well.

 

[wombat888]

I think altitude limits for electronics are mostly meaningful when the device is on and running. It might relate to heat dissipation (thinner air pulls heat from a device less efficiently). I don't think there are any pressurized gasses or the like, so I can't think of any components prone to warping because of a change in external pressure vs internal.

But my guess is that Apple is being wildly conservative here. I wouldn't be surprised if it worked fine at 15,000 feet or even more.

 

[kdarling]

The 10,000' limit is the standard for devices with hard drives. Hard drives require a cushion of air for the read/write head to ride on. Otherwise the head and platter scrape together. As the density altitude increases, air pressure lessens.

Many people have unfortunately found this out by accident while hiking or climbing with hard drive iPods. Heck, Pikes Peak is 14,000 feet and people drive up it all the time. Also, some high-flying private pilots have to be aware of this when buying and using a tablet PC as a pilot aid.

Even though many of Apple's products (such as the iPad) don't have hard drives, they still seem to slap the 10,000' limit on... perhaps for heat dissipation reasons as conjectured above... perhaps just to make their warranties more alike.

 

[SteveSparks]

The 10,000' limit is the standard for devices with hard drives. Hard drives require a cushion of air for the read/write head to ride on. Otherwise the head and platter scrape together. As the density altitude increases, air pressure lessens.

Many people have unfortunately found this out by accident while hiking or climbing with hard drive iPods. Heck, Pikes Peak is 14,000 feet and people drive up it all the time. Also, some high-flying private pilots have to be aware of this when buying and using a tablet PC as a pilot aid.

Even though many of Apple's products (such as the iPad) don't have hard drives, they still seem to slap the 10,000' limit on... perhaps for heat dissipation reasons as conjectured above... perhaps just to make their warranties more alike.

I was thinking that above 10,000" the iPad will explode. Its the preasure on the iPad below 10,000 feet that keeps to together.

 

[skubish]

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)

Zomg don't use your Ipad above 10000 feet are it will blow up. Lulz

 

[RHatton]

I took my iPod touch to 13,150 feet and it still worked just fine...I don't really see what the dilemma is since it doesn't use a spinning hard drive.

 

[Tom G.]

It's probably like the expiration date on a water bottle, you've got to put something there.

 

[IamHermann0069]

This is a joke right?

I was looking at the iPad specs the other day and I noticed that the iPad has an 'altitude limit'.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/ (look at environmental requirements)

It says 10 000 ft but don't planes usually go above this. Will my iPad be usable on the plane??

I also wanted to mention that during the iPad keynote steve jobs, when talking abou battery life, he states how you can watch a movie on a plane from tokyo to new york and it will still have charge??????????

Thanks

Wow! I cannot believe somebody actually asked about this! Actually... Steve is really a terrorist. His next plot to take down America is to blow planes up using iPads!

 

[vertigo235]

Anyone know if the gps has an altitude limit in the iPad?

 

[jkrutch]

Joke, right?


A pressurised cabin is not quite the same as hanging off the wing…
Your iPad will be quite OK. In fact you'd be dead before it becomes unusable.

LMAO...are people really this dumb? I'm sorry to be rude, but c'mon!!!!

 

[Sydde]

Anyone know if the gps has an altitude limit in the iPad?

Gotta stay lower than the towers or it will get confused.

 

[Q-chan]

GPS comes out of the sky!

Anyone know if the gps has an altitude limit in the iPad?

No, of course not.... as long as you stay substantially lower than the orbit of the 24 GPS satellites. But even then you would get accurate position information, just the altitude information would be inaccurate. (But how frequently are you wandering around in space? )

 

[AndyfromTucson]

I have seen LCD monitors that started making snap-crackle-pop sounds when operated at 13,500 feet and suffered permanent damage to the backlighting (dark spots here and there). Not sure how or why, but since then I am less dismissive of environmental limits.

 

[vertigo235]

No, of course not.... as long as you stay substantially lower than the orbit of the 24 GPS satellites. But even then you would get accurate position information, just the altitude information would be inaccurate. (But how frequently are you wandering around in space? )

Was going to try to use it on my flight home next week. I downloaded the motionx gps program.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the iPhone gps was limited by software to only work below a certain altitude.

Anyhow I'll try it out this weekend and see if the ipad will work.

 

[vertigo235]

I have seen LCD monitors that started making snap-crackle-pop sounds when operated at 13,500 feet and suffered permanent damage to the backlighting (dark spots here and there). Not sure how or why, but since then I am less dismissive of environmental limits.

I have heard people say that laptop screens will crack etc if you don't carry then on with you. (some regional jets will gate check larger bags and then return them to you after your flight planeside). I always take my laptop out of the bag and carry i t on the plane with me when they do this just in case.

 

[sammich]

No, of course not.... as long as you stay substantially lower than the orbit of the 24 GPS satellites. But even then you would get accurate position information, just the altitude information would be inaccurate. (But how frequently are you wandering around in space? )

Technically speaking, as long as the GPS receiver has a connection to 4 satellites it could give you a (possibly nonsensical when used in high altitudes and outer space because it ain't on earth) location.