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Early Battery Tests Between Wi-Fi and 3G iPad

E.Lizardo said:
They try to get the shortest battery life possible.That way you can be pretty confident that yours will do better.
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If they really wanted the shortest battery life, they should go someplace where they only get 1-bar of 3G coverage, and maybe play iTunes at maximum volume in the background.

E.Lizardo said:
From what I see on these boards,Apple needs a massive ad campaign to explain it.Tons of people think it's not"real"GPS,whatever that means,or that it won't work without a cell signal.
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That's because that's nearly true. It sometimes barely works. It took me well over 10 minutes to get a GPS lock from a cold start when far away from the nearest cell tower (National park canyon). But a dedicated GPS handheld took less than 2 minutes in the same location.

I don't get it.
"Assisted GPS"to me indicates"better than plain GPS"
But that's just me.
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Sometimes better (when near a cell tower). Sometimes far worse.
 
manu chao said:
Well, you cannot switch off cell network access on the iPhone while keeping WiFi running (in case you want to save battery while using a wireless access point and not caring about phone calls at the moment or if you want to use the iPhone with a prepaid card and want to ensure that only phone calls go over that card and no data connection). Thus the iPhone is either Airplane, 2/3G, 2/3G+WiFi mode, there is no WiFi-only mode. And there is no 2/3G-only for voice mode either.
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What?

On an iPhone 3G or 3GS you can turn ON Airplane mode, and while still in Airplane mode (3G OFF), turn wifi back ON, resulting in wifi-only mode. Can't you do this with an iPad 3G?
 
retroneo said:
If you tether iPad to a jailbroken iPhone using the app MiWi, you get full quality Netflix, the ABC player app works, Youtube plays great HD and you can download any app from the app store.
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Yeah, but you better get it done in 2 hours, since that's all you'll have b4 the iPhone dies.
 
firewood said:
Sometimes better (when near a cell tower). Sometimes far worse.
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I'm not usually one to beat a dead horse but...

I can understand Assisted GPS sometimes being better than "plain" GPS but when is it worse? I would think/hope that without the help of a tower that the iPad and a regular GPS unit are on even ground.
 
firewood said:
What?

On an iPhone 3G or 3GS you can turn ON Airplane mode, and while still in Airplane mode (3G OFF), turn wifi back ON, resulting in wifi-only mode. Can't you do this with an iPad 3G?
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You are correct. I would have assumed that switching on WiFi would kick you out of Airplane mode (since switching on Airplane mode does switch off WiFi). And Airplane mode really isn't an Airplane-save mode anymore if you can have a WiFi connection in it.

A more logical way would have been a switch off cellular data (and cellular calls) with Airplane mode being the catch all switch off.

My original quest was to switch off cellular data while keeping the phone open for calls. This is currently not possible.

(Technically my statement that 'you cannot switch off cell network access on the iPhone while keeping WiFi running' remains true, you cannot switch it off, but you can switch WiFi on without switching on cellular access ;))
 
rlmccormick said:
I'm not usually one to beat a dead horse but...

I can understand Assisted GPS sometimes being better than "plain" GPS but when is it worse? I would think/hope that without the help of a tower that the iPad and a regular GPS unit are on even ground.
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AGPS is never worse than "regular" GPS, everything else being equal.

However, everything isn't always equal. Until about 5 years ago, all GPS devices took about 10 minutes for time to first fix (i.e., to get a cold lock in an area where they hadn't had a lock previously.) The time to subsequent fix was always faster because the device already had information concerning satellite positions relative to its current location.

With the introduction of SiRFStar III chips (and then various similar chips), TTFF became *much* faster; these chips are standard in most GPSs today.

So having AGPS won't degrade the iPad's GPS performance, but it is possible that the GPS chip in the iPad isn't as good as the GPS chip in another GPS receiver.
 
pmz said:
The idea of an always connected iPad is great, but the 3G iPad has nothing going for it.

Ridiculously more expensive upfront.
Poor quality streaming.
Reduced battery life.
Ugly black band.
Extra $15-30 / mon

As long as there is another option for portable WiFi (cough*miwi*cough), the iPad 3G won't have any real value over the wifi model.
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In marketing speak, ever since Apple started, they have sold to what many consider a "bimodal market." There are two consumer types that roughly each represent about half of Apple's revenues.

One half is the lower middle class; bohemian artistic crowd struggling to make ends meet but in the meantime still creating. This crowd buys the low end Apple products and then spends days or week to hobble together hacks, jailbreaks and bizarre product configurations to get their performance while avoiding "spending a lot of money" doing strange WiFi configurations and sucking any HotSpot your empty Pringles can aims at to avoid another monthly bill. This type has yet to find fiscal success.

The other half are the previous bohemian and hugely successful individuals that have made it and are more interested in dropping a hunk of money for everything to have it "just work" and not worry about system configurations. These type will buy the iPad 3G and do net access on a whim no matter where they are from home, to business, to in the back of the limo or the private box at a football game. Thus type is lower upper class at a minimum and successfully cashed in on their creativity.

Then there are the broke overly demanding ones trying to command everyone to serve them without having anything to offer. You see these types hanging out in public libraries and college campuses while not taking any classes. Just avoid these types like the plague and society as a whole generally takes care of these types.

Then there are the, very middle class, PC users that just constantly get by, never takes risks and lives their life of constant day to day problems. These types don't like Apple products and "don't get it."
 
manu chao said:
(Technically my statement that 'you cannot switch off cell network access on the iPhone while keeping WiFi running' remains true, you cannot switch it off, but you can switch WiFi on without switching on cellular access ;))
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Settings > Cellular Data > Cellular Data <On/Off>

EDIT: Nevermind this is on the iPad.
 
firewood said:
If they really wanted the shortest battery life, they should go someplace where they only get 1-bar of 3G coverage, and maybe play iTunes at maximum volume in the background.



That's because that's nearly true. It sometimes barely works. It took me well over 10 minutes to get a GPS lock from a cold start when far away from the nearest cell tower (National park canyon). But a dedicated GPS handheld took less than 2 minutes in the same location.



Sometimes better (when near a cell tower). Sometimes far worse.
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My point remains.It is real GPS.I didn't comment on it's quality.And I really don't think people have the wrong idea because of the reasons you stated.
I've never had a problem getting a lock on my 3GS by the way.
 
firewood said:
What?

On an iPhone 3G or 3GS you can turn ON Airplane mode, and while still in Airplane mode (3G OFF), turn wifi back ON, resulting in wifi-only mode. Can't you do this with an iPad 3G?
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Hey that's cool!I did not know that.
 
manu chao said:
My original point was that on my iPhone, I switch off WiFi to save battery. Would switching of WiFi also save battery on the iPad? I guess that depends a bit on the usage, in idle state, WiFi might need more juice, per MB transferred 3G might need more juice.
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Having WiFi on doesn't drain the battery that much. Actually Apple's battery life claims for the iPhone and iPod touch are with WiFi on.
 
3goldens said:
"we put the Wi-Fi model through a web torture test with repeated 1-minute refreshes of a large, completely loaded page for 10 hours and 21 minutes on 50% brightness over 802.11n. Repeating the exact same test on the Wi-Fi + 3G model with 3G turned on and Wi-Fi turned off, the iPad achieved 8 hours and 38 minutes of continuous reloading and displaying—22 minutes shy of Apple’s estimate."

Some folks have just a little too much time on their hands!
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Na, I bet they have the Apple SDK with the developer version of 4.0 and wrote some kind of script to do it, and just came back and check on it every so often.
 
To those who said the ipad is not worth it.

Apple cannot keep them in stock....

1. Apple Store in Greensboro, NC - out of all 3g models, limited quantity of wifi's in stock.
2. Apple Store in Durham, NC - out of all 3g models, only 16gb and 64gb wifi's in stock, but not many left. No 32gb wifi's in stock.

Both stores said (when I called). "You want an ipad?, you're better off ordering it from Apple or a reseller and wait the shipping days. We are not allowed to hold any, and by the time you get here - it may be hit or miss if we have any left"


MacMall - not accepting any orders on website, you must specifically call them.

I am thinking about either the 32gb 3g or the 64gb wifi (I really want the 64gb 3g so I will have room for everything and do everything I need - but that may be really stretching budget).....
 
So this may not be the proper forum, but I really want to know your thoughts on this. If and when AT&T decides to allow tethering for non-jailbroken iPhones, technically we'd be able to tether a wifi enabled iPad to it and wouldn't need to get the 3G version, correct?
 
shervieux said:
Apple cannot keep them in stock....

1. Apple Store in Greensboro, NC - out of all 3g models, limited quantity of wifi's in stock.
2. Apple Store in Durham, NC - out of all 3g models, only 16gb and 64gb wifi's in stock, but not many left. No 32gb wifi's in stock.

Both stores said (when I called). "You want an ipad?, you're better off ordering it from Apple or a reseller and wait the shipping days. We are not allowed to hold any, and by the time you get here - it may be hit or miss if we have any left"
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Well they are right and wrong there based on my experience and many others. If you go in to an Apple store you can put in a reservation for one that will be held for I think is 24 hours. I did that at the Tysons Apple Store for the 16GB a few days before I went to the Reston Apple store and got the 64GB. The disappoint me for me is that I worked with one of the managers and told him about the reservation at Tysons and wanted that canceled. He said he would do that for me. But then a couple days later I get an email that the Tysons iPad was being held for me... :(

Now if you expect to call up and see if they have them in stock and drive over they are right.

I would call those store managers back and tell them what it seems you were told... training is needed I think...
 
manu chao said:
You are correct. I would have assumed that switching on WiFi would kick you out of Airplane mode (since switching on Airplane mode does switch off WiFi). And Airplane mode really isn't an Airplane-save mode anymore if you can have a WiFi connection in it.

A more logical way would have been a switch off cellular data (and cellular calls) with Airplane mode being the catch all switch off.

My original quest was to switch off cellular data while keeping the phone open for calls. This is currently not possible.

(Technically my statement that 'you cannot switch off cell network access on the iPhone while keeping WiFi running' remains true, you cannot switch it off, but you can switch WiFi on without switching on cellular access ;))
Click to expand...

Somebody should have pointed this out but, at least here in Japan you can go to Settings/General/Network Enable 3G:OFF and have WiFi only on the 3GS.

Turning airplane Mode ON and then restoring WiFi manually sounds a bit cumbersome...
 
ranReloaded said:
Somebody should have pointed this out but, at least here in Japan you can go to Settings/General/Network Enable 3G:OFF and have WiFi only on the 3GS.
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Well, yes and no. Turning off 3G only turns of 3G, however, 2G cellular data (aka Edge) will still be active.
 
manu chao said:
Well, yes and no. Turning off 3G only turns of 3G, however, 2G cellular data (aka Edge) will still be active.
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I couldn't tell... I think here in Japan we don't have 2G/EDGE fallback. If you turn 3G off you just can't make/receive phone calls.

In any case, we don't seem to be getting WiFi or 3G iPad any time soon... Not that I have the money right now :(
 
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