Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Have any reviews stated if iPad2 is a proper Wireless "N" device?

Piggie

Piggie

macrumors G3
Original poster
Feb 23, 2010
9,292
4,326
I've not seen anyone mention this fundamental issue yet in any reviews.

Has anyone said if the iPad2 is now a proper Wireless N spec device unlike the iPad1.

I won't bore you will the details, and I can't be bothered to find all the links again to the details ;)

Suffice to say iPad1 was, let's say "N" compatible and not a true "N" device capable of the wifi speeds a true "N" device can do, such as a Macbook.

Hence why people were puzzled that other Wireless devices could get higher speeds than their iPad.

I believe part of it was due to their only being two antenna's in the iPad1 and channel bonding etc etc.

It would be nice to know if this has now been improved/corrected in the new model iPad and it can now use the full WiFi "N" speeds as other Apple and PC devices can.

Have any reviews mentioned this yet?
 
Here you go. I found some info that explains the, shall we say, Apple's less than totally honest issue about the iPad being a Wireless N Device.

It would be more accurate to say it's N compatible in that it can connect to a N network, but it's never been a proper N device, unlike for example a MacBook.

As I say, I hope this has been fixed as they have had a year to work on this issue along with other items:

http://www.sniffwifi.com/2010/04/apple-i-love-ya-but-youre-shady-another.html
 
As far as I am aware the IEEE 802.11n standard does not specify how many spatial streams a device has to support to be compliant.

The real limit is your internet connection anyway, so I hardly see this as an issue.
 
Pressure said:
As far as I am aware the IEEE 802.11n standard does not specify how many spatial streams a device has to support to be compliant.

The real limit is your internet connection anyway, so I hardly see this as an issue.
Click to expand...

As was said, it's not so much a Lie from Apple it's more, shall we say, stretching the facts.

If you do a search to a while after the iPad1 launched you will see posting from people puzzled why they are getting higher WiFi speeds with the Laptops than with their iPad's on the same home network.

It was the reason as explained in that link.

If you state your device is a N device, the implication is it can take advantage of the type of speeds other N devices can. We all know that what people would assume.

Sneaky at the very least you could say.

I don't know why it's not been mentioned in reviews. It would take like 30 seconds using the Speedtest.net web app to tell you if this had been improved.
 
It's hard to argue this but a device that can use the 5 GHz spectrum and connect at greater than 54 Mbps speeds is by all means compatible with the IEEE 802.11n standard.

I was surprised to see the iPad only reach 65 Mbps on my network but it may be limited in software to fit a certain power charateristics?
 
The issue here is that people don't understand 802.11n and the various configs. The reason phones and tablets use a 1x1 setup is power savings. More radios require more power. And again how much bandwidth is really needed on an iPad or iPhone. N provides more bandwidth than just about any internet connection you'll be using. Even when you're on a 100Mb or higher internet connection many places you'd actually be downloading from can't support that anyway.

1x1 clients aree completely within spec and there's a clear reason why they exist. The iPad 2 will be the same config as iPad 1. I'll take the extra battery life over a heavier device with less battery life.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)

While you make a valid point about the lack of broadband speeds to take advantage of N for many of us, BUT what about for local network purposes. I control three local area computers (same router) and would greatly appreciate get the most out of my connections.
 
ZZ Bottom said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)

While you make a valid point about the lack of broadband speeds to take advantage of N for many of us, BUT what about for local network purposes. I control three local area computers (same router) and would greatly appreciate get the most out of my connections.
Click to expand...

How much bandwidth does screen sharing (I assume that's what you mean) require? Very little is the answer. Again, the reason for 1x1 here is power efficiency. Seems people just want something to gripe about. The iPad doesn't claim to have feature parity with a full computer. If you need more bandwidth then don't use a tablet. It's not an iPad specific issue here.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Why would you need more than 65 Mbps? Your internet isnt faster than that and its not like you doing any major file sharing on ipad. The article itself says that apple sacrificed these tweaks to save battery life. Doesn't seem like they would add it back in now....
 
herdnerfer said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Why would you need more than 65 Mbps? Your internet isnt faster than that and its not like you doing any major file sharing on ipad. The article itself says that apple sacrificed these tweaks to save battery life. Doesn't seem like they would add it back in now....
Click to expand...

I will matter if you are doing any kind of file transfer over local network. Many apps on the iOS platform support web GUI file transfer over wifi (i.e. GoodReader, Cloud Reader) and in the future iterations of iOS we can expect something like AirDrop being implemented so local wireless transfer speed will become even more crucial. It'll be quite a few years before wifi even catches up to USB2.0 speed (480Mbps theoretical maximum).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back