Thought I'd give a little report of the iPhone and iPad during the tsunami evacuation from yesterday. Background: My family and I were visiting Maui from NY. I have a VZ iPhone 4, iPad 3G on AT&T and my wife has an iPhone 3GS. Initially heard about it via CNN breaking news alert on my iPhone. When we realized we were in an evacuation zone I used my iPad to lookup evacuation maps on the Maui county website. We determined best course of action was to head to the west Maui airport, a small airport a few miles away from our hotel. Wikipedia told me the airport was a few hundred feet above sea level so i felt it was a good choice. We headed out both phones were charged 100% and iPad was at 50%.
Took 25 mins to drive 3 miles cause off all the traffic. We got settled in and spent the next 12 hours in an airport parking lot. To conserve power i turned brightness to minimum (it was dark out anyway).
Now for the verizon vs AT&T argument. AT&T for the first 2 hours was a complete and utter failure. No one could make a call, text or use data. I heard many people around us complaining. Verizon however was rock solid the entire time. I updated facebook constantly was on the phone etc. Pulling up news and updates and telling people around us. Now obviously this was a unique situation and the systems were overloaded but to me, VZ could handle it and AT&T couldn't. About 2 hours in AT&T came back and I used the iPad for a while to conserve iPhone battery. There was no wifi at this airport.
One of my facebook friends husband works for the today show so they hooked me up for an interview. Check it out and my iPad and iPhone plugs!
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/hawaii-tourist-learns-of-tsunami-through-twitter/69ubxdu
Another very useful feature of the iPhone was the flashlight app. Like I said this is a small rural airport on the top of the hill with very little lighting. The lines for the two small bathrooms were so long. But not if you have an iPhone flashlight and are willing to walk into the trees at the edge of the property! The flash LED is very bright.
Anyway, nothing came of the tsunami here and it was certainly an uncomfortable way to spend a night of vacation, especially with a crying 2 year old. The poor little guy pulled an all-nighter!
Seeing what happened in japan puts it all in perspective though.
Took 25 mins to drive 3 miles cause off all the traffic. We got settled in and spent the next 12 hours in an airport parking lot. To conserve power i turned brightness to minimum (it was dark out anyway).
Now for the verizon vs AT&T argument. AT&T for the first 2 hours was a complete and utter failure. No one could make a call, text or use data. I heard many people around us complaining. Verizon however was rock solid the entire time. I updated facebook constantly was on the phone etc. Pulling up news and updates and telling people around us. Now obviously this was a unique situation and the systems were overloaded but to me, VZ could handle it and AT&T couldn't. About 2 hours in AT&T came back and I used the iPad for a while to conserve iPhone battery. There was no wifi at this airport.
One of my facebook friends husband works for the today show so they hooked me up for an interview. Check it out and my iPad and iPhone plugs!
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/hawaii-tourist-learns-of-tsunami-through-twitter/69ubxdu
Another very useful feature of the iPhone was the flashlight app. Like I said this is a small rural airport on the top of the hill with very little lighting. The lines for the two small bathrooms were so long. But not if you have an iPhone flashlight and are willing to walk into the trees at the edge of the property! The flash LED is very bright.
Anyway, nothing came of the tsunami here and it was certainly an uncomfortable way to spend a night of vacation, especially with a crying 2 year old. The poor little guy pulled an all-nighter!
Seeing what happened in japan puts it all in perspective though.
