Lanchester.net ...musings of an old nerd

Overall experience with the iPad: Love the thing! My MacBook Pro is largely ignored now, used only for such tasks as movie editing, picture handling, and scanning/printing. The iPad is excellent for reading/cruising the internet in the car and in the house or in bed. Having taken a lengthy trip with the iPad and the Mi-Fi, I now find these things annoy/annoyed me a bit about the iPad: 

• The Name: Why, oh why, did they call it the iPad? Are we used to it now? I shudder less when I hear it, but I still shudder.
• Headphones: It doesn't come with headphones, and although iPhone headphones work with the iPad, it was really difficult to get any headphones to fit in the jack the first few times (a tight squeeze).
• Charger: The charging cable is too short, and Apple makes you fork over more cash  if you want an accessory to make the cable longer.
• Calculator: The thing needs to have a calculator on it. Thanks to a third-party developer, there's a free app for that now.
• Clock: Where's the clock/alarm clock?
• Location-Based Services: I'm not sure how this works on a wi-fi network, but part of the time while traveling about 700 miles one-way with the iPad and a Verizon Mi-Fi portable hotspot, the iPad's Maps app knew exactly where I was (the Mi-Fi is cellular-based), but most of the time, it thought I was two miles from my house (in the opposite direction of my travel). I understand you should get a 3G-based iPad with a GPS chip if you want pin-point accuracy, but the inconsistency of the results I got with wi-fi location services is what I don't understand. How does it put me 700 miles from home one minute, then exactly where I'm at the next? Must be something to do with the capabilities of the cell tower I'm connected to.

 But the above annoyances are minor. I love the thing!

They are right. It's smokin' hot, wicked fast, and stunningly beautiful. You should get one if you have the cash.

I ordered a Wi-Fi Apple Tablet (iPad, awful name!) from an Apple Specialist, the closest thing to an Apple Store we have in this area. (And they have served this area well since the 1980's, I think.)

At first they indicated they wouldn't be open on Saturday for us to get our tablets, which I thought was strange. Where was the big party? The tea, cookies, streamers, and balloons?

And then I read a rumor that Apple Specialists have been under a special non-disclosure. They couldn't even let anyone know they were getting any tablets today (April 3, 2010), and they certainly couldn't advertise it in the paper or on the radio. There isn't even a picture of a tablet on their website with a "Coming Soon" banner.

All they would tell me is they have a purchase order with my name on it, and if the tablets come in on Saturday, I can have it. (I have to call in Saturday to see.)

So we'll see. Why did the silly dog wake me up so early? :)

I bought a Verizon Novatel Mi-Fi 2200 Wireless Hotspot to work with an Apple Tablet. (It's actually an iPad, horrid name, yet to be released by Apple.)
 
I tested the speed of the Mi-Fi* at work and at home and at various places using my favorite iPhone speed test app, SpeedTest.net. Well, the Mi-Fi was getting TROUNCED by AT&T 3G on SpeedTest.net every single day. I chalked it up to a very nice AT&T 3G setup in this area. (*I understand I'm actually testing the speed of Verizon's 3G CDMA-based EVDO data service, not the speed of the Mi-Fi, but it's much shorter to say "Mi-Fi" than all that!)
 
Then something big happened. The "Great AT&T Melt-Down of 2010" at work began. Too many iPhones. Too much drain on the AT&T amplifier in our buildings. AT&T's service tanked to a range of 0.00 Mbps to 0.09 Mbps download last week.
 
The Mi-Fi provided zippy network access to three of us, including two who were hitting Pandora, and still the Mi-Fi download speed was reported around .29 Mbps. Hmmm...
 
I finally decided to get the computer at home on the Mi-Fi, and I used the internet version of SpeedTest.net to check the speed. What? The Mi-Fi reported 1.66 Mbps, a huge jump.
 
That's when I figured something was fishy. I tried the iNetworkTest app on the iPhone. Mi-Fi: 88.79 Kbps. AT&T 3G: 54.68 Kbps. What?!
 
So when I cruised to dslreports.com on the iPhone (i.dslr.net/iphone_speedtest.html), the Mi-Fi was 1510 Kbps, and AT&T 3G was 640 Kbps. Double what?!
 
The SpeedTest.net app (NOT the website) appears to be reporting incorrect data. SpeedTest.net app indicates the iPhone on Mi-Fi is .29 Mbps (296.96 Kbps), and on AT&T 3G is .38 Mbps (389.12 Kbps). Clearly wrong.
 
Speeds are measured in bits per second, not bytes. To translate megabits to kilobits, multiply the megabits by 1024, or divide the kilobits by 1024 (your choice).
 
The conclusions to be drawn are:

• Don't trust a single speedtest app/website.
• Speed test results vary, based on how busy the download/upload speed test server is and other factors.
• The iPhone appears to slow things down. (There's no way to test AT&T 3G on my laptop, but the Mi-Fi appears to download far faster on a laptop than on the iPhone.)
• The Mi-Fi was definitely the way to go for the Apple Tablet (iPad)!!!

I already have an iPhone with AT&T's 3G network. The network speeds where I live are great, but when we trek out to the east coast to where the brat lives, her 3G speeds are awful. In addition, the 3G networks between here and there are few and far between, so it's a lot of EDGE. So why not kill two birds with one stone? Get a Verizon MiFi and a WiFi Apple Tablet. The MiFi is on its way (1 cent from Amazon). Too bad I can't order a tablet yet.

I just can't understand the reasoning behind the choice of the official name for the Apple Tablet. (I like Andy Ihnatko's name for it during the rumor phase: The RAT or Rumored Apple Tablet.) Are those in charge of Apple so urbane and sophisticated they call "those things" feminine napkins?? It never occurred to them the name was harshly, grossly wrong?

I'm calling it the Apple Tablet.