Apple IPAD Owner's Thread

I understand you want to protect it and keep it new looking, so do what you want, but unless you have small kids or live at the beach (sand) why bother? Mine still looks like it did when I first got it back in December. Just my.02

Oh, I know, in the end it is a personal decision, I really wanted to hear what experiences people had with protectors or not. The fact that it is very hard to scratch helps in making the decision. :)
 
I don't have the iPad 2 (yet) but my iPhone 4 has the same olio-phobic coating on its screen. I have had it since last summer, and it usually lives in my pants pocket. Zero scratches (but plenty of pocket fuzz) so far. The Retina display is too pretty to hide it behind a plastic shield.

And regarding the fingerprints, I find that washing my hands helps... :)
 
If the screen protector helped in cutting down the glare when I use it outside, I may get one. Saw a few on phones and they don't. But really find it easier on my wallet to just put it at the right angle. Finger prints? Yeah, I get those so I spray some of the eye glasses cleaner once a month and wipe off. No scratches, nicks, or other problems with the screen other than the glare with a black background in the sunlight. Screen protectors? Waste of money, IMO.

The older stylus screens on phones did have a problem with scratches, especially when you are in the habit of just grabbing a pen or pencil or Philips screw driver to use on your screen.

When I bought my Thunderbolt the salesman was really pushing the screen protectors. He said let me show you on your 2 year old phone why you should have purchased one. Then his voice got real small as he couldn't find a scratch on it. I told him I always use the plastic stylus and never a pocket knife.
 
..... I told him I always use the plastic stylus and never a pocket knife.
Good Morning insomniacs. hehe Nah I have to take Carol to the dentist early this morning. Anyway your last statement reminds me of an old story that happened to me. Many years ago I used a Craftsman screwdriver while working on a set of drum brakes and broke the thing. I just threw it in the trunk. Months later while at Sears in the tool department I overheard a salesman tell a guy that their hand tools are guaranteed for life no matter what happens. I remembered that screw diver in the trunk. I went and got it. The salesman replaces it and then tries to sell me a crow bar.:D
I guess the moral of the story is wrong tool for the job.​
 
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Yeah, one time a Sears salesman told me ( off the record) that they also have Companion tools with no warranty. Both were equal in quality but when you buy a Craftsman, you pay up front for 6 Companion screw drivers. I think Snap-on has the same policy. While I didn't exactly agree with the Sears salesman, I thought it was kind of funny, the implied gimmick. I still get tools with cutting edges like wire cutters from Craftsman and when they get dull, I exchange for new ones. I have a lineman's pliers I bought when I was a teenager and replaced it again about 3 years ago.

PS- Got a big DVD order yesterday and I'm working round the clock to get it out this week.
 
As far as screen protectors go, I never had one on my iPad and took the one off of my iPhone a year ago (haven't had another one since). Don't see the need to have one
 
When I bought my 'Pad in Nov. I got the Apple case at the same time and immediately put the 'Pad in it, where it has remained since. It's a well-designed accessory! And it comes with a cloth that one uses to wipe the screen free of fingerprints, then flatten it out over the screen before closing the cover on it. Works to perfection! My kids bought me screen protectors for Christmas but I have not tried one yet. I was concerned that the touch sensitivity would be impaired, seems there may be some credence to that. In the meantime, I religiously wipe my screen clean with that cloth each time I put it away and it has remained pristine, no permanent marks that I can detect, etc. I am concerned that the cloth might pick up some hard dirt that could scratch the screen, so I "protect" it as well. (Keep it off dubious surfaces, don't use other cleaners, single purpose, etc.) So far no issues. I am concerned that it is gradually becoming saturated with finger oil and misc. dust, etc. so I did pose the question in one post above as to how to clean the cloth so as not to diminish its "magic". No replies on that yet, so it's status quo - and a resulting clean screen! - for me...at least for the moment...!
 
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I upgraded my 'Pad 1 to iOS 4.3.1 last evening; it was less "eventful" than the 4.2 upgrade. Took several hours again but seemed more "logical" and I had no evidence of a possible total system meltdown like I seemed to experience last time. (The screen / whole system was locked-up for several hours following the process!) Part of my dilemma is that I am quite unfamiliar with iTunes and the overall sync process, and that will only change with practice that will probably come at irregular intervals. I have no use for iTunes on the PC except for upgrades and syncs.

Some observations / questions:

1) Since I was adding some mp3 files from a non-iTunes source the process seemed to create a different "library" for me and I had to choose between the one I just created and whatever was on the system previously. Is that typical? Do I lose anything when I abandon an "old" library, assuming all of its contents are on the iPad at the time of the next sync?

2) I added over 600 songs to iPod (total now shows as 1,054). Is there any way to edit the name / artist / album information displayed either in the iPad itself (preferred) or in iTunes on the PC for the next sync.? Some information is misplaced or missing altogether.

3) Both times I have sync'd I lost all of my Playlists. How can that be prevented in the future?

4) I started with about 1,250 photos showing in "About". Now the count is 1,927! I didn't add any in the process, at least not intentionally! It was interesting how they seem to be handled. Apparently Adobe is used to pull / store the photos. Then there is a lengthy process where they are "optimized". But in my case that was for only 727 of them per information in the progress bar (??) Not sure why only the subset. So I'm even more confused by that "photo processing".

5) I might have lost a video...again! Last time the Beatles Abbey Road documentary video that was downloaded with the album did not reappear after I sync'd and upgraded to 4.2. I can't seem to "find" it anywhere. Is there some way to retrieve that video? This time my video count lost one following the process but I can't tell which might be missing. (More accurately, I can't remember the whole list prior to the sync!) Guess I'll have to write them down prior to the next sync, not that that will change the result!

Any insight to any of the above would be appreciated...!
 
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I'm following along because I have similar idiosyncrasies when I sync and upgrade. I thought it had to do with working two ipads off the same itunes but I was told itunes should keep the two separate. I have nailed one problem to my fault- When I install a video or movie I created to my ipad and later move it to a new location or delete it from it's original location on my hard drive, that can screw things up too. I think Apple mentality is not what we are used to in the PC world and they don't deal with files that get moved very well. Just my guess.
 
Don Landis said:
I'm following along because I have similar idiosyncrasies when I sync and upgrade. I thought it had to do with working two ipads off the same itunes but I was told itunes should keep the two separate. I have nailed one problem to my fault- When I install a video or movie I created to my ipad and later move it to a new location or delete it from it's original location on my hard drive, that can screw things up too. I think Apple mentality is not what we are used to in the PC world and they don't deal with files that get moved very well. Just my guess.

I think you may be right. Doesn't deal with change well.

I have struggled getting my iPad to get over extremely long backups on my main desktop, but on my laptop, it worked like a charm. Not sure iPad plays well wi. Windows, I finally installed an app in windows which disables the backup part of the sync.

I did not have. Any problem upgrading to 4.3.1. That was quite painless.

Sent from my iPad using SatelliteGuys
 
The upgrade was painless for me as well. Took about 20 mins. to D/L the SW to the PC over my slow DSL, then another 10 mins. or so to move it to the 'Pad. What takes the vast majority of time is the back-up, and of course that gets worse with content! I only have about 14GB in use now and it takes about 2 hours. Much of that is time the photos are "optimizing"...
 
bhelms said:
The upgrade was painless for me as well. Took about 20 mins. to D/L the SW to the PC over my slow DSL, then another 10 mins. or so to move it to the 'Pad. What takes the vast majority of time is the back-up, and of course that gets worse with content! I only have about 14GB in use now and it takes about 2 hours. Much of that is time the photos are "optimizing"...

The backups do suck.

Sent from my iPad using SatelliteGuys
 
I have maybe 24 GB of media on my iPhone 4 and my backups take maybe five to ten minutes on my Mac. Maybe iTunes looks at the content on my phone on what's in iTunes and only transfers what isn't already on the computer.

I'd make sure you have the latest version of iTunes on your PC. The Apple Update process for the PC should make it easy to stay up to date. Just don't feel pressured to accept the Safari download... :)
 

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Foxbat said:
I have maybe 24 GB of media on my iPhone 4 and my backups take maybe five to ten minutes on my Mac. Maybe iTunes looks at the content on my phone on what's in iTunes and only transfers what isn't already on the computer.

I'd make sure you have the latest version of iTunes on your PC. The Apple Update process for the PC should make it easy to stay up to date. Just don't feel pressured to accept the Safari download... :)

Roland, even with the latest iTunes, it still tends to take forever on some machines. Well documented with win 7. Ironically my quad core w7 desktop takes Forever, but my duo core w7 laptop takes five minutes. The difference? The desktop has had several iPods synced to it, the laptop, none. That is all I can figure. But by putting the block iTunes backup application I have eliminated the problem. :)

Sent from my iPad using SatelliteGuys
 
Maybe iTunes looks at the content on my phone on what's in iTunes and only transfers what isn't already on the computer.

I'm certain that is what it does because I've done subsequent sync followups and it takes much longer on the first run than immediate subsequent runs plus you can see what's being backed up at the moment.

Backup is important, however in that without it upgrading a new OS could leave you with loss of all your content.


When I first used itunes with my ipad I did it on my laptop with windows XP. It took forever. So I decided to try it on my larger Quad core with 8Gb ram and Vista 64. Took under a half hour. I continue to use that machine for all ipad syncing. NOTE- I really don't know what I'm doing with itunes but I get buy. So much with Apple OS you have to just learn what to do and not worry about why you need to do it that way. If you can handle that, you should be OK. I think people like Mike and I get into trouble because we continue to do things the way we think it should work ( based on PC logic) and not the way Apple designed it to work.
 
I have only sync'd 3 times, once at initializaton (fast, nothing to BU or DL) and twice for OS upgrades. Similar to what Don mentioned, when you do an OS upgrade you're warned to do the BU first. (For some reason that message repeated even after I completed the BU ??) IIRC, the last 2 times I was asked to update iTunes first, which I did. I'm using a 3-y.o. Dell w/ XP, not sure what processor...
 
So, I used my iPad as my only computer for a two day trip to Chicago. I am actually writing this on the train coming home.definitely a success. While I did not try to do any real writing, it worked very good. Only issue was occasional drop outs of both android tether wifi and hotel wifi. Tethering with my droid was annoying in that if I walked away from the iPad, or it turned off, it usually lost the connection very quickly.

I obviously used my droid on the streets, when looking at a map, or doing a search for a particular store, as the iPad is just a bit too bulky to be pulling it out. Plus,m I did not want to have a sign saying, steal my iPad. :)

All in all, I was pleased. I might consider just bringing the iPad on the trip to Maui this May, but we will see. It would definitely make traveling lite easier.

Also pleased with battery. Been using it a lot today, and indeed for the last two hours non stop, and still at 62 percent. It's battery definitely seems to be good, and I am pleased only having to charge it over night.

But one week in, I am sold. This device is a game changer.

Sent from my iPad using SatelliteGuys
 
One other thing. I have given the iPad mail app a second chance, and the combined inbox (of my gmail and work email) is starting to grow on me. It definitely looks better when the iPad is in landscape mode, but it is quite functional.

Sent from my iPad using SatelliteGuys
 
Not the ipad mail app from Apple? You like all the mail being dumped into a single folder? Or did you figure out how to add folders? I read a process for doing that but it didn't work. I get too much spam, maybe.

I am curious about your rave review on the ipad vs. the Galaxy Tab. You are one of the few who can speak from first hand knowledge on both so tell us what's better on the ipad than the Tab? Whats worse too.


On the tethering problem- I had trouble with tethering losing connection when I used a free tether app on my Windows smartphone but switching to a purchased one, that had lots of features really helped. The paid app never went down but I did need to keep the phone on charger. I never tried the Verizon tether app because I didn't want to pay the monthly fee for it.

On the Thunderbolt the tethering is much better and I actually ran the phone on battery for 2 hr 20 minutes tethered to my ipad as a test of the battery drain. Plus the LTE tethering is just so fast I can watch netflix HD movie or HD slingplayer and the phone only gets to 106­° F. It has its' own temp monitor when I tether. You might want to look for a new tethering app or an LTE phone.