You do see a number of iPads or other tablets out and about on the tube and at meetups, but nowhere near so many as the smartphones which are everywhere. I wonder how many are tucked away in people’s bags though, and do come out when they reach their destination, or at various top off points for coffee etc. On the whole though the iPad is probably most at home semi permanently based either in the workplace or on the sofa. That’s when it’s getting hammered as a useful day to day tool for looking anything up or showing somebody something. It’s just that you get so used to being to do those two things whenever prompted, that being stuck somewhere without any connectivity starts to feel like having your ears cut off, or some other body part.
Luckily I opted for the 3G specification when I ordered my iPad a year or so ago, and it came with an O2 micro sim card which allows it to connect like a mobile phone wherever there is cellular network coverage, which basically means almost anywhere at all except my mum’s house, or places where I like to hide away on holiday sometimes, which is not necessarily a bad thing. That’s not a free service though, so you either have to sign up for a regular monthly contract, again like a phone, or else pay £10 or £15 for one month which I’ve ended up doing only for about one third of the past 12 months. Yes! I spend a lot of time staying at home. Oh by the way, that’s a recurring monthly charge so you have to remember to cancel it again if you only want to take it out for one month. I forgot once. The data allowance sounds a bit low but it’s actually quite generous and I never exceeded it, it’s just badly worded so you can get confused between a daily or monthly allowance of 1Gb. You can watch a few youTube videos a day ( if the reception is good enough) without going over, perhaps not if it’s every day, but my pattern of usage tended to be to activate one month and then use it heavily for just one week.
The access speed with 3G can be frustratingly slow though, so it’s always better to connect the iPad to WiFi if you can. And that’s getting increasingly easy in population centres with many retail places and public service buildings providing some sort of free WiFi. Wetherspoons and Starbucks come to mind immediately, but more and more independent pubs and cafes have it too now. Businesses often provide a public wi-fi service for their visitors too, but one of the most convenient services is the BT FON system. This uses domestic homes broadband routers to grant access to each other when out and about. So if you have a BT broadband service at home, when you are out somewhere in a residential area, you can nearly always find a WiFi connection that you can log into using your own broadband account. How cool is that? Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogiPad Roaming with 3G or WiFi
