Very disappointed

[RickyBobby]

After a few days, I am completely underwhelmed with the iPad 2 and the AT&T service in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

I put a ripped and converted video on it and it played beautifully for all of five minutes. But now when I hit the "videos" icon I get a completely jet black screen. Nice for a brand new device. I rubbed and tapped that jet black screen until my fingertips were numb to no avail.

I tried the Youtube app and when I enter the name of a popular song I get forty bits of rubbish that were all made by bored teens and no way to find the real official video from the music company. These bored teens are so wickedly clever to put the word "official" on their garbage.

My other device is a two year old netbook with a 4G wireless card that works about 18,000 times better than this iPad failure.

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

The easiest first way to try to solve ‘unexplained’ or ‘unusual’ problems with the iPad are:-

Force the offending app to close. If you have iOS 4.2 or 4.3 double-press the ‘Home’ button to bring up the multi-task bar at the bottom of the screen. Press *and hold* any icon until they start to ‘jiggle’. Then tap the top left-hand corner of the app that you want to close. It will ‘disappear’ from the list. Don’t panic - you’ve not deleted it, just closed it. Now tap the Home screen and the multi-task bar will disappear. Re-open the iPad’s app and see if the problem has resolved itself. If not, it’s on to possible solution number two!!
Restart the iPad. Press *and hold* the Power button. After a couple of seconds a slider control will appear asking you to confirm that you really want to switch the iPad off (this is all you’ll be doing). Slide the control to accept. A rotating white ‘bezel’ will appear in the iPad screen as the iPad powers down (it takes a few seconds, just like it would if you were shutting down your PC). When the screen of the iPad has gone completely blank, press *and hold* the Power button for a couple of seconds until the white Apple logo appears and the iPad starts to power up. This takes several seconds, so be patient. During the power up the automatic screen orientation function is disabled, so don’t panic. A few seconds before the power up is complete, the iPad plays a little ‘jingle’ and then you’re back to the Home screen. Restart the iPad’s app and see if the problem persists. Apple (and Forum members) recommend that you power down your iPad at least once a week, just as you might regularly completely switch off your PC. The normal procedure of just briefly pressing the Power button of the iPad merely puts it to ‘sleep’. Most Forum members have found that one of the two methods I’ve mentioned here cure a whole bunch of unexplained problems and are an easy first step to resolving most anything that happens on the iPad.

Tim
Scotland

 

[RickyBobby]

You are not going to believe this. When I turned it off about two hours ago the battery was in the 60% range. I am careful to turn it off using the power switch because I do not want the AT&T meter to keep running Now when I turn it on it says the battery is too discharged to power up. So it is plugged into the wall and see what what happens. No, I am not a troll.

 

[wytey]

After a few days, I am completely underwhelmed with the iPad 2 and the AT&T service in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

I put a ripped and converted video on it and it played beautifully for all of five minutes. But now when I hit the "videos" icon I get a completely jet black screen. Nice for a brand new device. I rubbed and tapped that jet black screen until my fingertips were numb to no avail.

I tried the Youtube app and when I enter the name of a popular song I get forty bits of rubbish that were all made by bored teens and no way to find the real official video from the music company. These bored teens are so wickedly clever to put the word "official" on their garbage.

My other device is a two year old netbook with a 4G wireless card that works about 18,000 times better than this iPad failure.

Apple have no control over the AT&T service or the quality of service they provide

Only thing I can think of is that you synced the movie to the iPad, deleted it off the pc, and then re-synced to pc, in which case it will delete said movie off pc, as for only playing for 5 mins, I have no idea, maybe someone who has encountered that problem will be able to shed some light or help, that or your iPad could be faulty, a stab in the dark though

Apple have nothing to do with YouTube and said teens using the word official in their garbage movies

If you dislike the iPad that much, and prefer your old netbook over the iPad that much, I suggest you return the iPad for a refund whilst you still can

 

[RickyBobby]

I cannot return it because I got the engraved model direct from Apple. It is a sunk cost. But thank you for your input.

 

[wytey]

I cannot return it because I got the engraved model direct from Apple. It is a sunk cost. But thank you for your input.

eBay?

 

[RickyBobby]

Nah, if I cared about money I would not have bought it in the first place. I drive a cab in Las Vegas and will use it to entertain the passengers with smashing pop music videos and get them to buy iPads when they get home. It fits on the cup holder perfectly.

 

[MonoJoker]

Ah well go back to your netbook then. Sounds like a pretty emotive and childish post over one issue... Maybe I'm being harsh but from my limited experience with Apple in general if you take the device back, show them the issue you'll usually end up with either a solution of a replacement device. I can understand disappointment in such circumstances but exhaust all avenues with the vendor first - after all it is under warranty

Cheers
LT
iPad owner for 6 weeks and iPad 2 owner for less than a week.

 

[RickyBobby]

There is no need to be so negative. There is no way that I could have known that the AT&T 3G service sucked so badly until I tried it. And it does suck that badly. No fault of Apple, of course. But Clear, the 4G provider does offer a mobile hotspot at a reasonable cost. So I may knock off the AT&T and let the iPad2 run off the Clear 4G mobile hotspot.

The netbook, with Clear 4G, in a cab, on Las Vegas Boulevard, is and absolute flawless work of art as compared to the iPad with AT&T. So it is a work in progress. That just means that the iPad needs a better carrier than what is offered in my locale. All the AT&T service does in may area is buffer, then play one second of a Youtube, then buffer again. Total fail.

Not the fault of Apple. I understand that. But there is a workaround.

And I have even another workaround in mind. Just put a bunch of top 40 type music videos on the iPad and play them at the tip of a finger. At home, it will use my home internet and it will work like a champ.

The battle is not over, the battle has just been joined.

If any of you are close to Apple have them check [email protected] and see how many thousands of dollars of hardware I have purchased from the Apple store. A lot. iPad, iPhone, iMac, Mac mini, and perhaps some others I forgot.

 

[AppleNut]

This is the reason why you should never get something engraved especially if it's a new product that you are trying out. iPads are too much money to take that risk. Also the IPad has so much more to offer than just watching videos.

 

[RickyBobby]

AppleNut,

I do not care about the money. If I cared about the money I never would have bought it in the first place and kept the money in my account.

I am very disappointed in the result to far in all matters for which I bought it. I cannot find a proper pop music video in their lousy Youtube app. I cannot access Youtube through Safari. That purely sucks.

The screen appearance, either vertical or horizontal, is not half that of the Toshiba dual core 4GB 500 Gb capacity netbook that costs half as much.

Perhaps I am just low on the learning curve but that it just me.

I am going to conduct a fair test and put the iPad 2 and the two year old Toshiba neck and neck using my home high speed high class internet service provider and see which one does what better.

 

[RickyBobby]

I was reading about an app the lets you point the iPad at the sky and it tells you where you are looking. I gotta get that one.

 

[Hayles66]

It's called star walk. It's brilliant.

 

[RickyBobby]

It bothers me that the Youtube app is so worthless. You do not have that problem with a real computer.

But, again, no way I could know that until I had it in my hands.

I do not see what good it does for Apple/Google/Youtube to direct the end user to a bunch of total crap.

I tried to pick the low hanging fruit such as "Tayor Swift" or "Black Eyed Peas" to find the real music videos on the worthless iPad app. No such luck.

If the moderator or the Applenut know how to do this I would appreciate it.

 

[brrip]

why don't you research on the mifi services in your area? pick the best one and run it off wifi. it will achieve your purpose, but of course your AT&T contract plus this means it will cost more