Connecting to the Internet

The iPad can do much more when it’s connected to the Internet. Among the built-in apps you can use with the Internet are Mail, the Safari web browser, YouTube, the App Store (as well as many of the apps in it), and the iTunes Store.

All iPad models have the capability to connect to the Internet via a wireless hotspot. You may well have one in your home, and your place of work, cafes, libraries, airports, and other public areas are among the places likely to have a wireless hotspot available. Some hotspots are free to use; for others, you have to pay.

You might also be able to generate your own wireless hotspot from a cell phone. Many Android phones, such as the Motorola Droid series, can provide a wireless hot spot by repurposing the cell phone signal that they connect to for phone calls as well as data transfer. This capability is usually free with Android phones; there’s a similar capability on newer iPhones, called Personal Hotspot, but you have to pay a monthly fee to use it. The monthly free from one provider is $20 a month.

You can also get a MiFi device—short for “my Wi-Fi”—that also connects to the cellular network to generate a portable hotspot. At this writing, the cost might be one or two hundred dollars, or the device could be free with a monthly subscription. Monthly subscriptions run in the area of $40 to $50 a month for unlimited data transfer. These portable wireless hotspots can support up to five connections at a time.

Finally, many iPad models have a built-in cellular network connection. These models are called iPad Wi-Fi+3G; models without 3G are referred to as Wi-Fi-only. (iPads with this option cost more than those without it—at this writing, the list prices are $130 more for the 3G models.)

The Wi-Fi-only models are the stronger sellers; anecdotal reports from early iPad 2 sales in the U.S. were that roughly three-fourths of sales were Wi-Fi-only models. The growing availability of “normal,” fixed wireless hotspots, portable hotspots, and MiFi units might have something to do with that.

If you have a 3G iPad, you have to buy a data plan for the 3G capability to work. At this writing, in the United States, only AT&T and Verizon offer such a plan. (Other carriers sell the iPad, plus a MiFi device with a data plan of its own.) AT&T has slightly different versions of the iPad 2 to support its respective networks.

3G or Not 3G? That Is the Question

It’s a bit agonizing to have to decide whether to get 3G capability for your iPad before you buy it. I’ll go through the pluses and minuses here; you probably already have your iPad, but you may be a repeat buyer someday. Also, it’s more than possible that friends or family members will ask you for a recommendation.

The popularity of the 3G models seems to have declined since the initial launch of the iPad through to today. It’s not only the additional $130 or so for an iPad model that supports 3G; it’s also the hassle and cost of a data plan, which can cost anywhere from $15 a month up to $70 or so. Not only that, the plans are confusing; they’re measured in megabytes of data transferred, and very few people can know in advance what their needs will be.

Despite the cost, many early adopters of the iPad bought the 3G option. This has apparently declined with time. Having been involved with the iPad from the beginning, it seems to me that the most important reasons for this change are

• Widespread wireless: People often find that they can get a wireless connection in their home and office, and many other places as well. Occasionally there’s a fee, but much Wi-Fi is free. The times when Wi-Fi is not available are generally few enough and brief enough to not be worth the extra cost.

• Tethering: Having a portable Wi-Fi hotspot in your smartphone is a new option since the iPad first launched. Android phones started getting tethering as a free option shortly after the launch of the iPad 1 in mid-2010; iPhone 4 users got the Personal Hotspot as a $20 a month option from AT&T beginning in March 2011.

• Too many choices: When the iPad Wi-Fi+3G launched, the only data option in the U.S. was unlimited data from AT&T for $25 a month. At this writing, you can go to AT&T or Verizon and get a data plan costing anywhere from $15 to $70 or so. (It’s a bit amazing that Apple’s carrier partners don’t seem to “get” the benefit of simplicity that Apple demonstrates continually.) Who needs the hassle of choosing a vendor and a plan?

• MiFi units: A MiFi, shown in Figure 3.1, is a portable personal hotspot that isn’t a smartphone. It costs $100 to $200 a month at this writing, or might come free with a data plan that costs perhaps $40 or $50 a month. MiFi units became more popular in 2010 partly because of the need on the part of iPad Wi-Fi-only users for connectivity.

Figure 3.1. A MiFi helps make your Wi-Fi-only iPad fully portable.

• Instapaper and friends: Instapaper is an app that enables you to sync saved Web pages to your iPad and then read them on the go without a live Internet connection. There are also tools for reading PDFs and tons of entertainment options that can be preloaded, including books, songs, TV shows, and movies.

There are still good reasons to get a 3G iPad for some people. If you spend a lot of time on the move, especially internationally, the flexibility of a 3G iPad is valuable. Tethering your iPad to your cell phone for more than a half hour or so runs down your cell phone battery noticeably; it’s much better to run down the much more robust iPad batteries. Also a MiFi—fun as it is—is still an extra piece of hardware to hassle with.

The iPad has its GPS hardware in the same hardware module as its 3G radio, so only the 3G iPad has true GPS capability. The 3G iPad also has a GPS-assisted GPS from the cell phone network. (This works even if you don’t have an active data plan.) Wi-Fi-only iPads do get a location fix from Wi-Fi base stations, but this can suddenly disappear in less populated areas, and it’s less accurate.

If you use the iPad as a “go-to” tool for work and your job involves travel (even within your local area), the 3G option is great; same if you frequently want to use your iPad for navigation. Many other people will want the flexibility of having 3G built in, even if they might not ever turn it on. And the long-run cost isn’t that bad because 3G options increase the resale value of your iPad.

I think, though, that the “burden of proof” has shifted. In the early days, I would have said to get a 3G unit unless you were pretty sure you wouldn’t need it—for instance, if your iPad rarely leaves home. Now I’d say to get a Wi-Fi-only unit unless you’re pretty sure that you’ll use your iPad on the move fairly often and that tethering isn’t an option for you.

Joining a Wi-Fi Network

As you take your iPad to different places, such as your home, office, or a library, you might have the opportunity to connect to the local wireless network. Most such networks require a key or password. You might be offered access with no key, be told the key for free, or be required to pay for service to use the network.

After you join a Wi-Fi network in a given location, your iPad remembers any password associated with the network and tries to reconnect to that same network whenever you are in range of it. If you have connected to several networks available from a given spot, your iPad tries to connect to the most recently used one first. Use the following steps to join a network for the first time or to disconnect from your current wireless network connection and join a different one.

Here are the steps to look for and, if possible, join a Wi-Fi network.

  LET ME TRY IT

Connecting to a Wi-Fi Network

1. From the Home screen, choose Settings. Choose Wi-Fi and use the onscreen switch to turn Wi-Fi on.

A list of available networks appears, as shown in Figure 3.2. Password-protected networks display a Lock icon; you can’t join such a network unless you have the password. Networks that are not password-protected might require a fee to use. The network’s signal strength is displayed via the Wi-Fi icon for that network; more bars mean a stronger connection.

Figure 3.2. The iPad displays networks available at your location.

2. Tap the name of a network that you want to use. If the network is hidden, tap Other, enter the name of the network, and select the type of security used (None, WEP, WPA, WPA2, WPA Enterprise, or WPA2 Enterprise).

If the network is password-protected, a request for the password appears, as shown in Figure 3.3.

Figure 3.3. Join the network you’ve chosen.

3. Enter a password if necessary. Then tap Join.

Your iPad connects to the network.

4. If a screen appears requesting payment via credit card or other means, enter the requested details, or cancel and choose another network, or none.

The Wi-Fi icon displays in the status bar at the top of the screen. (If you have a 3G iPad, you’ll see the Wi-Fi icon instead of the 3G one.) The strength of the network connection displays in the icon.

Tethering Your iPad to a Mobile Hotspot

If you have a smartphone that supports the creation of a Wi-Fi hotspot, you can log onto your own personal Wi-Fi network using the previous steps. The specific steps for turning on a personal hotspot vary by the type of mobile phone you have, so I won’t try to give the steps for that here.

Not only do you get 3G-type speeds with the ease of hooking up to a Wi-Fi network, but so far phones with GPS built in seem to pass their location information to the iPad that tethers to them. This means that a tethered Wi-Fi-only iPad has full GPS capability, just like a 3G iPad does.

There’s really only one problem I’ve experienced with tethering: running the Wi-Fi hotspot burns through your phone’s battery very quickly. If you have GPS turned on in your smartphone—so you can navigate using your smartphone and/or iPad—it’s even worse.

My Android phone goes through batteries really fast; I carry an extra battery or two if I’m going to be out more than a few hours. (Like the iPad, the iPhone line-up has sealed batteries, but there’s a strong after-market trade in add-on battery packs of various kinds.)

This is much less of a problem for the iPad. Using the 3G capability is estimated by Apple—and verified by others—to cut battery life from about 10 hours to about 9. This is not fun when it becomes a problem, but it’s better than dealing with a smartphone battery life that seems to diminish by the minute after the first hour or two.

Joining a 3G Network

If you have a 3G iPad, it can automatically connect to the cellular network for which you have a data plan whenever possible. However, if you’re not on the move, it’s actually preferable to connect via Wi-Fi if possible. A Wi-Fi connection is more stable, more reliable, and uses less power than a 3G connection. Follow the steps in the section at the beginning of this chapter to join a Wi-Fi network if one is available in your location.

The 3G network used by the iPad is actually overlaid on two other kinds of networks: an EDGE network, or 2G network, which is a slower kind of data connection; and an analog cellular network, which is used for phone calls. Your iPad needs either a 3G or an EDGE connection to transmit and receive data.

The strength of the analog cellular network connection is shown by the well-known symbol of bars in the status bar at the top of your iPad’s screen. These bars are not directly relevant to you as an iPad user, but usually more bars indicate a higher likelihood of a data connection.

The connection can sometimes be the fastest kind, 3G; other times, it will be the slower EDGE network. You can also be in a location in which you get an analog cellular network connection—which the iPad can’t use—but no data connection, neither EDGE nor 3G. In these cases, look for a Wi-Fi connection. In fact, you might want to look for a Wi-Fi connection wherever possible—it’s likely to be faster and more stable than any kind of cellular network connection. Wi-Fi also uses less power than the cellular hardware in your iPad.

You can also be in a location that is theoretically served by 3G and/or EDGE, but in which geographic features, signal reflections from buildings, and even the weather conspire to prevent a connection. Data connections can also become overcrowded, preventing you from getting a connection one moment, yet enabling you to connect the next.

Unfortunately, if your data connection is unavailable or unreliable, your only alternative for getting a connection is Wi-Fi.