The iPad 2 WiFi looks like a nice machine for $499. The iPad 2s with a mobile data connection don’t seem like a good deal at all. You pay $629 to $829 for the device plus $420/year for 2 GB of data access per month (fairly skimpy for anyone working with video; they might have to budget for some heavy overage fees). If you can get 4G on a small lightweight device such as the Samsung Epic phone, why not on a large heavy mobile device such as the iPad? If Samsung and HTC could give people 4G nine months ago, why can’t Apple give consumers 4G today? If people are going to pay $420 per year for a data connection to their iPad, why can’t it be a fast one?
22 thoughts on “Why no 4G in the Apple iPad 2?”
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Apple says the problem is power consumption. The current 4G chip(s) would run the battery down too quickly. Who knows if that’s really true though, since there are 4G phones with much smaller batteries and people manage to use them.
I bought the 3G version, and am not sure if I’ll ever use the 3G. I paid the extra $130 just (well almost just) for the GPS chip – little known fact that the wifi-only ipads don’t have that.
It seems from some of your posts, that you don’t realize that almost every “unlimited data plan” in the US has a 5 GB monthly cap. There’s generally some weasel language at the bottom of most subscriptions describing how “unlimited” actually means 5 GB.
Owen: Is that 5 GB cap also true of the 4G systems? I would have thought that they’d be designed for much higher sustained data transfer rates than the 3G systems and also a lot more backhaul capacity.
Also, what applications do you find most useful with the GPS? With WiFi-only, it can’t be useful for Google Maps navigation, can it?
The 2 GB plan (on AT&T) is actually $25/month ($300/year not $420) with $10/1 GB overage fee.
On the Verizon side, you can get 1, 3, 5, and 10 GB plans at $20, $35, $50, and $80 per month respectively. Overage fees for the larger plans are $10/1 GB.
One feature of these plans are that they are month-to-month (no long term contract) and have no activation/re-activation fees, so you can cancel and reactivate without any cost.
GPS navigation applications require the GPS chip, however some location applications don’t require as much accuracy and use the Wi-Fi Positioning System. Google Maps can use either, but without GPS is only semi-accurate in high-density Wi-Fi places (ie. urban areas).
Yischon: Thanks for the corrections. I’m not sure how many people will want to pay $1500/year for home Internet/TV/phone, another $1000+/year for their iPhone service, and $300-500/year (depending on usage) to have mobile connectivity for their iPad. I wonder if it is truly possible for the phone companies to extract 70 percent of a person’s disposable income….
I have a mi-fi thing it gives me 3g with one data plan and 5 devices.
I would definitely get the 3g version. Wifi isn’t readily available especially for a quick email update. As already mentioned, you get the GPS too. The GPS is useful for the built in map app, Google Earth, Star Walk, and some aviation apps like ForeFlight. the GPS can be used with the cell service turned off. You don’t need need a two year contract – month by month is available.
4G a la Sprint is dead. Major carriers worldwide are going straight to LTE. Once LTE is widely available, Apple will have a device for it.
David: Isn’t LTE already available in some cities? The Verizon map says they have LTE in the greater Boston area, for example, and that the Motorola Xoom as well as a bunch of phones can connect to it. All of Cambridge is covered. So why pay a lot of money now for a tablet that doesn’t have the necessary hardware to connect? Why not get the WiFi version and then sell it on eBay when the iPad 4G/LTE is available?
Besides an unhealthy YouTube addiction, would anyone really be “working with video” on an iPad? And then try to up and download this via 3G or 4G? I would imagine that to be an extremely small number of people.
Not to mention that most would have the same problem trying to do that on a laptop with a data card. No need to pick on the iPad specifically for this.
2GB/month is a huge amount of data if all you are doing is some email and a bit of web browsing. Will some people regularly use the pad for video calls? I bet they will, but most of those will be at home on WiFi.
Don’t the carriers in the US off pre-paid data? Most people I know here down under simply paid $150 up front for 15GB that lasts a year. (USD:AUD is virtually 1:1 right now) Because you can now use that data at any point within the year, it actually works out cheaper than going on a plan.
However, wouldn’t it be nice if I simply had one pool of data allowance I could share between all my devices on the network?
Bas: There is a rumor that Americans like to watch TV. I have also heard that Skype is popular among the young folks.
I don’t think that there are any U.S. carriers offering anything remotely like the service you describe. Everything is done on a per-day (Virgin Mobile) or per-month (everyone else) basis.
It depends if you want the GPS or not. I use 3G all the time, but I purchased a truly unlimited plan when it was still available from AT&T at $30/mo and have renewed monthly. A 3G model may have a better resale value so the price difference isn’t so great esp if you buy the 3G only data plan when you really need it.
This is what Apple does best. They tell the customers what they want, and that seems to work out for them.
4G will come in time, but it’s not like there’s much competition out there to push Apple to 4G.
Xoom doesn’t have it.
Playbook isn’t out.
Dell streak 7 lasts under 4 hours with it.
4G isn’t a killer app. For those who need it, they can buy a hotspot to throw in their briefcase.
Side note: People (including me) lined up in droves today.
The new Apple iPhone OS 4.3 will allow sharing a hotspot data connection between iPhone and wifi-only iPad.
There are offline-map apps that make the GPS useful in disconnected environments. I’ve found it really useful when hiking, or motorcycling in the mountains, or on remote islands devoid of all connectivity. The lack of GPS on the WiFi-only version is a real bummer to me.
The Xoom does not currently support LTE.
According to Motorola, you will be able to get an upgrade approximately 90 days after launch. You will have to send your Xoom in to be upgraded and it will take up to “6 business days” which means more than a calendar week.
Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/02/farcical-xoom-4g-upgrade-plan-requires-mail-in-six-day-operation/
Beans: Six days without a tablet? How will people manage?
The 5GB cap is also true of 4G plans. Both Verizon and T-mobile have a cap. Which, yes, means on the better networks you can use up your quota in about a half hour of heavy use. Lots of cap discussion in the user forums if you google “5GB cap 4G” Like this post:
http://forums.t-mobile.com/t5/Internet-and-Email/Throttled-before-5GB-cap-on-Unlimited-4G-Plan/td-p/708471
When iOS users buy a GPS app for their phone (say, the $50 TomTom app), they don’t just get “turn-by-turn directions”, they also get the entire US-and-Canada road network downloaded to their device so navigation/location henceforth requires no data use, no download time and no cellphone signal. Which means a wifi-only iPad that had GPS would be extremely useful and it sucks that Apple doesn’t offer it.
Can you buy GPS apps on android? Can one get the garmin or tomtom or similar map downloaded, or does road navigation on android always need a cellphone signal?
Here is another alternative:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703662804576188901890884360.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews
LTE is only available in a handful of cities and airports — and only on Verizon. The other proper 4G, WiMax is available in many more, but only from Clear (or one of it’s affiliates, like Sprint). WiMax is likely a dead technology, with the four major cell providers claiming they will roll out LTE (including Spring).
Not sure with LTE, but with WiMax they certainly do traffic management once you use a large amount of data. In my case, after using 5 GB of data in a rolling 1 month period, I was limited to speeds of 25 KB/s for the following 2 weeks.
That said, I’m not sure why anyone would want a 3G iPad (notwithstanding GPS). I always have my phone, and I can create a WiFi hotspot on the fly. I’m also generally at locations that have WiFi available, so it doesn’t provide much value. (…and when I upgrade to an LTE phone, my iPad will see the same speed increase)
My utopia is that we get to buy blocks of data that can be utilized not a per device basis, but a per person basis.
Bas: Apple ships a dedicated iPad version of iMovie video editing software, which it has repeately touted on stage, and the only export options are email or send to itunes via sync. So the idea of wanting to upload video is not so far fetched, to say nothing of music files created in the iPad version of GarageBand.
Bas: (another point) – the iPad has a netflix app, that’s pretty damn attractive. As long as you’re on wifi, not something capped.
For flying applications the internal GPS is not considered accurate enough (An inexpensive ($99) external GPS is recommended: http://blog.foreflight.com/). So that and the possibility of using your own data tethering (which could be LTE), makes the cheaper WiFi-only model a viable and useful choice.
You plug in the GPS (http://amzn.com/B0035Y7ZJ2) and all GPS based applications will automatically use it (even if your iPad has the internal GPS).