Ted's Guide For Getting A Free iPad

As it is with every new gadget that appears on the market, people had mixed feelings about the iPad. Some believed that the most important part of the new device will be the software and not the hardware features or build.

From this point of view, the first generation iPad didn’t disappoint. People were pleasantly surprised by its ten hour battery life and thought that the starting price was modest, considering its capabilities. But if you think about it, not everybody can afford to spend 500 USD (the entry price) on a device, even on one  high tech as the iPad.

So if you must have it, but can’t afford it, you can try to get it for free, all you have to do is Google the words “free iPad” and you will find plenty of sites dying to help you out. At the time of its release, the iPad was believed to be able to compete with proliferating netbooks, since most of them used Microsoft Windows.

One thing the device was criticized for was the lack of wireless sync, unlike competitors such as Microsoft Zune, which was capable of doing so for a number of years.

When the third generation iPad came out on March 16 this year it was praised by many for its Retina display, HD camera, new A5X chip with quad-core graphics capabilities and LTE function. According to some reviewers the iPad now had the most spectacular display ever fitted to a mobile device and that Apple made logical upgrades in areas they were seriously lacking, compared to the competition.

The first problem that iPad users discovered soon after buying it was that its LTE wireless technology was incapable of functioning outside the US, since it could only run in the frequencies used by AT&T and Verizon. The problem was that it could only work at 700 and 2100 MHz, while the rest of the world was using 800, 1.8, and 2.6 MHz. The United Kingdom doesn’t even have a widespread 4G network, but it doesn’t matter, since the iPad wouldn’t be able to use its frequencies anyway.

Soon after the tablet was launched the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission took Apple to court for misleading consumers into thinking that they they could have 4G signal on their iPads. The company responded to this by offering a full refund to costumers who bought a tablet with cellular capabilities. Since then, thanks to numerous lawsuits, Apple has agreed to give a refund to anyone who couldn’t use the iPad 4G function because of network incompatibility issues. After a while, they started advertising the iPad with cellular and not 4G capabilities.

Some users found that the casing of the iPad can have a very high temperature when playing 3D games. After conducting a series of tests it has been found that is can get as hot as 116 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point it was uncomfortable if held for more than a brief period.

At the time the iPad was launched, manufacturer Nvidia questioned the superiority of the A5X chip over the Tegra 3 processor and at a later date tests revealed Apple’s superiority in graphics and Tegra’s in CPU performance.

There is a certain aspect of the iPad that has gathered a lot of criticism since its release, particularly by digital right advocates: its proprietary operating system, the iOS. The main problem, from their point of view is Apple’s implementation of Digital rights Management within the iOS, which has the capability to lock purchased media to the platform. But perhaps the biggest concern is Apple’s ability to remotely disable or remove any application from any iPad at any time. And then there’s the development model, which requires a yearly subscription to distribute applications developed for the iOS, the fact that app approval is centralized, not to mention that Apple has full control of the platform you are using on a daily basis. Critics have also noted that all of this might slow application development and software innovation.

From the commercial point of view, the iPad got a much better reception than Apple ever anticipated. The demand for it was so high before its release that those who ordered it at a later date had to wait between two and three weeks for it to arrive. There was such a huge difference between expectations and reality that Apple managed to sell its pre-order stock in a single day. Despite the fact that there was a considerable delay in shipping time, people chose to order it online instead of waiting in line at an Apple Store.

This just shows how much consumers and the Internet have grown over the years. Nevertheless, there were about 750 people outside of the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue on the day of the iPad’s release. According to an Apple press conference, three million tablets were sold on the first three days of  the release, in most part to a younger, male demographic. This means that thanks to the previous two generations the iPad became more popular than Apple ever imagined. The third generation iPad was purchased mostly by people who previously owned one of its predecessors.

It was as popular for business users as it has been for the common consumer. According to statistics, it was being used within 50 of the Fortune 100 companies after the first 90 days of its release.

There were companies that managed to make their employees use iPads by simply buying it for them and this worked, because pretty soon it was being used in a lot of areas, from attorneys, who used it to respond to clients, to medical professionals, who could now access health records while examining a patient.

Companies benefited greatly from the use of the iPad, because it helped them achieve an increase in employee productivity, a decrease in paperwork size and a boost in revenue.

It was even approved for in-cockpit use by several airlines, in order decrease paper consumption, which was a good call, considering that the manual it replaced weights 11 kg.