Hi,

Yes, you can do Netflix with the iPad on 3G. Someone is going to see if he can 
use up 100GB on 3G on his unlimited dataplan for the iPad within a few weeks.

Regards,
Nic
Mobile Me: [email protected]
Skype: Kvalme
MSN Messenger: [email protected]
AIM: cincinster
yahoo Messenger: cin368
Facebook Profile
My Twitter

On May 5, 2010, at 9:07 PM, joe quinn wrote:

> u can stream netflix over 3g on the ipad? With what? And, would it
> work with the touch, or iphone? If so, 1 more reason for me to get
> one!
> 
> On 5/5/10, Bryan Smart <[email protected]> wrote:
>> OK. So, I've had my iPad Wi-Fi+3G for less than a week, and I've already
>> decided not to keep it. There is so much of a euphoric glow on some of the
>> lists about the wonderfulness of this device. I'm the type of person that is
>> always eager to investigate new technologies and ways of working, and so
>> expected that I'd agree with the generally positive reception. I don't.
>> 
>> I have experience with the iPhone, and, other than the fact that it is
>> slower to operate than a device with buttons, and that the battery life is
>> terrible when compared to most mobile phones, I thought that it was an
>> impressive piece of tech with an advanced approach to user interaction.
>> 
>> I was excited about the iPad, and expected it to bring everything from an
>> iPhone, only improved. First, the iPad would have a larger screen, so it
>> should be possible to more easily move my finger directly to the position of
>> known controls in order to speed up the operation. Also, the iPad would have
>> a significantly larger battery than the iPhone, so I could spend hours using
>> apps, even wireless apps, without having to worry about draining the power
>> away.
>> 
>> The only universally great thing that I can say about the iPad is that the
>> battery is spectacular. With the screen brightness set to low, it runs for a
>> very long time. I've spent hours streaming movies via Netflix over 3G, and
>> the battery just keeps on going.
>> 
>> Unfortunately, that's where it all ends. It isn't that I think that the tech
>> behind the iPad is necessarily bad. If you want this experience, though, as
>> a blind person, you're better off with an iPhone.
>> 
>> Why? Well, let's compare the iPad to the iPhone 3GS.
>> 
>> The iPad has a larger screen. If you're sighted, this is great for watching
>> video. Watching movies on a tiny phone screen has got to be an eye strain.
>> Blind people don't watch movies, and we can listen to them just fine on an
>> iPad or iPhone speaker.
>> 
>> I thought that the larger screen would help with VoiceOver, but, actually,
>> it makes things worse. When you work an iPhone, placing your finger at
>> different positions on the screen only requires wrist movement. The iPad
>> screen is huge when compared to the iPhone, and you must move your entire
>> arm in order to navigate the screen. This can become tiring after hours of
>> computing, because your arm can rarely rest on anything. If you don't hold
>> your arm up, with your fingers angled down, you're likely to bump the screen
>> with part of your wrist or forearm, causing VoiceOver's focus to jump to
>> some random position on the screen. This is particularly frustrating because
>> there is so much content on an iPad screen. If you navigate through controls
>> by swiping, you'll be swiping and swiping and swiping and swiping to get to
>> where you'd like. Of course, you can directly explore with your finger, but
>> I've noticed that, in several places (like the App Store and Safari),
>> tapping somewhere doesn't necessarily mean that swiping will continue from
>> that point. In many places, I'll tap at a point on the screen, but, when I
>> start swiping, VoiceOver will always start from the top of the screen. So,
>> in those situations, if you accidentally touch the screen with some other
>> skin while swiping, or if VoiceOver mistakenly interprets a swipe as a tap,
>> then you'll lose your place, and need to start from the top of the screen.
>> In the App Store in particular, I've swiped myself to frustration.
>> 
>> The size of the screen is also not convenient for holding the iPad like you
>> would the iPhone. It must rest on your lap or a table. And, with me pushing
>> and tapping on it with both hands, I've had some situations where it has
>> nearly slid off of my lap. With the screen being made of glass, that is not
>> a great thought to ponder. So, I think that the screen size is not only
>> wasted on blind users, but is also a drawback.
>> 
>> The on-screen keyboard is a bit nicer to use on a large screen. However, the
>> touch-typing mode makes even one-handed typing on a small screen a breeze.
>> Besides that, the larger screen meant that a lot more arm motion was
>> required to type on an iPad. I tried the two-handed typing approach in
>> landscape mode, but find that, no matter how well you place your hands,
>> typing is very mistake prone. For anyone that finds it hard to type for
>> extended periods of time on the iPhone, you can use the iPad keyboard dock
>> with it when the next iPhone OS comes out.
>> 
>> VoiceOver is worse on the iPad. I'll just put my flame retardant suit on
>> right now for the hordes of people that will respond and tell me how I'm
>> wrong, how wonderful it is, and how it must be me. Well, I've used an iPhone
>> extensively, and I've used the touch gestures on my MacBook Pro a lot, so I
>> think that I'm pretty familiar with how everything is supposed to work. On
>> the iPad, for gestures to work, I must over-act them. On my MacBook or
>> iPhone, a little flick of my finger is enough to indicate that I'd like to
>> move to the next item. On the iPad, I must make a huge swipe, extending a
>> few inches. Small flicks will work, sometimes, but VoiceOver is very likely
>> to just interpret the flick as a tap, and jump my focus. As I've said
>> before, given how huge the screen is, and how the control order is broken in
>> several important places, this is extremely frustrating. Having to make huge
>> swipes means that my whole arm is involved, and swiping and swiping and
>> swiping with your whole arm will really make your forearm sore after a few
>> hours. Sometimes, the screen won't even register that I touched or swiped.
>> The iPhone screen seems much more sensitive.
>> 
>> The speech glitches at high speed. At 90% or above, Samantha can't say
>> "search", and other words, without chopping off the ends.
>> 
>> And, my largest complaint about VoiceOver on the iPad. It doesn't recognize,
>> in most cases, when the screen updates. This seems to be most noticeable on
>> screens that use HTML/web content. Say that you are in the App Store, or
>> Safari, and you tap a link. You know that a new page/screen must have
>> loaded. Sometimes you'll hear the audio cue indicating that the load
>> completed, sometimes not. However, most always, if you start swiping, you'll
>> realize that you're reviewing material from the old page. You must tap
>> somewhere on the screen for VoiceOver to realize that, in fact, the screen
>> has changed. This is annoying for purposes of situation and orientation.
>> 
>> Here is how it should work. You double-tap a control. You wait. You hear the
>> completed audio cue, and VoiceOver speaks the first item on the screen
>> (which now has focus). Now, you can either start swiping through controls,
>> explore the screen with your finger, or two-finger-swipe down to start
>> reading the screen.
>> 
>> This is how it works, though. You double-tap a control. You wait, and wait
>> and wait. You don't get any feedback about what is happening, so you start
>> exploring the screen with your finger. If the screen hasn't finished loading
>> yet, then VoiceOver will either repeatedly click at you, or else you'll hear
>> absolutely nothing (because VoiceOver is frozen up). Once the screen
>> finishes loading, all of that tapping and touching that you did while
>> VoiceOver was frozen will be suddenly processed, and VoiceOver will start
>> going crazy with clicking and speaking fragments. Now, you aren't sure where
>> you are, so you must four-finger-swipe up to get to the beginning of the
>> screen, then start exploring.
>> 
>> Another way that this can work out is that you double-tap a control, and
>> VoiceOver will say something (supposedly the first control on the new screen
>> "cancel button selected", or similar). When you start swiping, though,
>> you'll hear the contents from the last screen. So, you first tap somewhere
>> on the screen to force VoiceOver to realize that the contents have changed,
>> then four-finger-swipe up to go to the beginning of the screen, then,
>> finally, start exploring.
>> 
>> Honestly, this is ridiculous. It is hard to believe that Apple couldn't
>> catch such a problem. I guess that web support had minimal testing. Lots of
>> apps use imbedded web content, though, so this happens in all sorts of apps
>> from Wonder Radio to Net Flix.
>> 
>> As a final VoiceOver thought, I've noticed that the iPad is experiencing a
>> problem that the iPhone had early on in its life. For those of you with an
>> iPad, lock the screen. Now, put your ear up next to the speaker. Hear that
>> hiss. Now, put your iPad down for 5 minutes and come back. Still hear that
>> hiss? That is the sound of your iPad's audio hardware constantly running and
>> draining your battery. So, while the iPad's battery life is impressive in a
>> continuous run (like watching movies back to back), it sucks in a similar
>> way to the iPhone where you'll go to sleep with a full battery, and wake up
>> with 70% or less. There is no reason for that on an iPad, since the iPad
>> isn't doing sync for Visual Voicemail and all of the other AT&T phone to
>> tower chatter. That open speaker, though, is probably the cause of most of
>> the drain.
>> 
>> I'm further discouraged to hear that the iPad won't be receiving an OS
>> update until the Fall. So, I suppose that these VoiceOver issues will stand
>> for at least 4 or 5 months. There will be a new iPhone, and a new version of
>> the OS for everyone else, in about a month. A major OS update almost
>> certainly means an update of VoiceOver.
>> 
>> So, in the final analysis, the larger screen makes the iPad harder to work
>> for me, and VoiceOver has more problems than on an iPhone. The larger
>> battery is nice, but that isn't enough. In my mind, the iPhone is all the
>> iPad that a blind user needs.
>> 
>> If you are thinking of returning yours, better decide fast. You only have 14
>> days after receiving your iPad to return it, and, even then, you must pay a
>> 10% restocking fee.
>> 
>> The iPad is an interesting device, but I'd just rather use an iPhone, I
>> think.
>> 
>> Bryan
>> 
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "MacVisionaries" group.
>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>> [email protected].
>> For more options, visit this group at
>> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
>> 
>> 
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "MacVisionaries" group.
> To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
> [email protected].
> For more options, visit this group at 
> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
> 

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"MacVisionaries" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.

Reply via email to