iPad, iPhone and Tethering

This blog will discuss the merits of tethering the iPad to a iPhone. The equipment used for this blog was -

• iPad (first generation) 16G, 3G
• iPhone 4S, 32G,

Assumptions

The iPad 1 is much slower, so the sluggishness of some of the apps may not be so with a more powerful iPad. To be honest, I’m not convinced of this point as the apps work fine when not connected to a hotspot.

I’m based in NZ, so I’m referencing 3G, not 4G or LTE. To be honest I wouldn’t expect LTE to arrive in NZ over the lifetime of the“new iPad”.

Benefits of tethering -

Tethering works well. Tethering means I won’t need to spend an extra NZ$200 on a iPad 3G option (also means I can buy more storage, more about this later) and no ongoing monthly prepaid 3G cost for the iphone. Currently NZ$20 prepaid with a budget telco provider.

Some drawbacks

Time - The time taken to setup tethering on the iPhone and setting up the iPad to use this tethering can be a pain. Using iPad 1, the wireless bits don’t seem to pick this network up immediatly. Often wireless on the iPad needs to be turned on before the iPhone hotspot is turned on. Such a pain. I understand the iPad 2 works better with regards to picking up the hotspot.

Security - Password for the iPhone hotspot appears to be clear, on the iPhone anyway. So if someone can access my iPhone then they could feasibly access the iPhone hotspot. The name of the iPhone hotspot is something like “Sam’s iPhone”, pretty obvious whoes connection that is and ripe for password hacking. Guess changing the name of the phone could do the trick, but shouldn’t need to do this.

Data - How much more data will I use ? Well tethering the “new iPad” will mean more data will be used. How much ? Annedoctal evidence suggests 2.5 to 3 times the amount of data.

iPhone battery life - Battery definitely runs down much quicker when it is tethered. You could probably expect no more than three to four life out of the tether setup. So keep a power cable handy for the iPhone.

Theoretically data been synced shouldn’t change the amount of data been uploaded or downloaded. For example syncing OmniFocus data should not change. However syncing Instapper data may change. This all depends on where the parsing for the articles takes place, on the server or on the iPad.

3G speed - Ran some tests. Tethering the iPad 1 to the iPhone was pinging at 427ms, download at 6.72 Mbps and upload at 0.84 Mbps. The iPhone ping test was 258ms, download at 7.28 Mbps and upload at 1.13 Mbps. So what are the differences ? 65% slower for the ping test, 8% for the download test and 35% for the upload test. These tests are based on the iOS app, speedtest.net.

I tested some of my favourite apps, below are some comments I noticed on performance when run under a tether scenario.

Safari - downloading various apple websites. Takes a little time on both devices, 14 to 16 seconds to load the iPad or iTunes home websites. These results were inconclusive, possibly depending on content been delivered. Some of the apple pages were taking much longer with the tethered iPad.

OmniFocus - A refresh of omnifocus for iPad take much longer when the iPad was tethered. Something like 30 seconds compared to around 10 seconds. I’m assuming the reason for this lengthy time is around the upload and ping tests.

Instapaper - Seemed to take a little longer to load the “Read Later” screen. Also noticed scrolling to be a little jumpy. Loading an article, again seems to take longer and scrolling is jumpy. Again not too bad, maybe an extra second, definitely not to the extent of the OmniFocus differences though.

Reeder - Syncing is definitely taking longer. Syncing took 20 to 30 seconds. This seems to be a similar issue with the OmniFocus test. Moving between articles, sending articles to Instapper takes slightly longer when the iPad is tethered, but definitely less than one second.

iThoughts HD - This is my favourite mindmapping application. Looking at normal syncing activities, uploading to dropbox, for example, there was maybe an extra one or two second delay.

Day One - Selecting the first article took between two to five seconds longer. However selecting other articles took slightly longer, but less than one second. Creating a new article too one to two seconds, again a little longer, but not unbearably so. Typing speed on the iPad is no different. There is no noticable lag.

Byword - I’m typing this section using the byword iPad app which is tethered to the iPhone. Like the DAYONE app, typing is no problem. In fact every other function seems to work very well.

AtBat - Looks as though there is quite a bit of syncing going on. Loading articles takes 5 seconds. The app looks as though it is continually loading articles and other data.

Twitter Native App - takes longer to load, two to four seconds. Most actions seem sluggish. Opening a website in the Twitter web browser is suprisngly quick. Opening the web site in Safari is much slower. Refer back to section on Safari. I would assume the website is cached on the Twitter servers.

Goodreader - no differences with opening application, scrolling through to a particular document and opening said document. However has found in other applications the syncing between Dropbox and the Goodreader app is much slower.

Conclusion

Tethering the iPad, on the surface would seem a good option, however the realities of pinging and upload times makes tethering not wise. This is particulary the case when you have apps that require some form of syncronisation. Some good examples are OmniFocus and Reeder.

For me, running with a just wireless option (tether) is a risk. It may be OK as the extra performance could offset any network issues. I’m not so sure though. The apps I like to use adopt syncronisation and lets be honest - the cloud is where its at.

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typerighter.com

https://typerighter.com
I came across this web app a few days ago. Essentially the app allows you to just start writing with a very pleasing font and background. If you put your browser into full screen mode, you have this nice full view app. Just start typing and away you go.
Typerighter appeals to me for the following reasons:

• Snippets. I can use snippets from my other typerighter notes. So I can use signatures, common pieces of text or code that I might require from time to time. A good example could be a code header. There are also numerous global snippets that can be used such as current date, current time etc.
• Add txt to the end of the address bar and a copy of the note will be downloaded onto your desktop.
• Add html to the end of the address bar to convert the note, specifically written in the markdown language into html, no converters required.

The developer of this app, Garrick van Buren has been incredibly responsive to my queries. I asked how snippets should work and how to delete notes. I received multiple responses from Garrick within a day. Nice work.

MAIL, an update on how I use it

Finding mail on LION quite messy. to this end I'm finding I'm not really using it. Actually I'm finding that I'm using the mail on the iPhone much more. I find it easy to mark any mail I want to keep and archiving is so simple.

The iPad version of mail isn't as simple as it should be either.

BTW, I tend not to write long emails, actually most of the emails are very short. I find if I want to have a lengthy conversation, I discuss over the phone or face to face with meetings.

Mail

MAC MAIL

Looks as though we have a new version. Looks nice, particularly in full screen mode. The trackpad works nicely when scrolling over the three separate areas of the main mail application. Good job Apple.

The only issue so far has been using the "Rules function". Also there doesn't seem to be an archive function. What would be nice is if there was an option to archive email after a certain period of time etc or pick and choose what emails can be archived.

I get loads of mail from companies I have applications with or with companies I buy or sell from and to, also news updates etc, so I get loads of emails and my inbox get full rather quickly.

I'm pleased there is a "Rules" function, although it doesn't always seem to work automatically. There have been times when I need to restart mail. Actually the mail seems as though it was copied to the new folder, but still remained in the inbox. When I restarted mail, all was good.

First Post . . .

Hi Everyone, first post, just got my first mac laptop, the Macbook Air 13", very nice. Lion is v.nice too, lots of nice features. First impressions, well:

Looks absolutely fantastic, fantastic screen. Seems to be quite powerful, does everything very quickly so far. The tasks so far (purchased yesterday afternoon), have been working with iPhoto, iMovie, Mail, Safari and iTunes. Looking at "Activity Monitor", there is still around 1.5GB of the 4GB of memory free. I also started a few other applications to throw into the mix, Pages and Numbers.

The SSD is fantastic as well. The startup and shutdown times of the laptop is pretty impressive. Shutdown is around one second, while startup is probably less than 30 seconds. Without knowing too much about what is under the covers of Lion, it would seem Lion has something to do with these impressive start and shut times.

Some points about LION:

It seems to be a well balanced operating environment and with the trackpad gestures, the user interface and user interaction is vastly improved. The combination of gestures, launch pad and mission control. These features make the experience of Lion a good one on this laptop. I must admit there were a few times when I was wanting to touch the screen, just as on the iPad.

I must admit I'm still getting used to this interface, but on a 13" laptop, I can imagine the experience will be a good one, unsure if the same experience will be found on a larger screen.