I let my GF borrow my iPad when she took a trip to visit family in California and Washington. After seeing mine when we met for breakfast one morning, she was really enamored. I knew she really wanted one, but was hoping I could hold out until Christmas. Anyway, that wasn’t to be.

We looked for the longest time, and here in Anchorage they were sold out everywhere. They were still on backorder at Apple online, too, with a 7-10 day wait.

In the meantime, I told her she should wait and not run out and buy one. I would be more than willing to let her borrow mine when she went on her trip.

So we loaded the 64 GB WiFi version up with all sorts of movies. Far more than you could ever watch on the airplane or during the vacation in general. I’ll bet there were 30 movies, and a ton of music videos. Plus the general apps and other “stuff”.

Off she went… That was more than a month ago. Still no iPad. She said, “hey, I need to bring back your iPad.” No problem, just keep it; I wasn’t using it. )

So with my upcoming trip, I really wanted to travel with the iPad. However, the difference here — it sure would be nice to have the 3G version. When she came by the other day, all forlorn, ‘uh, I brought back your iPad, but really thought you would just buy a new one’; well that was all it took. An early Christmas present, almost new!

And for me, well, Best Buy had the 64 GB + 3G in stock! So we all come out a winner.

Just for fun, I am typing this on my “new” iPad, with the BT keyboard I never used. Everything works out…

– Posted from my iPad…

I waited a couple of days, but then couldn’t resist the upgrade. The thought of waiting till I got home was painful. But, the idea of bricking my phone while I was away or having other problems made me wait… but only a couple of days.

The upgrade itself went smooth, as it should. But I did run in to problems associated with the jailbreak. Finally after the umpteenth time I had a stable phone. That was back in June, and been using it daily without a hitch.

Other than copy-and-paste and MMS, and a few new features, I didn’t really explore many of the new enhancements. But one thing that peaked my curiosity was tethering. I’ve done that with the Blackberries and several other phones. It has always worked fine, and serves in a pinch when no other connectivity is available.

iPhone 3.0 advertised tethering as one of the enhancements. I searched Google to find out how to configure and saw many blogs and posts, either folks saying it works great, or not at all. But when I looked at my unlocked 3G from HK, I didn’t have the tethering option. I even went to the “3″ site in Hong Kong to see if they had instructions. As a matter of fact they did, but there was a screen option under network settings that didn’t appear on my phone.

I searched high and low, and finally found a way to enable it! It was almost painless, too. Go to help.benm.at on with Safari on your iPhone. You can run the Mobileconfig Generator and as long as you know the APN settings, etc., you will be tethering in no time.

I set it up, but then never used it after that time. So I decided (since I had trouble on the Slope this past week) to give it a work out. This entry is being written while the iPhone is tethered via USB. While Bluetooth tethering is also an option, to me it really doesn’t make sense. While USB involves the cable, it serves to keep the phone charged as well.

After the past half hour or so, it’s working fine. Throughput is similar to (with the upload twice as fast compared to the iPhone itself) and the phone has not gotten warm. (BTW, this is great for EDGE; we don’t have 3G service here…

I’ve noticed email is still received, but voice calls get directed straight to voicemail. I only know this because Laura called me on my other cell phone and said she just tried to call the iPhone, but the call went to VM.

All in all, worth using if there is no other connectivity. I should qualify that; at least here in Alaska, with GCI service. A side note, I “roamed” on AT&T while on the Slope. GCI hasn’t turned up their cell service in Deadhorse yet. When I attempted to tether, AT&T sensed that and actually deleted the tethering option on my phone. I had to download and re-enable the profile. Once I did that, I tried to tether again. This time, I got a message that said I must contact my provider to enable this service. At least AT&T didn’t blow it away the second time.

There is now a (beta) version of my iRealSMS app. Now, today, SwirlySpace released v.2.1 of SwirlyMMS. I paid for the upgrade, and after several hours received my license code. Why would I buy (for $6USD) an app to do MMS when it’s already built in? Well, the Apple Messaging app works quite well, but is limited in functionality. The Swirly app will all attaching not only photos but also notes, audio, etc. Apple just isn’t quite there yet…

Continuing to get everything set up again, after restoring as a new phone. But that minor inconvenience has resulted in a stable, and really cool, phone!