Been watching the build-up and hype for weeks. At the announcement, to my (and a lot of folks) surprise, there was no pre-orders. This is unlike the release last year of the first gen iPad.

But, unlike last year, the actual release was only a week away, as opposed to the 30-days. That seemed to increase the hype in the compressed time from announce to release.

At midnight on the 11th, I was online and had a white 64GB 3G (GSM) in my cart. But the 3-5 business day delivery didn’t sit well. After pondering for a while, I decided to take my chance locally at Best Buy at 17:00 on Friday.

I went to the Dimond Center on Friday. Taking a few breaks, I wandered by BB and AT&T a few times. Found out AT&T had a “very limited supply” and BB will hand out tickets in the line.

Finally went back down about 4:00. Talked to Ben who gave me the skinny. Get in line, get a voucher, and at 5:00 they will let people in. The line was just around the corner outside, BUT, I didn’t have my jacket!

So I ran to the office and retrieved that, and in the short time to get back to “the line” I was WAY back. Ben had said they had about 100 left of different models, but I didn’t push for specifics. I tried to do a quick count of the line from where I was, WAY back. I was probably within the 100, but would they have the one I wanted.

They came through the waiting crowd and made an announcement. They would start passing out vouchers, and go back the line at 4:30. They would start selling at 5:00.

By the time they got somewhere close to where I could see, they made another announcement and said they would be moving the line forward as folks were going to be entering the store. The vouchers would resume at the door.

I was about 10-20 back at that point. It was right at 5:00.

Got to within about 5-7 from the head of the line and they made another announcement. There are no more 32 or 64GB iPads, in either white or black. They had 16GB 3G and some wi-fi versions still available. Skunked!!!

So I broke out of line and hurried to AT&T. Was only a small line. I was talking to a guy in front of me who had also been to BB. He was still trying to decide which model he wanted. I mentioned my experience using the 64GB and it sounded like a 32 would probably suit him just fine. About that time, 5:07PM, they made the announcement that there were no more iPads, but that they could order for you. Dammit, denied again!

I went back upstairs to the office. My MBP was still plugged in. A quick link to the Apple store still showed two to three weeks delivery. I went ahead and picked the white, 64GB 3G (AT&T) model, and the accessories. Got confirmation yesterday that the AppleCare “shipped” and next saw that the cover had also shipped. Should arrive Monday or Tuesday…

I just hope the supply chain in China is cranking them out (as I know they are) and the iPad will only be a couple of weeks behind.

In the end, that 3-5 business days doesn’t look so bad now… In this case, I gambled and lost.

– Posted from my iPad…

So, after all this time, I find that I don’t use 3G. I didn’t even “subscribe” this last month, and barely used tens of megabytes out of the 2GB I receive for $25USD from AT&T.

I thought that 2GB would be nowhere near enough. I have found, and again verified this month (via the data use on the iPhone 4), that it is probably enough (in most cases.) I used somewhere around 1GB on the iPhone, to date, for November.

So, does that hold true for the iPad. I reason that you could (if that was the only device for surfing, etc.) certainly use more than 2GB. I will do a test, starting at the first of the month, to see the “realistic” data use I could expect. I’ll activate 3G again, and take it from there…

Of course, your mileage may vary… But I will check back at the end of December to see where I end up.

– Posted from my iPad…

Location:Anchorage, Alaska

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.