Traveling With Your iPad
Intended Audience
WSU faculty, staff, and students taking their iPads on the road with them.
Power to the iPad
The power blocks (like the one at right) that come with the iPads accept both 120-volt input (like what we have here in the United States) and 240-volt input (like many of the other countries in the world). No voltage change is required to use the charger as long as you go to a country or region that uses 120-volt or 240-volt electricity.
Having said that, many foreign countries have different electric-outlet configurations than we do here in the United States. To plug your charger into the wall, you will need an adapter that fits the outlet configuration for the country you are visiting. Adapter kits are available for this purpose, including this one sold on the Apple web site.
"I can't get my iPad to connect to the hotel Wi-Fi. What do I do?"
iPads, like all mobile devices, are designed to travel. However, there will be times that your iPad may not recognize or successfully connect to the WiFi in the airport, a coffee shop, or your hotel room.
There can be many reasons why your tablet does not hook up to the network. For that reason, there is not one single, fail-safe procedure for overcoming the problem.
If you have problems connecting to the local Wi-Fi, here are some things you can try:
- Select a new network -- iPads may not automatically connect to new networks. Go to Settings > Wi-Fi and click on the network you want to use. Enter any credentials needed to complete the network login.
- Manually disconnect from your last network -- Go to Settings > Wi-Fi and click on the network with the checkmark before its name. You will be presented with a new screen. At the top of the screen is a button labeled "Forget this Network". Tap it, tap "Forget" in the pop-up, and tap the back button in the top left of this screen. Select the network you wish to join and supply any necessary credentials in the pop-up.
- Reinitialize your WiFi connection -- Go to Settings > Wi-Fi and click on the toggle after the Wi-Fi at the top of the screen. This will halt your Wi-Fi radio and disconnect all networks. Tap the toggle again to restart the WiFi radio, select the network you wish to use, and enter any required credentials to complete login.
- Allow Safari pop-ups -- Many times, network login dialogs are pop-up windows and Safari blocks pop-ups by default. Go to Settings > Safari and turn off Block Pop-ups by clearing the toggle after it.
- Close all running applications -- Applications running on iPads do not really close when you no longer see them on the display, they remain in memory waiting to be re-summoned to the forefront. Some of these applications will be using the Internet to get ads or to access data even when they are not visible. If these applications are quick enough, they may try to access the last network during wake up from sleep before iOS can establish the new network. Close the apps resident in memory by double-clicking the Home Button and doing one of the following:
- For iOS 7 and later, flick the screen thumbnails toward the top of the iPad. Click the Home Button to return to normal mode.
- For iOS 6 and earlier, hold your finger down on one of the icons until it shakes. Once shaking begins, tap each X until all all applications are closed. Click the Home Button to return to normal mode.
- Clear AutoFill in Safari -- AutoFill attempts to complete fields in the browser before you type the entire entry. It can also cause Safari to try to connect to the last network you were using. Go to Settings > Safari > Passwords & AutoFill and clear all of the toggles in the General section of the screen.
- Install a second browser -- Under certain circumstances, Safari will try to start a connection, fail, and then not allow you to use Safari and update anything because you have no Internet connection. There are other browsers available for the iPad, like Atomic and Dolphin, that you can use to get around this problem. The bad news is that you need to install them BEFORE you have this problem because the App Store will not work without Internet.
- Call the front desk -- This may sound like a cop out, but sometimes it is something wrong with the network you are trying to access. Contacting a person responsible for the network may get the problem solved "on their end" or may explain why you should stop trying.
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