In a fit of desperation, I’ve come to realize just how useful iPads are as networked devices, and just how useLESS they are without networks. I’ve made an appointment with the local Apple Store’s Genius Bar to conclusively resolve my dilemma, but it does make you think.
It all started last night after I left the office and got the MacBook Pro setup for software coding and thought I’d watch a little Mission:Impossible (TV series) on NetFlix and while all that was getting powered up and located and starting up, I thought I’d check up on my village in Clash of Clans. Well, no network connected.
Settings shows it can find the network, but no useful IP packets are received. Tried it on the iPhone as HotSpot despite the WiFi working great on the AppleTV (aka PeterTV), the MacBook Pro and the iPhone. 🙁
Reset network settings: still no difference. At this point, I backed up the iPad to my Mac Book Pro (since the iCloud was not available through the non-working WiFi) and did a software restore. Still no useful packets. Safari won’t connect at all (and didn’t since Friday afternoon). Now, I’m doing a DFU restore, which wipes out ALL the software in the device and reloads it from iTunes.
At breakfast this am, all I as able to do with the iPad was play Solitaire. sigh. The restaurant was too dark to do Clash on the iPhone (my eyesight on little displays is pretty dismal and I try to avoid doing so, often). All my favorite things to do, read the Wall Street Journal app, browse, email, supervise Clash of Clans for example, require that ‘previously taken for granted’ WiFi connection. How the Internet has changed our lives.
And, along that vein of thinking, yesterday, I spent my breakfast time reading a letter to Jeff Bezos by some journalist who left the Washington Post to write for a digital property. He spoke about how he saw the Internet creatively destroying the newspaper business and wanted to get out before the end, which he did. I suppose the fact that I don’t subscribe to any newspaper now (the Economist and the Wall Street Journal both have digital implementations that are downloaded directly to my iPad (when it’s working)) is mere evidence of that fact. As I recall, I never read my local paper for the local sales advertisements or very rarely for the classifieds – it’s two largest revenue sources. I suppose that speaks to where all the customers went. They followed the news sources and the local paper couldn’t keep up with that. Sigh.
Change is real life, not a sad thing. Get on with making the best of it!
