IPad MiFi Conversion | Hacker News Reader

IPad MiFi Conversion

dishtvhdstore.com

108 pointshanskuder16 comments

Wow that's an impressive hack.

Here's hoping this starts a vibrant community of HackenPad enthusiasts. Void your warranty, lose a bit of bass from your sound, and you've got Verizon for your iPad!

But, but, but --

Why not simply use the iPad's wifi via the MiFi as a hotspot?

(Yes, I get it; pure hack value. But honestly, other than the hack value, why chop up a piece of kit like the MiFi and void the warranty on the iPad in order to do ... less?)

It takes up less space, and you have to carry around only one object instead of two.

Velcro the mifi to the back of the iPad when you're carrying it, and "deploy it" when you need it.

It's also reasonably sized and doesn't look like a makeshift solution that someone put together in 30 seconds.

I never claimed that his version wasn't better, but the parent stated that "It takes up less space, and you have to carry around only one object instead of two."

My point was that you didn't necessarily have to carry around 2 things.

YOu also get the better battery life.

He didnt comment on how much iPad battery was stripped down by MiFi.

And I would be a bit worried bypassing the battery-management hardware on the iPad like that.

You really don't want to take LiPolys all the way to 0V. Nor, ideally, do you want to go around the amp-hour counter that lets the charger know the SOC of the battery.

It would be pretty slick if someone built CDMA 3G (EVDO? Is that what it's called?) or WiMax board that just plugged into the jack on the iPad's motherboard.

But I wouldn't be at all surprised if that somebody turned out to be Apple in a year or two.

I'm glad we have a decent 3G network here in Australia with Telstra - i roughly get speeds of 3-4Mbps on their 3G network. It's great!

Shame that it is so ridiculously expensive, dur to Telstra not having to compete properly with other carriers. Tesltra should really have been broken up, into reatil and infrastructure, it is a big joke that it hasn't been, and all of Australia is the worse of, due to that fact.

I look forward to the iphone hack to make it work with verizon

can't wait to see the clear/wimax version ...

This is an incredible hack, kudos!

And for the Apple fans who might consider this a dangerous act of hardware sacrilege, I hear ya! But please consider this as not so much of a practical hack, but rather as a protest hack against the stupid, continued exclusive hardware lock-in to the low quality, over priced phone service of the Death Star Orifice—AT&T.

Everyone knows AT&T simply can't provide the same high level of innovation, service and quality as Apple. It has ceased making sense for AT&T to get exclusive bottom line say-so on what Apple can and can't do with the mobile platform. Apple needs to embrace polygamy because AT&T represents the antithesis of Apple's core mission: beautiful software.

All AT&T can do is fuck up software. (Bell Labs doesn't count.) And it's usually done by imposing stupid, consumer-unfriendly restrictions on the hardware so they can stick to their old telco monopolist business model of nickel and diming all of their customers.

Apple needed AT&T to get a toe in the door to the telco's monopoly. But now that iPads and iPhone are spreading all over the place like a blown out BP oil well, and the entire mobile industry is playing catch up to reach or emulate Apple's tight UI & design in software, it's time for Apple to throw AT&T to the Feds over something. (As much as I despise AT&T, I recognize they are so entrenched that the only way to change them will be another Federal breakup of their monopoly).

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