UNIVERSITIES IN THE US are having to ban Steve Jobs'
oversized IPod Touch due to problems with their wireless networks.
According to the Wall
Street Journal, the Ipad has been rejected from the networks of two
schools - Princeton University and George Washington University - due to
"network stability issues", while Cornell University has been seeing
connectivity problems and bandwidth overload.
The Ipad cannot connect to George Washington University's network at
all, as its wireless network's security features won't allow it, while
Princeton has had to block 20 per cent of the devices because they were
causing problems with the school's entire network.
Cornell IT director Steve Schuster said he was working so that Ipad
networking and connectivity issues didn't cause "devastating
consequences to our network".
Apple claimed it wasn't familiar with the problems, even though
Princeton has reported its issues to the company.
Although this isn't a problem with the device as such, connectivity
problems like these need to be ironed out before educational
institutions are going to take to it as Apple hopes.
This might be why the international launch has been delayed, because
these reports obviously need to be investigated. However it was pretty
predictable, as problems always seem to crop up with Apple
first-generation devices. Thus it may be sensible to wait.
It has also been suggested that cost issues and the lack of
educational content are also holding back Ipad uptake so far in
educational institutions.
The Ipad has already run into problems in Israel, with customs
officials there confiscating the devices due to its WiFi allegedly being
either more or less powerful than Israeli WiFi networks.