Posted on 09/27/2010 5:04:11 PM PDT by ctdonath2
The iPad that just flew off the top of my minivan going 70 MPH then landing on Interstate 75's asphalt was as good as new.
(Excerpt) Read more at comicsansrelief.com ...
Yes, the plural of anecdote is not data, and of course the device can crack, but the iPad is nonetheless well made and tough.
Heh!
Legal disclaimer: This unit is not intended to fly through the air at any speed over 16.8 MPH. Nor is it intended to land on anything harder that stale biscuits. However, if in the event said unit survives any event of greater proportion that the above statements, count yourself lucky :>)
The scariest part was running back to to the rack before some trucker nailed it (it was sitting in the middle of the lane). God Bless you, Ontario truckers . . . there are at least three of you who I owe a beer.
Little black balls with holes all over the freeway...
I had the back window of a Ford Taurus blow out going down the highway at 70. It was a really hot day, the AC wasn't working, and I had all the windows rolled down. Suddently it got very quiet in the car, and I look in the side mirror and saw that window about 20 ft. in the air, turning end over end. There was also a blanket on the package shelf that went out with it. I went back for the blanket, and found the glass laying in the median, without a crack in it. I put it in the back seat and drove on to the next town big enough to have a glass shop, and had it put back in.
Get the ipad! Tougher tham a Toughbook.
Anyway, he puts down his iPad, goes out, chats a few, adds on to his services (gotta get a new air filter) and comes back in, jabbering away on his iPhone and sits right down on his iPad, cracking the screen in two places.
If I ever see him again, I'll suggest he store it atop his car instead of on the hard plastic seat in a repair waiting area.
Pretty expensive trip for them, that's for certain.
Well....more mushy.
I looked out my left window to see my beauty ring doing 65 in the lane next to me. Obviously, I had a flat
There was a lot of traffic and it took me a half-mile or so to get to the shoulder. I stopped. Turned off the engine. Looked out the window before opening the door and my beauty ring had followed me.
It passed me on the left doing 3 or 4 MPH, pulled in front of my car, spun down and stopped about 15 feet directly off my hood ornament.
I just sat there for about 20 seconds, trying to figure out how the hell that happened.
My wife might use one if I buy the wireless gear it would take to make it work at my house, but it won't run what I need right now.
During the ‘80’s, I worked for a microwave electronics firm that did most of its work as a defense subcontractor. We were building a frequency translator that was a key component for the ECM system of the B1-B. One of the environmental tests required for each unit was a constant acceleration test. Being a small firm, we decided to build a rig so we could do the test ourselves and save money. We put an armature kind of like an airplane propeller on a large electric motor. Not unmindful of the fact that the device would be spinning at 700 mph, we enclosed the rig with a box built out of 1” particle board. Well, the guy who designed it was an electrical engineer, not a mechanical engineer, and he underestimated the sheer stresses on the screws that would be holding the units on the ends of the nearly three foot “propeller blade”. Sure enough, the screws gave. The unit shot off, blasting a hole in the 1” particle board and slamming into a concrete wall at what must have still been several hundred miles an hour. Luckily, no one was in the way. Out of curiosity, we hooked the unit up. It still met specs.
The redesigned constant acceleration test rig was massively over-engineered to insure against a repeat performance.
There was a Nascar race a few years ago where Kurt Busch had a left side wheel crack through the lug nuts. As he pulled off the track toward the pits it came completely loose and started off down the front straight. He got to his pit box, and they change the tire and got him back out. When he got to the end of pit road to get back onto the track his broken wheel and tire arrived just in time to meet him.
I’m pretty impressed with the (hardware) quality of the iPad as well. I agree 100% ... it’s a nice, rugged device. I recently got one from work ... and I am one of those people that never have anything nice to say about Apple :-).
Now don’t get me started on how inferior its OS is to other netbooks ;-). Also, I had forgotten how much I hated iTunes. I know, it runs better on a Mac, but I loathe overpaying for my hardware as well as using inferior operating systems ;-).
I still can’t believe I am actually enjoying an Apple product though. I wanted an iPad for two things ... the ability to take notes by hand (somewhat fails in this department as it wasn’t made for handwriting, but the two apps I found for a whole $7 total work fairly well with a stylus) as well as have basic computing functions that you might find on a netbook.
Is it worth $750 (I got the 32GB model with 3G capabilities) ... based on the quality of the hardware, hell yeah! This thing was made for travel and abuse. It definitely one of the nicest toys I’ve used :-).
Still, I think there are going to be several alternatives in the near future that’ll allow me to give this thing to one of the more brainwashed Apple fanboys I work with. I’m looking for more of a laptop replacement in an iPad form factor with better handwriting capabilities.
If only this thing had an x86 processor :-). Yeah, I know, the battery life wouldn’t be as long, but it’d also replace a laptop I’d have to lug around when traveling.
This iPad was not so lucky...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2reUy9YHseg
Ow, that had to hurt... in his wallet. It's cured with a surgical procedure called a creditectomy...
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