Query about Ipad and the internet.

lucylucky

Various providers offer ipad contracts so you can shop around and see what is most suitable

JasX

If you get an ipad you have various options:

For connectivity they all (3G / non 3G) have wireless capability so you can treat them just like a laptop and connect to your home wireless for no additional cost.

The 3G version you can use out and about if you have a suitable mobile phone sim card with data contract -moderately pricey and all tend to be capped these days.

You can still use the non-3G one out and about in wireless 'hotspots'

As for using the 3G one on 'holiday' overseas data roaming fees are still extortionate.... this is where you get the stories of people popping out of the country -watching a few youtube clips or downloading one half hour TV show and having a £4,000 phone bill when they get back.

Extra storage options:

Appear to be a little limited, some people have had some success attaching USB storage using the camera adapter and a hack:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2010/05/10/how-to-connect-and-use-usb-external-hard-drive-on-ipad/

Also reading this article it seeems they've been deliberately limited on the file management to make network attached storage access (eg a networked harddrive on your wireless network) not very useable

http://mashable.com/2010/01/27/ipad-whats-missing/

I guess in typical apple style they have stopped it from being too useful & flexible so you have to pay them £££ for a little extra space on the crummy hard drive they supply with it... mobile OS based on the iphone and itouch so think of it more as a big ipod rather than small macbook/laptop

BikerEd

My (ancient) mother has a wifi-only iPad which she uses for absolutely everything - so much so that she can't remember the last time she used her PC (although I do encourage her to backup the iPad every week or so). She uses is for web, email, grocery shopping, puzzles/games, books (both Kindle and the Apple bookstore), looking at photos. The one thing she really doesn't use it for is music. As she is unlikely to take it out of the house, the 3G version was irrelevant to her.

amcluesent

>He has a vision of connecting wirelessly to speakers around the house<

Yep, so do Apple. It's called 'AirPlay' - http://www.apple.com/itunes/airplay/.

>Is it not possible to just connect wirelessly like a laptop to our home broadband.<

Sure you can, the iPad connect easily to home broadband wi-fi and wi-fo hotspots. I also connect mine via the mobile phone, the phone (hacked iPhone) can create it's own wi-fi hotspot and then use the phone 3G link for t'interweb. No need for two SIM contracts!