Week One point five - Powering the iPad

The battery life on the iPad is pretty reasonable, it usually lasts me all day, sometimes two, depending on how hard I am hammering it.

However, the cable used for powering it is also used for synchronising with the PC. For me, that isn't good, I synch at my desk, and I power it next to the bed. I need two cables. Worse still, being outside the US, I only got the US power connector. Also, because the iPad isn't for sale outside the US, you can't easily get power supplies for it (although I think Belkin does something generic that will do).

These problems were both pretty easy to solve, as luck would have it.

It turns out the power adaptor for the G2 iPod, which I still use, matches the iPad power adaptor, so I could just borrow the iPod one and I was away. The transformer part is not the same, the power requirements are different, but the NZ wall socket part from the old one fits the new one. I managed to get a spare one off a friend who still had his power supply but had a dead G2 iPod. Better still, he gave me the USB cable as well. Now this doesn't work to connect the iPad to the PC to synch, not surprisingly, but it does work for charging. Problem solved. Even better, the length of the cable I now use for charging the iPad is way longer than the one it shipped with so I can use it while it charges.

Now I am a happy camper, I have all the cables I need in all the right places, and I can just plug in the iPad where ever I need to.