Today I took delivery of an Otterbox iPad Defender case, and I bought a new iPad (64GB, Wifi + 3G). (But not from Amazon.) I’m busy restoring the backed-up data from my old 32GB iPad onto the new one, and at the same time I’m resetting the old one to virgin status.
All of this is in aid of a cunning plan, with a fiendish side benefit. The main plan is to transform my original iPad into an Augmentative Communications Solution for my lovely grandson Tommy, who has autism and other developmental disabilities. Custom ACS devices cost up to $7K, but a number of parents and teachers are having great success using an iPad application called Proloquo2Go. Of course Tommy can get a little wild, hence the ruggedized case from Otterbox. I’m going to spend the next couple of days setting things up, and then ship the system off to Massachusetts.
The fiendish side benefit involves my trip to England in December on the occasion of my mother’s 95th birthday. I’ll be staying at her house, which has no high-speed Internet access. The idea of spending a whole week “off the net” was too horrible to contemplate. (Don’t bother to try to convince me otherwise!) However it turns out that all 3G-enabled iPads are identical, and all are unlocked. So when I get to the UK, I’m going to buy a pay-as-you-go iPad SIM from Three (or similar), and I’ll be back in business. In fact I may use Skype on my iPad instead of a conventional mobile phone. (Anyone care to comment on how usable this is, and how much of my data plan it will consume?)
More anon….