Ipad sim card and synch question.

lytinwheedlelytinwheedle
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014


Hi,


 


I'm heading to a different country soonish and wanted to get an iPad 3G for navigational duties, etc... I was wondering if I could sync the pad with or without a local sim card in my home country, and then when I'm abroad, buy a pay-as-you-go sim and use that on the iPad during my stay. Will this be possible or will the tablet demand to be synced with my PC at home when I put in a new sim card?



I couldn't find anything similar on google and while searching the forums, so I hope someone has an answer to this. Thanks in advance.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    bendrixdotmebendrixdotme Posts: 5member


    Hello Lytinwheedle


     


    Let me see if I can help you with this. First of all If I am understanding correctly you are trying to find out if the country you will be residing will sell SIM Cards and if they will work on your device. Secondly you want to know if you can sync your iPad with the Apple Store or iCloud?  This is how I am understanding your question, Please let me know if I got it right. I will proceed with the following understanding stated.


     


    My iPhone & iPad experience in other countries thus far


    I am a USA citizen I was able to use my iPhone 2G throughout China using one of their pre-pay SIM cards. My phone was jailbroken so I was able to make calls anywhere in the country. I was able to do the same in Canada too, actually the USA TMobile SIM card worked in Canada it just was expensive but it worked. I currently live in Canada but I purchased my iPad in the USA. I do not have an iPad that takes a SIM card but i would suspect that if you put a pre-pay SIM card in it will work fine. My thought is that buying a Prepay card is pretty common place and you should not have an issue finding one and using the service.


     


    Regarding Pre-Pay Navigational GPS


    I am assuming that you are trying to get the GPS service to work so let me just say that it is very very possible to just download an app and you probably don't even need PrePay... for example I just made a trip to Toronto I downloaded this Toronto App map program... Now on my iPad I DO NOT have wireless service set up with a phone company but somehow and to my HUGE surprise the GPS feature was working and my movements throughout the city were literally working pretty accurately. I wonder if you too may be able to download such an app that will activate the GPS feature on your iPad and allow you to follow your movements in the city... I am assuming this is what you want to do. If not please correct me.


     


    Regarding SYNC


    Sync has absolutely nothing what so ever to do with SIM Cards so do not worry about that. All you need is a 3G or some kind of Data service like WIFI or LTE or WiMax to connect to the internet. As long as you have that you will have absolutely no issue with sync. The one thing that I note is that you want to SYNC with your PC at home... well this is not going to be possible seeing how your computer at home either needs to be with you on hand in a LAN environment or directly plugged up into it  - i mean if you find some diabolical way to keep it always connected on some kind of cool server then yeah you can connect to your computer at home haha. Anyway instead of trying to connect with your computer at home... get into the practice now of either using iCloud sync which in your case since you will be away will be the wisest course of action... Naturally if you are only concerened about syncing at home well why not just wait til you get home thats another option... but seriously if you are gonna be out of your home country anything can happen to your device on the road so the best thing to do is be able to connect remotely as i stated before using iCLoud... OK i hope this helps let me know if you have any questions or thoughts about whats been posted.


     


     

  • Reply 2 of 3
    lytinwheedlelytinwheedle Posts: 2member


    Yeah, I guess I was unclear, I was just wondering if swapping out the sim card meant that the iPad would refuse to work without first syncing/authenticating via itunes on my home PC. I guess that will work fine then. Thanks a lot for your help, and thanks also for the heads-up with that map program, I guess the GPS signal can be sufficient all by itself!

  • Reply 3 of 3
    bendrixdotmebendrixdotme Posts: 5member


    Hey Lytinwheedle I'm glad I could help. I hope you have a great experience in your future visiting country. Surprisingly My brand new iPhone 4s has a SIM card but I have yet to set it up on a service... and surprise surprise it works 1000% perfect in the Google Map App. I have an iPad 2 and it doesn't have the same GPS functionality as my iPhone however something is going on in there cause as I told you it worked in that Mapper App. I suppose if your iPad 3 has a GPS similar to the iPhone 4s then you will not have a single worry, cause again it works damn near perfect.

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