[ Music ]
^M00:00:09
>> I'm Dan Ackerman. We're here in New York Union Square Park and I've got a how-to tip for you. I'm going to show you how to turn a regular Wi-Fi Apple iPad into an iPad 3G. Now, let's say you're one of those people who just had to have an iPad right away. You couldn't wait for the 3G version to come out, so you got the Wi-Fi one. You've been pretty happy with it. But eventually you get those pangs. You want to go out and about and surf the Web from your iPad. You know what, there's a lot of free municipal Wi-Fi out there, especially in parks like this, but you know what, it's not always that easy to find. Sometimes the signals aren't great, sometimes you need a password, and of course, there's a lot of places like the Cellular Wi-Fi access. So there are a couple of ways you can turn your Wi-Fi iPad into a 3G version without slaying the bag open and making sure you have a 3G antenna in there. So the way we're doing it today is through a handy little device called the MiFi. You may have seen these before. You get this from a lot of different wireless carriers. This one is from Novato. And it acts as a mobile access point, much like your Smartphone does when you tether it to your laptop or something like that -- obviously you can't do that with an iPhone -- and connect it to your iPad. Once you set up the MiFi, it creates a Wi-Fi feel. Within about a 30-foot radius you can connect several devices to it. So depending on what carrier you get it from or what data plan you have, the Wi-Fi usually costs about $100 to $150 if you get a subsidized data plan contract, and then your monthly service, about $40 or $60, depending on how much data you use. It's very much like getting a 3G USBp or activating the 3G on your laptop. So you take a Mifi out of the box, you turn it on, and then all you have to do is on your iPad, got to Settings, go to the network part of settings, and then you'll see it listed alongside all the other Wi-Fi hotspots in the area. You connect to, it'll ask you for a password. The password is written right on back of the Mifi unit. You can just start Web surfing right from there, and of course you can connect other devices like a laptop or your iPod Touch or anything else to it at the same time. There are no real settings or anything you need, but if you want to, you can use your Web browser to surf to the IP address for the connection and check out some of the details there. But really, it is set it and forget it. You don't even have to look at it. You can just stick this in your back pocket or your book bag and carry it along with you while using your iPad out there. I'm Dan Ackerman here in New York's lovely Union Square Park, showing you how to turn your Wi-Fi Apple iPad into an iPad 3G, thanks to MiFi.
^M00:02:09
[ Music ]
