MacMAD Blog

The public WiFi at the Brevard County Library system works a lot like the system at some hotels. There is no password or access controls to access the WiFi network itself, but you do need to authenticate to access the internet.

Now at the library, “authentication” means you enter your library card #, or just click the guest button.

You get a popup window that says something like “Don’t close this window. You can minimize it, but don’t close it.” As long as that window stays active, you can browse the internet in another window or in other applications.

The iPad totally fails at this. Why? Because it Does Not Have Multitasking! Safari only has one active window at a time. If you open another Safari window, or switch to another app, your internet connection is dropped.

The iPad is totally unable to use the free public WiFi in this environment. By contrast, I was able to use the internet via the library’s WiFi on my Andorid phone. Why did this work better? Because it has multitasking.

This is the poster child for Why You Need Multitasking.

Update 28 August 2011: Although the iPad now nominally has multitasking, the weak sort of multitasking offered didn’t solve this problem. Fortunately, as of this month, the Brevard Library System has gone to a new WiFi system which does work on the iPad.