Greg Wiegand

I realize as an early adopter of new gadgets there are going to be problems. However, storing and retrieving a saved password for wireless access points in a keychain seems like not only a simple task, but also a critical one! I hope I never see this this error pop-up again:

I’ve searched the Web for solutions and have yet to find one I that works or I would consider implementing.  Apple continues to push the error back to incorrect Wi-Fi encryption settings or access point/router settings such as the following:

• On dual channel wireless routers, rename each channel with a unique SSID so the iPad doesn’t get confused.
• Change your encryption type (i.e. from WPA to WEP) or turn off encryption altogether to see if encryption is causing the problem. (How long are you willing to run your network unsecured to test this situation? For me, never).
• Turn off the “N” protocol in your router and just run B/G.
• Increase your wireless router signal strength

Personally, I’m running a single channel 2Wire DSL/wireless-G access point and have wireless devices running iPhone OS 3.1, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Windows XP, Windows 7 Ubuntu, and even a Wii gaming console. Never have had any issues with any of these devices with signal strength, encryption, or forgotten passwords. Moreover, when I am connected to my network with my iPad, I get strong signal strength all over my house and good data throughput. Netflix never looked so good!

I’ve seen recommendations from 3rd party sources that suggest:

• Changing to64-bit WEP encryption from 128-bit.
• Doing a system restore and set reinstall everything again. This means you have to restore a factory setting then copy apps, media, photos, data, etc and configure from scratch your email, and other synced settings like bookmarks. Apparently, restoring from backup won’t fix it. Reason given to this solution is that the password is somehow stored in multiple places and you must clean out all to ensure everything is saved with the correct password.

No thanks!

There even has been a documented solution that calls for increasing the iPad’s screen brightness. How that relates I have no idea!

Don’t get me wrong, I still love the device, I expect a few glitches on a first gen device, and I believe Apple will figure this out at some point. Until then, I think I’ll write a quick iPad app called “Elephant Password” that remembers my wireless network passwords for me. I only hope it has a short life span.