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Level 1

133 points

Fast Clock!?

The time setting on my iPad keeps gaining! A while back I noticed that my iPad time was about a minute ahead of my cable box (and other time sources). So I set the iPad. Now in less than a couple of weeks I just noticed that the iPad is over 2 minutes ahead!!! Any idea what's going on? Anybody else notice this? Any thing to do?

Thanks!

Rick

MacBook Pro 2.6Ghz (Penryn) 4GB 17" LED HS HD LCD 7200rpm HD, Mac OS X (10.6.2), iMac 20" 2.4Ghz, iPhone3GS,iPad AppleTV, Video iPod, 1GB Shuffle, Time Capsule

Posted on Jun 14, 2010 9:04 AM

Best reply

lllaass

Level 10

210,423 points

Posted on Jun 14, 2010 12:02 PM

There have been many threads with iPad loosing time but I think yours is the first on gaining time. I myself would not be concerned with two minutes over a couple of weeks.

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21 replies

pvonk

Level 6

13,851 points

Mar 13, 2011 7:43 AM in response to Evangelist

As mentioned above, the wifi only iPad doesn't get it's time from any source, you have to manually set it. I have a 3G and have it set to off for now. I just checked it's time using the Emerald Time app and it was 4 sec fast. I then went to Settings and turned on 3G (I currently don't have a plan) for a few seconds then turned it off. Went back to Emerald Time and found the iPad is now 0.5 sec slow. I periodically do this to reset the time.

gwforeman

Level 2

422 points

Mar 13, 2011 8:03 AM in response to Evangelist

I have a WiFi only iPad 1, and I have never had to set the clock. Maybe it is getting it from my PC when it Sync's, but again, never a change on my part. It also just made the DST jump with no intervention.

Apr 22, 2011 7:09 AM in response to Mike Bass

I had the same problem. iPad clock on auto setting was 10 mins fast. Unfixed mine by by turning on Cellular Data in Settings. By the way, I do not have a 3G

Account for my IPad.

W8wsj

Level 1

4 points

Apr 26, 2011 3:47 AM in response to lllaass

Mine is really fast too. 10 min a month or so. Come on Apple, everything that touches the net has a NTP server setting. Big oversight on your part. Get it fixes for the next release... I expect my next stove to have it...

Kookies

Level 1

0 points

May 10, 2011 12:00 AM in response to Evangelist

In non-automatic mode mine sits at 2 minutes fast. If I enable automatic time setting it immediately jumps to 10 minutes fast!

After a TV show I watched last week I'm guessing the cause is not a dodgy GPS satellite setting. GPS satellites use an atomic clock and the whole system relies on incredibly accurate timings.

I don't believe it can be related to cell towers either. Whilst I do have a 3G iPad, I don't have a cell service, and I leave it in airplane mode 100% of the time to conserve battery life (yes, you can run wireless with airplane mode on). And if it was a cell tower time setting then I'd expect the same problem on my cell phones.

Does that mean it's finding an Internet time service somewhere that's 10 minutes ahead? I'm not so sure now as I just switched off wireless (so I wasn't connected to anything), switched on automatic time, and it still jumps 10 minutes!

Maybe it has a 'secret' connection method that works when everything else is switched off? That could be fun on an airplane! ;o)

Jun 12, 2011 1:23 PM in response to Kookies

I've noticed this fast time thing on my iPad Wifi+3G for months. After reading this thread, I turned Cellular Data to ON and the clock corrected itself in about 10 seconds. Apparently not from GPS, but from cell system. If I'm not paying for 3G this month, can I leave this on? Or, should I leave it off and turn it on now and then?

Fast Clock!?