New iPad (3) won't charge while in use

I had a simliar problem yesterday. My battery indicator said 1% but so what since I'm plugged into the wall(no usb port). And guess what happned? The ipad shut down to charge.

I couldn't even use my ipad even when plugged into the wall with a drained battery. WOW!

How did that obvious technical gaff make it onto the market?

My girlfrined just returned my New Ipad the other day because I have discovered that even when the device is plugged into wall and the battery drains down, you still can't use it.

I don't want to hear about weather or not I'm using the charger that came with the new ipad. I AM USING IT.

This is a serious issue that Apple better fix or I'm not spending anymoe money on their stuff.

How stupid can you be to make a device that won't even work ac power while the battery is dead?

And the manager at my local Apple store knew about this issue because she has been fefunding plenty of new ipads because of this tech gaff!

This is going to blow up in Apple face!!!!!!!!!!

This is not a serious issue, or a gaffe. Best practices for rechargeable batteries has ALWAYS been to shut the device down while charging. Read your user manuals -- they almost all direct you to turn the device off to charge. You usually CAN use it while charging, but that's not in any way the same thing as it being a good idea. It generates extra heat and reduces the life of your battery. Increasing the power of the charger will do much the same thing; it may (will?) charge faster, but it will also generate more heat. I believe it will not be a linear relationship, either, if I remember my schooling properly. Apple says if you power down, it will take 4hrs to charge. That's 2 hours of quick-charge to get you to 80%, then another 2 at slow charge to top off. This is to protect the battery chemistry from annoying things like explosions (remember all those stories about lithium batteries setting people's pants and desks on fire?) and maximize its lifespan. Are there ways around this? Of course. Smaller batteries is one way; we could get around all of this very easily if your iPad only ran for an hour per charge. Or go with massive heatsinks, larger, more robust hardware, heavier battery chemistry, and other things the average Apple fan despises with the fires of a thousand burning lithium batteries.

Apple is one of the few companies that doesn't instruct you to power down to charge -- they just tell you it will take longer if you don't. Which is what you all are complaining about. You all are perfectly welcome to continue ignoring good advice and/or the laws of physics and chemistry (I know I always do -- I'd rather replace a battery early than not use it while charging, tyvm), but to complain about the consequences is downright foolish.

Yes they do come with manuals. Just because it's on a disk or online doesn't mean it's not a manual. The battery section for the iPad is located here: http://www.apple.com/batteries/ipad.html

Why do you care what "MOST PEOPLE" turn off while charging? What most people do is irrelevant to the topic at hand. Most people eat junk food, watch reality TV, and vote the party line, but that doesn't make it appropriate or a good idea. Yes, if you'd read my post, you'd have noticed that I said you CAN in fact use most of these devices while they're charging. I also quite clearly pointed out that just because you can doesn't mean you should. There has always been a trade-off and you're finally noticing it now because you've been spoiled rotten in the past. Do you remember the early days of cell phones, back when NiCad was king? 8+ hours to charge, for 2-4hrs of talk time. By the time lithium polymer batteries came along, I could charge my dumb-phones in 1-2 hours for 4+ hrs of talk time. Big advancements in battery tech with big advancements in phone power savings. Now we're in the muscle-car era of phones and especially tablets. The old joke with a blown, big-block Chevy Nova was that you HAD to shut the engine off while refuelling, or you'd never get the tank filled. That's almost true now with the iPad 3.

Everything does not run hot now due to insufficient power. Things run hot now due to insufficient power, OR plenty of power. As I said in my previous post that you apparently didn't read, you need certain things to dissipate heat, things like large heat sinks. You need other things to generate less heat, such as more robust wiring and larger, heavier components.

While you were completely and irrelevantly correct about the way most people use their electronics, you are incorrect when you say other tablets "all charge normally while in use." They do not. They charge acceptably while in use, not normally. Yes, there is a real difference between the two concepts. My Xoom was MUCH slower to charge while streaming HD video than while sleeping, and slower sleeping than while powered down.

You're not complaining that a device no longer works like it used to. You (collectively) are complaining that a new device doesn't work like the old one. You're complaining that a new device with dramatically increased power demands, dramatically increased battery capacity and nearly identical size and weight can't bend the laws of physics and ignore the state of battery technology so that you don't have to turn off Angry Birds while charging. (well, to be fair, you don't -- it'll just take forever to charge)

As I said before, there ARE indeed ways around it. And they ALL involve not being an iPad 3. Pick your options: dimmer screen, lower resolution, larger heat sinks, lead-acid battery, lower CPU power, less RAM, yadda yadda yadda. Apple did what they always do: made the user-friendliest, sveltest, prettiest device they could while balancing power, features, size, weight, and cost. Keeping the size and weight in the same ballpark was obviously a priority. Excellent work on the size, pretty good on weight from v2 to v3. They made some features a priority, notably (the reason I bought one) the "Retina" display. Goodness, that thing's sexy. And power hungry, both figuratively and literally. Up goes the processing power, up goes the RAM, and consequently, up goes the battery size. Other things had to be compromised to get it to fit into nearly the same form factor. Why do you think the back is a big hunk of aluminum? That's the prettiest way they could get a big heat sink on that could handle the thermal load without any internals melting down, and without making the whole thing actually appear (groan) functional.

That's what people love about Apple: aesthetic design (looks, interface, etc.) at the expense of functional design and monetary cost. In my oh-so-humble opinion, they compltely blow that compromise on a pretty regular basis. But then, I'm biased towards power, prefer customizability over ease of use, and actually appreciate the aesthetics that arise from the "form follows function" concept. On the 2nd gen iMacs, the white hemishpere with a monitor sticking out if it, you couldn't actually put a keyboard in front of the thing without blocking the optical drive door. Seems pretty dumb to me, but it's what they had to do to keep that hemisphere to that size. Otherwise it would've had to be on feet, or a hemisphere on top of a small cylinder like a truncated R2D2, or a larger hemisphere. None of these were acceptable to them, apparently, because they went with form over function. Same here, but in this case, I approve. I'm willing to put down my iPad for a while in exchange for a smooth, finless back, and that sexy sexy display. I actually wanted more CPU power and more RAM, but I guess they weren't able to pull it off, either because of heat, space, or cost. In short, I accept the compromises Apple had to make in order to make the iPad 3 a reality. I don't think they did it to spite us. I don't think they did it because they're ****** designers. I've even heard conspiracy theories that they intentionally under-designed it so that they could sell us another incremental upgrade next year with no effort on their part. No, I think they put out the best product they were able to put out, and I like it a lot.

If you don't, they still sell the iPad 2. And the MacBook Air. Ain't life grand?

Wow...you really put some thought into this! Are there any typos? Probably took you over an hour to write up that whole essay/response of yours 😝. I agree with both you and Darryl.

Justinicus - new iPad requires more energy due to upgraded display, upgraded ram, and upgraded processor so of course it would take longer to charge it, duh common sense right? However, I don't think I've ever seen any electronic device while plugged in, charging, and in use actually does the opposite and discharges like with the new iPad under intense gaming (Infinty Blade II). Also the manual is not prepacked or preinstalled with a new purchase of an iPad and you mentioned in a previous post as if people can just read the manual that is clearly not there upon purchase until you search from Apple's website than you are able to find the manual.

Darryl - your concern about issues with the new iPad charging is definitely valid and Justinicus is just being an *** and projecting his opinions so aggressively as if he's the only one right, although his explanations are very true and any smart person should understand that there will be drawbacks if you packed a whole bunch of power in a small little tablet such as the new power hungry iPad.

Justinicus and Darryl, you guys are both right! To each his/her own.

Same thing is happening to me. I've tried the charger that came with my iPad 3, my old first gen iPad charger and my wife's iPad 2. They all won't increase the battery charge while I use it normally. I'm pretty disappointed. It's only two weeks old too.

Having to dumb it down by shutting down apps, dulling the screen and turning off other key features defeats the purpose really. I think I might take it back it's that useless to me.

Hmm, my iPad [3] does charge when I am playing games or using some apps on it, once though I yanked the charger plug half way out of the iPad so that it was 45 degrees to the iPad, only half of it was in slanted, naturally it didn't charge that time (and I was lucky there wasn't any sort of sparks), otherwise it always seem to charge when I am playing a game or using it while plugged in, although much slower than when not in use.

However I won't be surprised if a game or an app took so much processing power that the iPad is draining as fast as it is charging, but that is different from not charging as the battery icon would indicate if it is receiving power.

Also, this is the dumb, but there was this once where I forgot to turn the on power switch on the wall socket.

Perhaps you could contact Apple via http://www.apple.com/support/, if an Apple store is too far away. Go to the Contact Us section, but be forewarned that its not so simple as just writing them an email on a web form. Anyway, good luck.

So, I took my iPad into the apple store and was told they were aware of the problem. They said they had a couple of iPads already returned for the same reason. So they gave me a replacement iPad and guess what..... It does the same thing.

So it looks like apple has gone to market prematurely. Their new product specs aren't capable of being sustained by their battery.

A bit poor really.

I'm not sure what to do now. Do I take it back?, do I get an iPad two?, do I just use my first gen iPad until they resolve the problem?

Disappointing.

I'm having the same problems as you guys are. If I'm working on the ipad it drains even while plugged in. This did not happen with iPad 1st gen. It seems like I'm always charging this thing and my first gen I could go days between a charge, My new one I'm charging through out the day. Sure I know its has more requirements to run, but apple made it sound like it has the same battery life -- it does not.

It also gets very hot. This concerns me since Apple cut off AppleCare at 30 days instead of 1 year like a lot of their products. Heat is bad on on electronics.

For you that exchanged it did your one year warranty start over after you registered and were you outside of the 14 day (or is it 21 day) refund policy?

Lastly, I don't get why some says the iPad 3 does charge while using it and for others it does not. Most reports says it doesn't. Do we all have defective units and only a handful don't?

I'm debating if I should run it 40 miles to the Genius bar to try again.

Nope, I agree, it never happened on the first generation iPad as I just stopped using mine to take up my third gen.

Apple did make it sound like the battery life in the iPad 3 was the same as the iPad 2, which blatantly isn't true at all.

Mine gets quite warm too.

I returned my iPad and it was replaced two weeks outside of my 14 day return period.

When I received my replacement iPad, I was asked to sign a document that said I fully understood that my warranty did not start over.

I'm debating if I should demand my money back and blow the dust off my first generation until they get around to releasing an iPad 3 that works properly.

So, I'm getting the same issue with my new replacement iPad. Seems to be a problem with all of them from the look of it.

I'm pretty ****** off right now.

Is it a pain? Yes. However....I Remember last summer when I was out by the pool here in Texas. It was hotter than...well, you know. My sweet little iPhone popped up with a warning that said it would shut down because it got too hot. I was shocked that it had the ability to detect outside heat. it was my precious phone saying, that's it! I've had enough! Take me inside to the sweet air conditioner!

Could it just be that you all are so ticked off b/c you expect that "all things will come to those who...stomp their feet". I was irritated about the same problem. And I'm extremely grateful for the guy who took the time to write the details about which things I did not understand. It makes perfect sense! And for those of you who still demand that physics, law of nature, laws of the universe and the like should change to fit your impatient emotionally stunted egos....well you better hang on tight because it's going to be a very long and strenuous life. You'll be facing many opportunities for grief. Again, thank you to the person who posted the answer to the question we came here asking IN THe FIRST place. My IPad is saying, "I need some rest...I'll plug in, you go unplug". Good advice.

-all things as they should be.