Why is the iPad not rated above 10,000 feet in altitude?
Is it because some pressurized part might explode? Because the air is not dense enough to cool it properly? Both, or something else?
Are you planning to climb Denali?
24 replies
Haha, no way. I'm just curious. I'm not John Krakauer.
I don't know where you got this piece of information, but the FAA has approved iPads for pilots to use, thus, there is no 10,000 feet limitation for iPad use. There is a requirement that iPads not be turned on until a plane has reached 10,000 feet, which has been the standard height for all electronic devices used on commercial aircraft. I have certainly used my iPad at 33,000 feet as have many others........
🙂
If I had to guess, it would be heat dissipation. If there were a pressure-limited component then pressure changes would matter a lot more than absolute pressure.
The info is straight from the specs at thre Apple Store.
Planes are pressurized--they don't count.
Quite possibly for the same reason that lots of clothes have a care label that says "Dry Clean Only" when, if you're careful, you can wash them at home. Hard drives can behave badly at higher altitudes due to lower air pressure. iPod Classics and earlier, which had hard drives, could and did stop working at higher altitudes, though not always.
Your iPad is not going to explode. However, apparently, Apple chose not to due testing at higher altitudes and therefore doesn't guaranty that they will work and will not be responsible if it doesn't.
Oh, I thought you were asking about airplane usage. I guess I don't have to worry about taking my iPad above 10,000 feet. This body won't be climbing any mountains in this lifetime.
Constant pressure changes would wear a pressure-sensitive part out quickly, but I'm wondering if there is a static part that, being manufactured at sea level near a Chinese shipping port, might explode in a rarefied-enough depressurized atmosphere.
Give the extremely high number of people who ignore every part of the manual and the complete lack of reports of iPads exploding at high altitudes, I doubt it.
Meg, I'm not paranoid and wondering if my iPad will explode. I'm just curious why there is any sort of declared altitude limit to the iPad. What would happen if I took it on a space walk? What's the particular problem with high altitudes?
Just pure curiosity, purely hypothetical.
But of course obviously on a space walk it would either overheat in ten seconds or freeze in two, so that's kind of a worst-case scenario.
I wasn't suggesting you were being paranoid. I also suspect it would work fine on a space walk but can you imagine how expensive it would be for Apple to test that out? 😉
Very unlikely. I can think of no reason for the iPad to have been designed with a pressure vessel inside (however tiny it might be). Even if there were, the force that any air within it could exert could hardly qualify as an "explosion" if such a vessel were to rupture. No one worries about a can of shave cream exploding. It contains orders of magnitude more volume, not to mention propellant, and they're not limited to 10,000 feet pressure altitude.
You could probably put it in a vacuum and it would be fine.
The limitation must be related to heat dissipation. That also explains why it's an "operating" limitation. Not operating: no heat generated, no heat dissipation required, no limitation specified. Therefore a vacuum is OK.
I came very close to flunking physics. My understanding, such as it is, of the Bernoulli effect vis a vis hard drives is really the outside limit. Heat dissipation in a vacuum sounds like it involves lots of math. And I really did flunk calculus. 😁
Why is the iPad not rated above 10,000 feet in altitude?