Setting your iPad to the correct time may be harder than you think
Setting a computer to the correct time should be the simplest of tasks. It can easily be done by hitting a time server on the internet. Your home computers do it. Your iPhone gets the current local time from AT&T here in the states. It's a built-in feature of just about every computer OS.
For iPad users, it's a different story. I noticed it the other day with my 3G iPad, when I saw that the tablet was six minutes ahead of my iPhone and MacBook Pro. I checked my desktop, and it was ahead of that too. It was equally ahead of my wall mounted Atomic Clock that gets the time from the National Bureau of Standards. My iPhone, the government clocks, and my desktop and laptops all matched. The iPad was clearly out of sync. I restarted the iPad but that didn't solve it. So I explored the iPad preferences, dutifully went to Date and Time, and guess what? There is no 'set automatically' option. There is one on the 3G iPad, but hitting a time server when connected to Wi-Fi is not exactly rocket science, so why isn't it an option on the Wi-Fi iPad? All you get is the manual setting option. Not exactly high tech.
Turns out there are quite a few threads on this problem at the Apple support boards. Even some people with 3G iPads are getting wacky times, often off by hours, not minutes. Some are reporting that the iPad resets its time to match your computer when you do a sync, but I did that a couple of days ago and my time is still off several minutes.
Some people who visited the Genius Bar were told it's a known problem, but it's hard to be sure if the 3G issues and the Wi-Fi issues are at all related. It may not seem like a big deal, but if you are using your iPad as an alarm, you could ruin your whole day with a missed meeting or call.
How are you doing with the iPad as a clock? If you have experiences, good or bad, let us know.
