Originally Posted by Franglais: “As the one that came with my iPad was so short I've ordered a longer one online. The description says it's for iPhone or iPod (iPad Sync only)
Anybody know what "iPad sync only" means?”
All you need is a normal USB extension lead which Tesco probably sell for about £2
I use one I had lying around the house and it works fine plugged into the charger and then the iPad cable plugged into the other end.
A USB 2 cable extender will work as mentioned above, but the ipad requires more power to charge than an ipod and iphone, hence its different power adapter, as apple states;
Note: Some USB 2.0 ports and accessories do not provide enough power to charge iPad. When this occurs the message "Not Charging" appears in the status bar next to the battery icon.
I bought a long lead for charging (so I can sit and use the Ipad while it is plugged in) from the Apple store along with the Ipad.
Sync only means that you can not charge with it, just connect it to the PC for putting stuff on that you have in Itunes, and of course also backing up from the Ipad to the PC (otr Imac if that's what they call it)..
One thing I have noticed with my iPad 1 is that different extension leads can have different results.
I tried a thin lead which would not charge the iPad at all. Then a thicker lead that was of similar length and it worked perfectly. As said above the iPad uses quite a bit of juice to charge up and so the voltage drop on a thin lead could just be enough to make it not work. Though have to say the thin lead was one of the thinnest USB leads I've seen, so perhaps I shouldn't have been too surprised it didn't work too well.
The iPad can draw twice the current of a standard USB device (2A instead of 1A) and cables are only designed to handle 1A. You could be lucky and come across a cable that supports 2A but I have tried a few with no great results.
My advice is buy a extension lead, they're cheap and guarenteed to still give you 2A charging.
