Monthly Archives: April 2014

Mon, April 14th, 2014 by Graves and Allen

iPads and Labradors

OK, it has been a while since I had time to post, but I am going to start again, now that my books are published.  This post should interest a number of vendors.  My wife left her iPad out where our young (7 month old) Labrador Retriever, Buck could get his mouth on it.  Buck has already established that, like his guardians, he prefers Apple products (he has been trying for an iPhone for the last month).  Anyway, for those of you not aware of this, Labs are wonderful dogs, but unstoppable (and quite strong) chewers. The Lab chewed through the case and the iPad, resulting in the interesting side note for my wife, a retired school teacher:  She can tell people that the dog ate her iPad.   My wife’s misadventure resulted in several conclusions.

1.  Targus cases are pretty decent, and, as a general rule, fairly protective of iPads;  but they cannot withstand the onslaught of a young Lab exercising his chewing instinct.

2.  Gorilla glass may be tough and damage resistant, but, it cannot withstand the onslaught of a young Lab exercising his chewing instinct.  He shattered the gorilla glass in the lower right corner and it sent spiderweb cracks through the rest of the device.

3. I have liked the  Zagg Invisible Shield and recommended it for some time.  I put one of them on the iPad before giving it to my wife.  Although the shield could not protect the iPad from the Lab’s jaws, it did accomplish two very important things.  First, it held all the gorilla glass shards in place so that the dog’s mouth did not get cut and neither did my wife’s hands when she picked up the iPad to assess its condition.  Second, it held everything in place, allowing the iPad to continue to work over the weekend, until my wife could get to the local Apple Store and talk to the Genius people. Interestingly, while the cracks in the gorilla glass allowed air to get in and cause some bubbling o the Invisible Shield, I did not detect any teeth marks on it when I examined it.  I didn’t see Buck attacking the iPad, so I don’t know if that results from something intrinsic to the Shield or from the fact that the iPad cover was closed and he put enough pressure on the outside cover to shatter the gorilla glass display.

4.  While I do not normally think that the extra warranty protection that computer and other electronics manufacturers offer are particularly good investments,  I have made it a practice to recognize that highly mobile devices like iPads and iPhones are more likely to suffer damage than other devices.  As a result, I have purchased the extra protection from Apple for my iPads and iPhones.  My wife took the iPad to the local Apple Store this morning and came back an hour later with a new iPad.  They charged her $49 for the exchange.  All in all, I think that is a pretty fair deal.  Kudos to Apple customer service.  They got that one right!