Apple Need some help/advice

[alucard77]

Hey All,

I have been wanting to get an IPad for a while but couldn't really justify it. At this point I have more and more reasons to finally get one. So I have some questions for everyone:

1- Should I get an IPad1 or IPad 2? I guess the questions below will also factor into this decision.
2- I would like to jailbreak my IPad. Can I jailbreak the IPad2?
3- I would like to play xvids and h264 without encoding. Is this possible with any jailbroken tools? How good is it? Is it full speed? Do these support the new HDMI out?
4- Do all games/apps support the HDMI out?
5- What are the drawbacks to Jailbreaking my IPad, is it just the firmware restriction, or are there others.
6- Not sure anyone would know but does AT&T offer free tethering? I rather get the wifi version and tether it to my BB.

Any other things that I should be aware of would be appreciated.

THanks,

 

[Dialexio]

If you want to jailbreak now, get the first generation iPad. The iPad 2 does not have any jailbreak-related hacks released for it yet. If you want to run App Store apps with the best speed available, get an iPad 2.

iOS natively supports MPEG-4 files with H.264 video. XviD can be played with VLC Media Player, which is available in Cydia. I'm not sure about any App Store apps that can handle it though, but I'm sure there's at least one. VLC works rather smoothly, but I'm not familiar with HDMI output.

As for me, I can't think of a downside to jailbreaking.

AT&T does not offer free tethering. If I'm not mistaken, the data plans are the same for all smartphones now: 250 MB for $15, 2 GB of bandwidth for $25, and 4 GB+tethering is $45.