Why are videos so slow to download from iTunes?

Factual Questions
1

I’m ill, and will be stuck in bed for a week. I was hoping to rely on my iPad for entertainment but now I don’t think I can. At 8:00pm last night, I bought one episode of The Wire, and six episodes of Fawlty Towers. This morning, fourteen hours later, the episode of The Wire was only 50% one, while none of the others have started at all. I cancelled The Wire and it started downloading Fawlty Towers (apparently iPads can only d/l one thing at a time, which is a fucking nuisance). It started off well, but then it got s-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-w, and when I say s-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-w, I mean it is now saying “Download Complete in 3760min”. That’s Sunday for fuck’s sake! So, my questions are:

1). Is there anything I can do to speed up downloading on the iPad? I 've not yet done that “Jailbreak” thing you’re supposed to do. Would that make a difference?

2). Is it likely to be a Wifi problem? FWIW, while I’ve not downloaded any TV onto my laptop as I like to keep it reserved purely for work stuff, I’ve noticed that the internet on the laptop is about a trillion times faster than on the iPad. Both devices use the same Wifi.

2

I’m having problems with iTunes downloads right now, and a Twitter search shows some recent complaints. It’s not normal.

3
  1. Don’t jailbreak it. I can only imagine the three dozen threads you’d start about that! :slight_smile:
  2. Possibly. If the internet is that much faster on your laptop, just download it there, migrate it to your ipad (via a cord), and then delete it.
4

Things are pretty zippy for me on my iPod touch. Movies download in a few minutes.

Try turning off and rebooting both your iPad and your modem and router.

Also, new things come out on Tuesday so if you download then it’s possible the servers might be more busy.

5

I have always found iTunes video downloads to be painfully slow. One suggestion I have is using a direct connection with an Ethernet cable. A direct connection is often a lot faster than a wifi connection. It won’t help a lot but, it will speed it up a bit.

6

You may not be aware, but the iPad does not have an ethernet port.

7

That’s the problem with these newfangled thin thingamabobs, no ethernet ports!

You can have my hardwired internet when you pry it from my cold dead hands!!

8

Yes but you can download it in your desktop and then transfer through USB.

9

Which is exactly what I suggested in post #3.