How do you activate an iPad on hotel internet that first requires browser connection?

[CrackBerry Kevin]

Ok, so I got my new iPad tonight. I'm currently in Miami staying in a hotel on South Beach (The Perry.. formerly the Gansevoort).

I start the setup process on the iPad, during which point it asks me to choose my WiFi network. I choose the hotel internet. From there, it tries to connect to the internet to activate, but after three minutes of doing nothing, then it gives me an error and says I have to activate through iTunes.

This makes sense I guess - at this hotel, to get on the internet you first have to open your web browser, accept their terms, then you get connected. But on the iPad I can't open the browser during setup, so then I can't activate the internet.

So I fired up my laptop now and plugged in to activate. I open iTunes and go to my iPad and it pops open and I accept the terms. Now my iPad goes to to the next step where I can Sign in with an Apple ID. I tap to do that, but again, there's no working WiFi (since I haven't opened the browser), so even though it's showing I'm connected to WiFi it's not working.

So now I'm just sitting here... with an iPad that I can't activate and use until I get to the office tomorrow where I have proper internet.

Sorry for the long windedness.. just trying to explain the situation. Any work around here so I know for next time? Kinda sucks. I wish they'd just let you skip into the homescreen once you activate.

UPDATE: Oh wait. right at the bottom of the screen there's a little link to skip that step and keep going through the process and getting to the homescreen. D'OH!!! Didn't see it. OK. I'm in. Internet activated via web browser and I'm good to go. LOL.

Lesson Learned: Must have computer ready to activate in case of lack of WiFi, and use the skip link to get to homebscreen. Everybody is a newbie sometimes.

 

[JBaby_9783]

Don't sweat it, Kevin! We have all been there.

 

[CrackBerry Kevin]

I know, right?! I've activated plenty of iOS devices over the years too. But always have been around a computer or on straight up WiFi. So this was kind of a weird situation. Got through it though. All good. Might have been better if I didn't figure it out though. I have to go to bed!

 

[JBaby_9783]

Sleep is overrated! Go ahead and play with that new shiny iPad. You know you want to.

 

[Vipin Raheja]

I'm also looking for a solution to this problem

 

[joshrocker]

My work wifi requires me to sign in through the browser. I have to connect through settings and then open the browser and enter the user name and password. Sometimes, the log in screen automatically pops up, other times nothing will happen. If I restart the ipad (holding the circle and power button at the same time for a few seconds) the sign in page always pops up right away for me upon entering the browser again. I'd give that a try and hope it helps.

 

[mulasien]

/rant mode on

One aspect of activating iOS devices at our house for the first time that's fairly annoying, similar to the OP:

Our home wifi has MAC address filtering enabled, meaning a device cannot join our network unless I explicitly allow its MAC address.

During the initial activation, we cannot join the device to our wifi network without the MAC address.

...BUUUUUUUT, we can't get the MAC address if we can't get to the home screen and past the initial setup menus (FWIW, I swear that I never saw the 'skip this step' link. Maybe I just overlooked it).

Which means that I have to go into our wifi config, turn off MAC address filtering, join the device and complete activation, look up the MAC address, then re-enable MAC address filtering (after entering the new MAC address).

Just a little thing that's always irked me a bit.

/rant mode off

 

[heroi mexicano 4u]

If you are lucky and have an iphone or another ipad/ipod already activated the you could share your existing internet connection from another device and connect your new ipad to the internet via a shared connection. Setup your existing device via "personal access" and this connection will be shown on your new ipad on the list of available nerworks.
It worked for me, easily.