Differential Video Experience on 3G iPad

Testers at iLounge say some video delivery applications act differently on an Apple iPad when using the 3G network than they do when the same device is using Wi-Fi access. Specifically, the iPad’s built-in YouTube application strips both standard and HD videos to a dramatically lower resolution over the cellular data connection, something that iTunes Store video previews notably do not do, instead staying at a higher quality and consuming a greater amount of data, iLounge says.

Other third-party applications, such as the ABC Player, refuse to work at all over the cellular connection, producing a notification pop-up that states, “Please connect to a Wi-Fi network to use this application. Cellular networks are not supported at this time.”

But Netflix appears to work fine.

The immediate temptation will be to blame AT&T for the variable performance, but since the applications are executing variably, it seems more likely there are video coding or even playback rights issues at play.

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