The Live Indian Entertainment Blog

If you are used to being able to plug in a device to a USB port on your PC and charge it, you may not be too happy with the iPad. Apple's latest hot device won't charge on a variety of Windows machines, though it seems to work fine on at least a few Mac PCs that it's been tried on.

We received an iPad today, and it won't charge when attached to the USB ports on a number of Windows computers I tried. It's not a bug, though. The devices you are used to plugging into your USB ports are typically things like your iPhone or iPod, and the iPad has a much stronger battery than any of those.

Apple's support site has the details:

iPad has an internal, rechargeable battery. To charge the battery, try the following:

• Connect iPad to a power outlet using the included cable and the 10W USB power adapter.
• Connect to a high-power USB 2.0 port using the included cable.

Note: Some USB 2.0 ports and accessories do not provide enough power to charge iPad. When this occurs the message "Not Charging" appears in the status bar next to the battery icon.

Apparently Windows PCs don't have enough oomph for the iPad. It makes sense, however. Recall that the external optical disk drive for the MacBook Air required extra power, and thus Apple put a higher-powered USB port in the system.