On the Chromebook? Just fire it up, without having Wifi.
On the first generation iPad? You better have Wifi before signing up.
What still sucks is that I still have to give my credit card information. They say it’s “soley to confirm identity”, but still… At least they follow it up by saying that “no charges will be applied to your account unless explicitly authorized in advanced.” AT&T? You’ll get charged if you don’t cancel in time if you’ve signed up for the 250 MB plan.
And what’s this talk of the PSP Vita getting AT&T? How much is AT&T paying these people to get these exclusives?
// TLDR: Moar Verizon plz. Less of the craptastic network that is AT&T.
// Oh, and yes, I have a Chromebook now.
I’ve actually had the opposite experience with the iPad and ATT/Verizon. I don’t think I needed Wifi to set up my iPad 3G and the experience was seamless. My mother-in-law could not set up her Verizon iPad 2 properly and had to call Verizon 3 times to get it working right. In congested downtown Cincinnati the Verizon network is much better though.
Was that iPad 3G 2nd generation? I had to go into an AT&T store after talking to the AT&T and Apple customer support.
Not sure what the issue was with her iPad 2, though, because the sign up path is different, not only because it’s a different iPad than mine but also since she is on Verizon. I’m sure the lack of a SIM card does something funky.