One of the first things I did when I got this new iPad was check out the native YouTube app. I was immediately disappointed:  download performance seemed to be terrible, and on some nights, I could hardly get a Netflix stream to complete, much less browse any of my friends' high-resolution photos on Flickr or even download the odd app from the App Store.  Even my beloved Rhapsody client seemed to fail constantly in mid-track -- a huge disappointment considering I happen to work there.

Anyway, as it turns out, it was all my fault -- well, sort of.

I'm not entirely sure why, but it seems the iPad wasn't playing nicely with my Linksys wireless router's encryption settings for some reason.  If you're having what feels like a similar problem -- stuttering YouTube playback, dropped audio connections, an all 'round sense of downloads just taking way longer than they ought to -- try tweaking your router to use these settings:

• WAP Security (as opposed to WEP or WAP2) with AES encryption

• Forced Wireless-G Protocol (as opposed to automatic selection between B, G and N modes)

• Standard Channel 1 (again, as opposed to automatic selection)

I had been using WAP2 and the "automatic" options, and was getting a pathetic ~2 Mbps downstream.  Since making the switch, I'm now getting consistently closer to 20.  Huge difference.  Hope it helps someone else out there.