Just hours after the iPad went on sale Saturday, some early adopters were already complaining of spotty Wi-Fi reception on their glossy new tablets, while others (including yours truly) struggled to make sense of the iPad’s picky USB charging needs. Also a problem: lots and lots of iPad app crashes.

First up: Probably the most frequent complaint I’ve heard about the iPad in the past few days concerns spotty Wi-Fi reception, with TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington spotting “scores” of posts on Apple’s support site from users reporting poor reception in areas of their homes where other Wi-Fi-enabled devices —laptops, cell phones, iPhones — were showing a full set of bars. Some users also said their iPads refused to reconnect to local Wi-Fi networks after waking from sleep or restarting.

“Huge differences as I move to different areas of the house. … None of our other wireless devices have this problem,” one user wrote. Another user wrote, “Yes, I am having the same problem. … My MacBook has a strong signal, but my iPad does not load pages. VERY DISAPPOINTING.”

Apple posted a support document over the weekend with suggestions. Among Apple’s tips: If you’re using a non-Apple Wi-Fi router with dual-band capability, try to “create separate Wi-Fi network names to identify each band,” and “ensure that both networks use the same security type (WEP, WPA, WPA2, and so on).” But iPad users continued to report Wi-Fi headaches Monday morning.
It’s not clear exactly how many iPad users are having Wi-Fi trouble. Personally, I haven’t had any issues at all. But PC World notes that for those who are having iPad’s Wi-Fi woes, the problem might be related to the tablet’s actual Wi-Fi antenna, meaning Apple might “have to physically dig into the iPad and replace the antenna” — a situation that could lead to “a massive recall … if the problem persists.”

Also causing confusion for some users: odd behavior when it comes to charging the iPad over a USB port. As I blogged on Saturday, I was initially thrown for a loop when I plugged my new iPad into my MacBook Pro and saw the “Not charging” message next to the iPad’s battery icon. At first I thought something was wrong — after all, the brief instruction card that comes in the box says that to “set up, sync, and charge” the iPad, all you have to do is “connect iPad to your computer using the computer’s USB port and the included cable.” What gives?

Well, it turns out charging the iPad via USB isn’t as simple as Apple’s ultra-brief instruction card would have us believe. According to Macworld, the iPad is quite a bit more power-hungry than the iPhone or the iPod (it is a lot bigger, after all); thus, it prefers a high-power port — something that “older computers” (including older MacBooks, like mine) and “most USB hubs” lack — for standard USB charging. You can still try to charge the iPad over a low-power USB port, Macworld notes, but it’ll probably only work when the iPad is asleep, and then only “slowly.”

Finally, I’ve been hearing a series of complaints about iPad apps crashing repeatedly; the culprits run the gamut, ranging from games and the Netflix and ABC streaming video players to apps for the New York Times and TIME magazine.

Frankly, I’m not surprised; much the same thing happened in the first weeks and months after the iPhone app store first opened (indeed, I used to curse the once buggy, crashy New York Times iPhone app on a daily basis), and it’s worth keeping in mind that the vast majority of iPad developers didn’t have an actual iPad for testing until Saturday. As developers get more familiar with the iPad, we should start seeing a wave of updates that’ll (hopefully) cut down on the number of crashes; before then, though, we’ll just have to be patient.

Still, after many hours of heavy use this weekend, my iPad experience has been remarkably trouble-free. Not bad for a first-generation product fresh out of the gates.
Any new iPad users have trouble with their shiny new toys? If so, give us the details right here.

— Ben Patterson is a technology writer for Yahoo! News.