The first couple hours were a poor experience for me too. iTunes on my dad's Mac Mini said it was the latest version but it turns out it was just the _last_ version for PowerPC, and it can't activate iPads. Then I poked around with libimobiledevice on my laptop, but I couldn't find the right commands to recognize the device. Finally someone with a newer Mac came home and it was smooth sailing after that. The activation process definitely could be improved.