When modern iPads cost as much as a small car, ensuring the longevity of your iPad is essential! This article unveils practical tips to maximize your iPad’s lifespan, helping you get the most out of your investment. From battery management strategies to protective measures, we explore simple yet effective practices to keep your iPad running smoothly.
1. Get a Good Case And Screen Protector
The leading cause of premature iPad death is physical damage, usually from dropping it!
A good case is an inexpensive insurance policy to help prevent damage, the best types we’ve found are ‘folio style‘ cases which wraps around the entire device while still maintaining a professional appearance and the chunkier ‘shock proof cases‘ which have a sturdy plastic core and soft rubber exterior.
A tempered glass screen protector is a good way to give your screen a second chance however not a replacement for a good quality case. Be sure to verify any screen protector or case will fit your iPad model as they do vary.
2. Delete Unused Apps And Files
As iPads fill up with pictures and apps they grind to a halt and can become unstable with an increase in crashes. In particular the older iPads with limited memory (RAM). Deleting unused Apps is a cheap way to speed these devices up and get a couple of years out of it.
3. Consider purchasing an iCloud Subscription
Unfortunately it is impossible to expand the storage on iPads and many base models still in use have very limited capacities as low as 16GB. Spending a couple of dollars a month on an iCloud subscription is an excellent way to increase the usability of the device, in particular if the primary use of the iPad is to view photos on it.
4. Perform a Factory Reset
One of the symptoms of an ageing iPad is the device slowing down and apps crashing back to the homescreen. In most cases this is not a hardware issue and related to the software installed on it.
Before shopping for a new device it is a good to factory reset the iPad back to a clean state and re-install the essential apps. Be sure to perform a backup of the device beforehand!
5. Keep It Out Of Sunlight
A huge number of iPads live on benches, however this isn’t always a great idea. While iPads are robust devices, its not uncommon to see blemishes on the screen or even dead spots caused by sunlight being concentrated onto a particular point on the LCD panel causing irreversible damage.
Direct sunlight can also warm the device up and over time degrade the internal battery.
6. Replace The Battery
Lithium batteries found in most modern devices do not last forever and slowly degrade through a combination of age as well as cycles (times they are charged and discharged).
Over time this leads to the capacity of the battery decreasing resulting in the device quickly losing charge and the device slowing its performance down due to it being unable to draw higher currents from the battery to run the CPU at full speed. This was one of the primary complaints of early iPhones which got noticeably slower over time due to Apple downclocking the CPU as the battery wore out to stop the device crashing, however failed to advertise this to the user or encourage them to replace the battery.
Unlike with the iPhone, ipadOS 17 at the time of writing does not display the battery health however the battery health still is logged. This can be accessed by getting to diagnose the device either at an Apple Store, Remotely or by opening one of the device log files.
This can be accessed by following the below steps:
Go to Settings —> Privacy —> Analytics —> and clicking on the latest analytics log.
The value you want to find is ‘last_value_MaximumCapacityPercent’ which will provide a value between 0-100% reflecting how much of the original capacity remains. A number below 80% is a sign the battery needs replacing.
Replacing a battery on an iPad is not an overly expensive task, however is recommended that it be done professionally either by Apple or by an experienced independent repairer as it genuinely is a delicate job and requires some specialised tools.
Do be aware most repairers will not replace the battery on the iPad if the screen is cracked as removing the screen will almost certainly damage it further.
7. Repair Cracked Screens
Cracked screens are almost a feature of any older digital smartphone or tablet. While unsightly they also pose an issue of allowing moisture to enter the device which can permanently damage the device.
If your iPad is still within it service life and upto the task it may be worth investing to get it repaired.
8. Install The Latest Updates, But Be Mindful of Major OS Upgrades
Installing updates can be a catch-22! While iPadOS updates tend to slow down iPad devices they are often a required component of maintaining compatibility with newer apps and maintaining security.
We recommend installing the latest updates, but be cautious of major iPadOS version upgrades ie v15 to v16 as this can be the trigger for the device to slow down due to the operating system typically becoming more bloated. If possible we recommend you get user feedback on the update prior to updating as it is impossible to rollback.
Operating system updates will ultimately be the factor that forces you to upgrade.
Wrap Up
Nothing lasts forever, however with some care you can increase and bring new life to your iPad. Most important is protecting the iPad from physical damage with a quality case, regularly cleaning up unused applications and being mindful of upgrading to new iPadOS versions.