If you have an older iPad that is just sitting in your drawer collecting dust, you can probably still use it for a thing or two. I found my old iPad Mini (original iPad Mini) that stopped receiving iOS update as of iOS 9.3.5, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I looked at the trade-in value and it was about $20, which is totally not worth it. So I figured let me try to run it and see what I can do with it. But first things first, I had to charge it as it hasn’t ran for at least couple of years.
- Reset And Delete Everything: The first thing I did as soon as the iPad started was a full reset. You can do that by going to the Settings -> General -> Reset -> Erase All Content and Settings. Of course before doing so you want to make sure that there is nothing that you need is still on that iPad, and it has been backed up to the iCloud (if needed), otherwise you should be good to go. The reset process will take few minutes, and then you can setup the iPad again as if you just bought it now. One thing I would recommend for such as older models is to not restore backup from iCloud and setting it up as a new iPad. This will not only be faster to setup but also will ensure that there is no old files/apps get added back to the iPad that was slowing it again.
- Check for update: If you haven’t ran your iPad for sometime there is a chance that there is a new update waiting for you. For me, my iPad was already updated to the latest iOS version it was supporting. You can check that by going to the Settings -> General -> Software Update.
- Disable Some Settings: After erasing all settings the iPad still felts a bit slow, so I decided to disable some settings that could speed it up a little bit more, such as:
- Reduce Motion: Go to the Settings -> General -> Accessibility and turn on the Reduce Motion settings. This will turn off certain user interface animations, which will make the iPad feel a bit faster.
- Notifications: After you download the apps that you want, we’ll touch on that in a bit, make sure to turn off all the unwanted notifications that you don’t really need. You can do that by going to the Settings -> Notifications and then choosing the app you want to turn off the notifications for.
- Spotlight Search: Turning off Spotlight search will also help speeding up your iPad since it doesn’t have to process app information every time you launch the Spotlight search. You can do that by going to the Settings -> General -> Spotlight Search and turning off all the apps.
- Background App Refresh: Turning off Background App Refresh will prevent apps from updating their data in the background when they’re not running. Disabling this option will not only speed up your iPad, but will also help preserve battery life too. You can do that by going to the Settings -> General -> Background App Refresh and hitting that off switch.
Now that you have done that your iPad should feel a little bit more useable that it was before. Keep in mind that some apps might have stopped supporting the version of iOS that your iPad is running, so don’t be surprised if thats the case. Now to the other question, What can you do with a useable iPad? Well, there are few things that you can try:
- A Reading Device: The Apple’s iBooks app is a very lightweight app that can run on most old iPads, if you have some books in your library you can read them via this iPad. I’m planning on taking my iPad with me to work and just use it as a reading device on my launch break instead of just reading books or watching YouTube on my phone. That being said, and depends on how many apps that you can install, this iPad could work as a distraction free device without the social media apps or any other apps that could pop a notification for you and distract you from what you were reading/doing. In addition to iBooks, you can download the Kindle app, or use the Apple News app, your favorite RSS reader app, or just launch Safari and load your favorite, and lightweight, news website.
- YouTube: If YouTube still runs on your iPad then you’re in luck, you can use this iPad for streaming YouTube videos in the kitchen or living room instead of watching them on your laptop or your expensive and new iPad. Speaking of the kitchen, this iPad can be a very useful in the kitchen to watch and make yummy recipes without having to worry about getting it dirty.
- Music: Similar to YouTube, you can use the iPad to stream music to a Bluetooth speaker, and it can be as your dedicated Internet music player that doesn’t leave home and is always-on in the kitchen.
- Give it to your kids: If you have kids, and they don’t have their own brand new iPad then they wouldn’t mind having this iPad to play some games or watch YouTube Kids.
For me personally, and as mentioned before, I’m planning on using this iPad for reading only especially at bedtime and lunchtime. The apps that I have currently have on this iPad are: iBooks, News, Mail, and I have created few Home Screen shortcuts for some of the website that I visit on regular basis for news.
I hope you enjoyed reading this quick post, please let me know in the comments section below how do you currently use or plan to use your old iPad. Thanks!
