How To Get Ready To Upgrade Your iPad — The Right Way

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Now that you’ve placed your order for your new iPad, it’s time to prepare your old one for the upgrade. When you transfer all of your data on launch day, you’re not going to want to eat up storage space with apps, photos, and music that you never use.

Here’s how to prepare your old iPad for an upgrade to the new one — the right way.

Delete Unwanted Apps

Begin by removing all of the apps you never use from your existing device. Look at every page on your home screen and open every folder. If you find apps that you forgot you had or that you’ve never even heard of, the chances are you don’t use them enough to let them take up your precious storage space.

Some apps, particularly games, can take up huge amounts of space. So having a good clear out will leave you more room on your new iPad for other content.

Manage Music, Movies, and TV Shows

Have you ever told your iPad to play you entire music library on shuffle, and then you keep having to skip those old tracks that you don’t want to listen to anymore? Well, these are taking up storage space, too, so it’s time to delete them.

I recommend creating a playlist — or a number of playlists — in iTunes, and labeling it “iPad music.” You can then add all of the music you want to listen to into this playlist and then sync it to your iPad, rather than syncing your entire library. I find this is much easier than selecting every artist or album individually.

While you still have your iPad plugged into iTunes, visit the movies and TV shows sections and ensure you don’t have unwanted videos on your device. These are real storage hogs — especially if they’re in high-definition.

Organize Your Home Screen Folders

Now that you’re left only with the apps that you know you’re going to use, it’s time to organize them into folders. This makes it easier to find the app you want when you want it, and it keeps your home screen clean.

I recommend creating a folder for each category. For example, make one for games, one for utilities, one for productivity apps, one for photography apps, and so on. You can then sort your folders into alphabetical order so it’s even easier to navigate your way around them.

Tweak Your Settings

Have you still not gotten around to customizing your Notification Center alerts, setting up your keyboard shortcuts, or enabling automatic downloads? Well, now is the time. When your new iPad has finished restoring from backup, you’ll want it to work just how you like it.

Spend five minutes inside the Settings app tweaking your iPad’s behavior to suit you. I recommend customizing your Notification Center and app alerts, setting up your keyboard shortcuts, and fine-tuning Spotlight search.

Backup, Backup, Backup

Now that you’ve made all of your customizations and you have your iPad ready for the upgrade, it’s time to plug it into iTunes and perform a backup. It’s also important to do this right before restoring your new device, so that it mirrors your old one once you’re up and running.

Your device should backup automatically when you plug it into iTunes, but if you want to be sure, right click on its name in the Devices tab in the sidebar asnd then click “Back Up”

[teaser-top]An easy, step-by-step guide to getting ready for the new iPad.[/teaser-top]

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