An iPad is the most popular consumer tablet out there. With millions of iPads in circulation, there’s a chance that the one you own might just be showing its age after a long time. This begs the question, how do you make your iPad faster?
In this article, we will go through all the different methods you can employ to make your iPad faster. So, read on!
Restart Your iPad
Your iPad tends to build on temporary storage information that can clog down your entire device over time. While iPadOS generally caters to this cache, some temporary files may seep through the leaks.
Over time, these can accumulate and place massive undue stress on your iPad’s RAM, reducing its entire performance. Therefore, we recommend opting for a reboot regularly to make your iPad faster. Here’s how.
- Hold the volume up and power buttons on your iPad.
- Swipe from left to right to shut your iPad down.
After shutting your iPad down and turning it back on, you should see a significant increase in your iPad’s overall speed. If you do, turn resetting your iPad into a habit to ensure it doesn’t slow down again.
Turn On Reduce Motion
If you have an older iPad, animations can clog up your device and can even freeze your iPad up. From what we’ve seen, animations can even lag newer iPads out. While you can’t eliminate animations, you can reduce their presence.
Here’s how.
- Open the Settings application on your iPad.
- Head to “Accessibility”.
- Turn on “Reduce Motion”.
Reset Your iPad
Resetting your iPad ensures that all applications and nefarious elements that may have been slowing down your iPad are gone. Before doing so, ensure that you have a backup on iCloud or Google Drive since you will lose all your data, and your iPad will be reset to factory settings.
Here’s how you can reset your iPad to make it faster.
- Open the Settings application on your iPad.
- Head to “General” > “Reset” > “Erase All Content and Settings”.
- If prompted, enter your password and go through the on-screen instructions.
Keep Your Expectations In Check
Apple’s known for its planned obsolescence. While their devices do run for a longer time than an Android tablet, an iPad tends to slow down after a few generations. This is primarily due to poor battery health.
Unlike iPhones, you can’t see your battery health on an iPad. So, you have no way of identifying whether your device is running at max capacity or not. Over time, your device is intentionally under-clocked to ensure a relatively reasonable battery time.
So, if you have an old iPad that’s randomly gotten slow, we recommend replacing your battery. But, since you can’t really be sure, we’d recommend letting your iPad be instead of forking over the cash for nothing.
Free Up Some Storage or Delete Redundant Applications
Your iPad will often need cleaning up to ensure it doesn’t slow down over time. While no applications on the App Store can clog down your iPad, having one with not a lot of storage space definitely will.
So, we recommend deleting all the photos and videos backed up to the cloud. Also, keep a close look at your applications. Here’s how.
- Open the Settings applications on your iPad.
- Head to “General” > “iPad Storage”. You’ll now see all the applications and documents currently taking up space.
- You’ll be able to open those applications up; tap “Delete App” to get rid of them.
If you’ve deleted a lot of applications from the menu, your storage space won’t update instantly. They’ll take some time to update, and after that – they should be back to normal.
Turn Off Background App Refresh
Turning off background app refresh is a relatively drastic solution. It stops every application from being able to provide you with push notifications/updates as it receives them. So, if you use your iPad for time-sensitive tasks, say fetching your email or getting the latest news, disabling this feature will stop that from happening.
You can always manually open an application for it to fetch the latest and greatest. Here’s how you can make your iPad faster by turning off background app refresh.
- Open the Settings application on your iPad.
- Head to “General” > “Background App Refresh”.
- Change the setting to off.
If you don’t want to eliminate background app refresh completely, you can disable some applications that aren’t that important. Do note that it won’t be as effective as disabling all of them.
Turn Off Notifications
Notifications are an integral part of the iPad ecosystem. Annoyingly, they can also cause your iPad to slow down over time, especially if you have a lot of applications installed. Like background app refresh, picking and choosing what applications to shut down notifications from can hinder the overall benefit. But, the choice is ultimately yours.
Here’s how you can turn off notifications on an iPad to make it faster.
- Open the Settings application on your iPad.
- Head to “Notifications”.
- Turn off notifications for each application individually.
Conclusion
By following all these steps mentioned above, you’ll be able to get your iPad back up to speed. Do note that following these steps might hinder your iPad’s overall functionality for a long time.
