My iPad 1st generation was getting slow. Most help sites say close all apps and do a clean sweep and re-install of your operating system. It didn’t make mine faster. I found this article and it made my iPad1 faster. Here’s seven simple tricks to impressively speed up slow iPads that works.
Things to do on a regular basis
Following the seven tips described below are much more important to keep your iPad speedy. I tried them out with my first-gen iPad, and it is much snappier now! And even if you are working with a newer model – give them a try! It’s always good to do a little spring cleaning session once in a while.
Tip 1: Update to latest iOS
Updating the firmware is always a good idea in order to get the latests features and security fixes. For updating your iOS, just go to the General tab in Settings and tap on Software Update on the right side. The device will check if a new iOS is available, and if so, will guide you through the process.
Tip 2: Delete not-needed apps
This tip is only relevant when you hardly have any disk space left – and I mean really no disk space left. Something in the order of less than 1 GB.
In order to find out how much space you have left, go to the General tab in Settings and tap on Usage on the right side. You can see how much storage you have available / used.
If you still have a GB or so available, don’t worry – you are good. Only if you are really running out of space, you can go through this list and see what hardly used apps gobble up all your storage space. That’s the guy who gets deleted first.
This is for music lovers: If you are anyhow like me, your music library probably takes up a large part of your storage space. I ran into acute problems with that on my iPhone. My solution wasn’t cutting down on music – no way! Instead, I started a music subscription with rdio. Since rdio requires a monthly fee this is not the cheapest solution, but it is a way better value than buying devices with higher storage capacities. You can read the full story on how I decided on how much storage I need on my iPad here.
But back to the current topic: When you are running out of storage capacity, deleting some bigger apps or switching to a music subscription can speed up your iPad.
Tip 3: Clear browser cache
Your browser cache is another place where you can reclaim some storage space, which might result in slight speed improvements.
Whenever you visit a webpage, Safari will automatically save its content in its memory cache. The idea is that it will be faster to re-visit a webpage, but over time the browser cache fills up to an extent that it can slow down your browsing experience.
So from time to time, it makes sense to “bring out the trash”. Clearing the browser cache is something worth doing once every few weeks or months – depending on how much you are browsing around.
In Settings, find Safari on the left side and tap on Clear Cookies and Data on the right site. Affirm by tapping Clear in the popup window.
Things you do once – and that work best
The above tricks are mainly about reclaiming storage space and slimming down apps to run faster. The most important thing when it comes to speeding up an aging iPad, however, is to maximize available working memory (RAM). Since the first-gen iPad is equipped with only a quarter of the RAM that is found in gen 4, freeing up RAM becomes imperative.
The next four tips tell you exactly how to maximize working memory, so that you will enjoy a long-term speed enhancement. The good news is that these are settings which you only have to do once. Do it now, and then be done with it.
There’s one catch though: It means that you have to say good-bye to some of the latest iOS features. I know that this is not cool, but these four simple things also offer the greatest results. And at the end, cutting down a little bit on the bells and whistles of iOS is a small price to pay when it means that I can use my device for another twelve months or longer.
Tip 4: Turn off notifications
This is a great but little know tip! Many apps, when first launched, ask you whether you want them to notify you about important updates and other stuff. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, but after a while you have a ton of apps that want to push notifications to you that are – let’s be honest – often not that important. Get rid of these notifications in order to free up resources.
In Settings, go to Notification and clear out all the apps like in the screenshot. Don’t worry about alarm clocks – they will still wake you up. You will be also still reminded of upcoming events in iCal, provided that you have scheduled an alert.
Tip 5: Turn off location services
The next thing you want to turn off are location services. In Settings, go to Location Services on the left site. On the right site, you can either turn all location services off or you can decide this on a case-by-case basis.
I suggest you switch off location services on a case-by-case basis, because using the “kill all” switch will also disable the “Find my iPad” service. That’s too much of a security risk.
I personally only activate location services for Safari (for local search results), weather apps (for getting the right weather), and obviously maps.
Tip 6: Turn off indexing
Another great way to take some burden off your iPad is to give it a break indexing content on your iPad. By default, iOS systematically goes through your contacts, applications, mails, notes, messages and much more in order to be “ready” whenever you use Spotlight Search.
Now the thing is: How often do you really need to search your emails or contacts on a global level? When I am searching for an email, I search from Mail. When I am searching for a contact, I open Contacts. The only time I really use Spotlight Search is when I am looking for an app that I can’t find in the chaos that Apple calls homescreens and folders.
If this sounds like you, then switch off Spotlight Search for all items except Applications. To do this, go to Settings, General, and then Spotlight Search on the right side to uncheck all unwanted items.
Tip 7: Multitasking Gestures
One more thing you can switch off are the four-fingers multitasking gestures. This is where it begins to hurt a little bit in my opinion, since it is quote convenient to circling through the last used apps via four-finger swipes to the left and right. But hey, doing a double click on the home button isn’t the end of the world, so I switched off Multitasking Gestures in the General tab of Settings.
More things you can do to speed up iPad
Other things that have been reported to speed up sluggish iPads are to turn off keyboard Auto-Correction and Check Spelling in the Keyboard part of the General tab. However, I don’t want to miss these features, so I left them on.
The same is true with everything iCloud related. By switching off iCloud sync you can gain some working memory back, but this would really hurt. In my experience, it’s not worth it switching this off.
Conclusion
These tricks really helped speeding up my aging first-generation iPad, and I didn’t even have to resort to the clean-slate, sledge-hammer, wipe-it-all-and-re-install approach. My first-gen iPad is not super fast now, but it is also not super sluggish any longer. I got some more life out of it, and that’s all I wanted to achieve.
Original article at http://www.joachim-scholz.com/academipad/2013/05/08/speed-up-slow-ipad/