How To Speed Up Your iPad & Improve The Performance

You must be familiar with the term “Overclocking.” Well, overclocking is a process that is used to make your computers or tablets run faster. But if you are using an iPad, you don’t have a process similar to overclocking to make it run quicker or speed it up.

Gradually all devices, with increased usage, no matter how old, will slow down. It is true especially if you are using an iPad 2, iPad 3, or iPad Mini, that you might have experienced it running slower at times. Indeed, you cannot overclock your iPad but you can ensure it runs at optimal speeds and performs efficiently.

Here are a few tricks that can be easily applied to increase the speed and enhance the performance of your iPad:

Update To The Latest iOS Version

It is very necessary to ensure that you are using an updated version of your operating system. Though sometimes it may slow down your device as a new operating system will use more resources, the latest version is always capable of solving bugs. 

Bugs, when left unchecked, can end up slowing down your device's overall performance. You can check which version of the operating system you are using, and update it by:

1. Going to Settings.  
2. On the tab that opens, choose General Settings.
3. Tap on Software Update.  

Close Down Background Apps

Though iOS is very efficient in automatically closing apps when its resources get sparse, the system is not perfect. Hence, before you start working with your iPad, ensure that you have closed all the apps running in the background.

You can do this by double-clicking the Home Button, and when its Multitasking Screen is displayed, simply flick the apps off the top of the screen, by placing your finger down on the app window and moving them towards the top of the display.

Background App Refresh, do turn it off!

The basic function of the Background App Refresh is to occasionally check on the apps present on your device and download contents to keep the apps fresh. The Background App Refresh will speed up the app when you launch it, but at the same time it can slow down your device when you are using other apps. To turn off the Background App Refresh:

1. Scroll down to settings.  
2. Tap on General, here you will find the Background Refresh App button. 
3. When you tap this button, it will bring you to App Refresh settings. 

Now you can easily turn it off for all apps.

Reduction of Motion & Parallax

One of the tricks to speed up your iPad is to reduce some of the graphics and motion in its user interface, inclusive of the parallax effect, because of which the background images move behind the still icons when you rotate your iPad. To do this again: 

1. Go to Settings.
2. Tap on General Settings, and choose Accessibility.
3. Scroll down in Accessibility and choose Reduction Motion.
4. Tap on it and put it in the On position.

This will scale back some of the processing time of your iPad.

Other tweaks

Here are some other, lesser-known ways to get your iPad back to its optimal performance levels, they may not always be feasible, and many of them don’t improve your device’s performance, as much as they improve your overall experience, but they’re surely worth giving a try.

Installing An Ad Blocker

If your iPad is slow only when you are browsing the web, then installing an Ad Blocker might speed up your iPad. Most of the websites these days are inundated with advertisements and most of them require the websites to load information from the data center. 

This implies that when you load a particular website, it’s not just the data being uploaded from that single website, but multiple websites. This will lengthen the time taken to load a page.

To install an AdBlocker, you would first need to download an app which is designated AdBlocker from the App Store. And then you need to enable the blocker settings for the same. Go to Safari, choose Content Blockers, and enable the Ad blocking app you have just downloaded.

Boosting Your Wi-Fi

The speed of your internet is directly related to the speed of your device. To fill out content, most of the apps use your internet connection, especially music streaming or any app related to TV or movies. Even Safari requires a good internet connection to download a web page.

You can check the speed of your Wi-Fi by apps such as Ookla’s Speed Test. This app will test how fast you can download or upload across your network.

The slow or fast speed of your internet connection will entirely depend on your Internet Service Provider (ISP), but generally, anything under 5Mbps is considered to be slow. You need a minimum of 8-10Mbps to stream HD video through having more than is always preferable.

Also, check if your Wi-Fi is fast near the router and slow in other parts of your house. In this case, you will need to boost your signal by using an additional router or simply buying a newly upgraded router.

Clearing Safari’s Cache

Safari is one of those apps where you might notice a slowdown more when compared to other apps. This can be because of a full cache.

Clearing the cache will speed up the Safari interface. This can be done by going to Settings, then General Settings, from where you can clear history and website data and remove all of the Safari cache information.

Turning Off Location Services

While it can be handy for many apps to access your location, when you use a location service it will stay active in the background, consuming battery while reducing the performance of the iPad. To turn off the location services, go to Settings, and choose Privacy, tap on Location Services and set it to Off.

Limiting Notifications

Notifications are really helpful, but many times you don’t need notifications, like Facebook comments, or free lives on your favorite game - all such notifications are not that important.

As with the Background App Refresh, providing notifications can also slow down your iPad. To turn it off, go to Settings, and choose Notifications, and then turn off the notifications for all those apps that you don’t think are very important.