There are many doubts about whether or not it is necessary to restore an iPad on a frequent basis. In fact, there are those who advise doing it every certain time to guarantee its correct operation. This is true and false in equal parts and it is not that it is a contradiction, but that there are nuances in favor of both points. In this article we will tell you what are those factors that interfere with the need or not to format an iPad frequently.
The first thing, is it strictly necessary to do it?
No. The fact that Apple is the one who designs both the hardware and the software of its iPads has many advantages, including having a smooth performance for years on the tablet without ever having to restore it. In fact, it is quite possible to find users who have had one of these tablets for years and have never needed to format it to keep it working well. Therefore we can stick to the popular phrase that if something works, it is better not to touch it. Therefore, if you are not having problems or failures on your iPad, it will not be necessary to consider restoring it and less periodically.
It can be a way to start from scratch
If you are going to give or sell your iPad, you will need to restore it so that the other person can configure it with their Apple ID and customize the interface and settings to their liking. But this is not the only situation in which you should format the iPad if you have no errors, since it can be very useful if you want to use the device again as if it were new: reconfigure each setting, download only apps that you are going to use … In short, a way to clean the tablet without having to manually delete things. In these cases it will be enough for you to go to Settings> General> Reset and click on “Delete content and settings”.
If you received someone else’s iPad
Whether it’s a gift or a second-hand purchase, you want to format your iPad before you’ve even been able to set it up. Why? Well, because it is very likely that the person who had it previously restored it from the device settings, this being a method in which you do not really delete the content as such, but you give the system permission to overwrite it. The most efficient way to format an iPad is by connecting it to a computer via cable and using iTunes to do so (Finder if you have a Mac with macOS Catalina or later).
Sometimes just restarting it
If you have a fault present in the iPad, it is very likely that it is what leads to your doubt about whether to restore or not. We will see that matter later, but first you should know that there are times when it is enough to turn the device off and on again so that these failures go away. Yes, we already know that it sounds a lot like a computer joke, but it is true that restarting the iPad can end with some errors if they are related to background processes that are generating some type of error. Obviously, formatting it will also kill those stuck processes, but perhaps it is too tedious a solution for a problem that is solved automatically on restart.
If you have major bugs in the software
If the aforementioned in the previous point does not help you, it is likely that you already have to restore the device completely to eliminate any software failure. We recommend doing it with a computer and always without loading any backup afterwards, since doing so could imply that the failures reappear if they were saved with that backup. In any case, you can continue to have some data even if you configure it as new and these are the ones that are synchronized with iCloud (you can see them in Settings> your name> iCloud).
If a “large” version of iPadOS comes out
Every year a new version of iPadOS comes out that has only one number in its name. For example iPadOS 13 or iPadOS 14. Versions called 14.1, 14.2 and so on are considered intermediate versions. These others that we call “large versions” are usually the ones that involve the most changes in the system, either visually or internally, so it is always more possible that errors appear when updating. Although many of these bugs are present in the version itself and are solved in subsequent updates, a way to cover your back and prevent some of them is to restore the device before updating, which can be done with a computer by clicking on “Update and Restore “from iTunes (or Finder in recent versions of macOS). Is it necessary to always do it? No, as we mentioned in one of the first points of this article, but it will serve as a guarantee that software failures will not be caused by your data.
If restoring doesn’t fix your problems
If you have tried to solve problems restoring your iPad without success, the most sensible thing is that you go to Apple itself and ask for technical assistance. You can even make an appointment with technical support at an Apple Store or an Authorized Technical Service (SAT) to check on-site what is wrong with your device.