Chapter 10. Restoring and Resetting Your iPad
In case you customize your iPad so much that you accidentally foul it up beyond recognition, don’t panic. You can restore your iPad from a backup using the iTunes program on your computer. Restoring is a good first step when your iPad starts misbehaving or acting buggy. When things really go wrong, you can completely reset your iPad, or just parts of it, to its original factory settings.
In this chapter you’ll learn how to reset various settings on your iPad.
Restoring an iPad
Each time that you connect your iPad to your computer through its USB cable, the iTunes program on your computer makes a backup of your entire iPad. That way if your iPad malfunctions or fails completely, you can restore your backed up data to a new iPad and start working right away as if nothing had happened.
Restoring from a Backup
Restoring your iPad is an easy fix for many software troubles—give restoring a try if your iPad starts to malfunction or fails to sync properly, and restarting doesn’t work. Even if you lose your iPad, you can get a new one, restore your backups to this new iPad, and essentially clone your old iPad on to your new iPad.
To restore a backup from iTunes to your iPad, follow these steps:
Connect your iPad to your computer through its USB cable.
Right-click on the name of your iPad under the Devices category in the iTunes window. A pop-up menu appears as shown in Figure 10-1.
Choose Restore from Backup. A Restore from Backup dialog appears.
Choose the backup you want to use (if you have multiple choices) and click the Restore button.
Encrypting Your Backup
Normally iTunes on your computer just backs up your data without encrypting it. However, if you want to protect your backed up data with a password, you can turn on backup encryption by following these steps:
Connect your iPad to your computer through its USB cable.
Run the iTunes program on your computer.
Click the name of your iPad under the Devices category in the iTunes window.
Click the Summary tab and select (or unselect) the Encrypt iPad backup check box. A dialog pops up, asking you to type in a password twice as shown in Figure 10-2.
Type a password twice and click the Set Password button.
Note
You can change your password later by clicking the Change Password button on the Summary tab. Before you can restore your backup to your iPad, you’ll need to type in your password, so don’t forget it!
Deleting a Backup
Backing up your iPad is a good idea, which is why iTunes does this automatically. However, if you’re giving or selling your computer, you probably don’t want to keep your iPad backups on that computer any more. To remove your backups, follow these steps:
Run the iTunes program on your computer.
Choose iTunes ▸ Preferences (Macintosh) or Edit ▸ Preferences (Windows). A window appears.
Click the Devices icon or tab. A list of your backups appears as shown in Figure 10-3.
Click the iPad backup you want to delete and click OK.
Resetting Everything
If you want to return your iPad to its original, factory settings, you have two choices. First, you can reset your iPad but leave all your data (photos, video, music, and so on) intact. Second, you can wipe out everything including anything you have saved such as photos or apps that you’ve downloaded.
Saving Your Data While Resetting the iPad
If your iPad starts acting weird and restoring doesn’t do the trick, then you might need to completely reset it while preserving any data you have stored on it. To reset your iPad while preserving all your data on it, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap General. The General settings screen appears.
Scroll down and tap Reset. The Reset settings screen appears, as shown in Figure 10-4.
Tap Reset All Settings. A Reset All Settings dialog appears, asking for confirmation before resetting your iPad.
Tap Reset or Cancel.
Press the Home button.
Resetting and Erasing Your iPad
If you plan to give away or sell your iPad, you may want to wipe out all your data and return your iPad to its original, factory condition (minus any minor blemishes you may have made on the iPad’s case while using it). To reset and erase your iPad completely, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap General. The General settings screen appears.
Scroll down and tap Reset. The Reset screen appears.
Tap Erase All Content and Settings. An Erase iPad dialog appears, asking for confirmation before resetting and erasing your iPad.
Tap Erase or Cancel.
Resetting the Network Settings
To connect to the Internet, your iPad needs to store information about Wi-Fi or cellular telephone networks. However, if you suddenly experience problems accessing a network (even if you managed to get access to it before), you may need to fix this problem by resetting your network settings and starting again.
To reset your network settings, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap General. The General settings screen appears.
Scroll down and tap Reset. The Reset settings screen appears.
Tap Reset Network Settings. A Reset Network Settings dialog appears, asking for confirmation before resetting your iPad.
Tap Reset or Cancel.
Resetting the Keyboard Dictionary
As you type on the virtual keyboard, it gradually learns and adapts to the words you use most often. As you type part of a word, the virtual keyboard will display the words you’ve used before.
Of course, after the virtual keyboard’s dictionary gets trained to display certain words, you may change your writing style, so the keyboard dictionary may start suggesting words that you don’t want to type. To avoid this problem, you can reset just the keyboard dictionary settings by following these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap General. The General settings screen appears.
Scroll down and tap Reset. The Reset settings screen appears.
Tap Reset Keyboard Dictionary. A Reset Dictionary dialog appears, asking for confirmation before resetting your iPad.
Tap Reset or Cancel.
Resetting Location Services
If Location Services is turned on, your iPad can identify its current location. When you use certain apps, such as the Maps app, a dialog may pop up asking whether you want to use your current location in the app.
After you allow apps to use your iPad’s current location, it will eventually stop asking for permission to use your current location again. However, if you prefer having a dialog alert you when your iPad is trying to identify its current location, you can reset your iPad’s location warning by following these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap General. The General settings screen appears.
Scroll down and tap Reset. The Reset screen appears.
Tap Reset Location Warnings. A Reset Warnings dialog appears, asking whether you want to reset location warnings to its factory defaults.
Tap Reset or Cancel.
Additional Ideas for Resetting Your iPad
The two most common reasons to reset your iPad is to sell or give it to someone else or to fix a problem that resetting might fix. You may also want to reset certain settings (such as Network or Home Screen Layout) if you accidentally mess something up. Restoring your iPad is an easy way to get your iPad back into working order, with all your apps, settings, and games intact.
Now that you know about these options, feel free to experiment with your iPad. Play around with your apps, move them around the screen, and practice downloading files. Like learning any new skill, you’re going to make mistakes initially, so embrace that fact, toy around with different features, and rest assured that you can always restore your iPad to its original settings no matter how badly you may accidentally foul it up.
Don’t be shy about using your iPad. At the worst, you’ll just lose time restoring or resetting your iPad. But at best, you’ll gain more confidence using your iPad and may just discover a unique feature that you might not have found if you hadn’t thrown caution aside and toyed with your iPad just to see what it could do.