All iPads Advice Request: Replacing parent's 2 laptops with 1 iPad

[kbutler84]

My parents have expressed interest in dumping their two aging laptops in favor of a new iPad. For their needs, this would be perfectly fine. All they need to be able to do is pay bills, web browse, email, and facetime. However, they want to be able to transfer all their music and pictures from their two laptops to the new iPad. While this won't be a terrible amount, size wise, I am just curious about the best way to go about doing so. Should I backup all media from one laptop and load to the other and then sync the new iPad to one of the laptops initially just to transfer the media? And then, syncing to the laptop won't be necessary afterwards?

Also, considering they will be exclusively using the iPad, they are aware they will likely need to upgrade their iCloud storage if they wish to have everything backed up. Other than these things, is there anything else I'm missing? I thought about iTunes Match, but their music library is small as it is, so the space they would save by having it in iCloud would really not be of much benefit.

 

[Night Spring]

Combining all the media onto one computer, then syncing them to the iPad sounds like the right way to get them onto the iPad.

However, an iPad should never hold the only copy of your media. Your parents should hang on to at least one of their laptops, or find another solution for backing up their media.

Also, iCloud backups are smaller than most people think, since it only includes system data and app data. Media synced from a computer and space taken up by the apps themselves are not included in the backup size. Currently, I have two iPads and an iPhone backed up to iCloud, and the backup adds up to only 2.5 GB, just half of the 5 GB free space you get with iCloud.

The space hog in backups is photos, but I back them up to my computer through iCloud photo sharing and turn off photo backups to iCloud.

A possibility to keep in mind is that your parents might like the iPad so much that they might each want their own device. Happened to my Aunt and Uncle. I gave them an iPad 2 after I upgraded to iPad 3 so they could FaceTime with their grandkids, and before a month was over they'd bought another one -- an iPad 3, because my Uncle wanted his own!

 

[kbutler84]

However, an iPad should never hold the only copy of your media. Your parents should hang on to at least one of their laptops, or find another solution for backing up their media.

I completely agree. That's why I'm pushing for them to get a refurb base model mac mini as well. Both laptops need to be replaced badly (they even agree) before they go out and they have nothing.

But, if they decide not to go that route, what solution is there for people that have iPads full of media, but do not have a computer to backup to? What do they do?

 

[Night Spring]

But, if they decide not to go that route, what solution is there for people that have iPads full of media, but do not have a computer to backup to? What do they do?

Good question, to which I don't have a good answer. The day someone comes up with a good solution, traditional computers will become obsolete for people like your parents and my aunt and uncle.

For now, it's iTunes Match for music, online storage service like Dropbox or Flickr for photos, I guess. You can save the media onto a local hard drive, but if something happens to the iPad or they decide to upgrade to a new model, you need a computer to load the media onto the new device.

 

[g35]

I completely agree. That's why I'm pushing for them to get a refurb base model mac mini as well. Both laptops need to be replaced badly (they even agree) before they go out and they have nothing.

But, if they decide not to go that route, what solution is there for people that have iPads full of media, but do not have a computer to backup to? What do they do?

I think you have to have a physical backup somewhere. On a son or daughters computer even. If they never need to acquire more pics or music, they and you can just leave the backup in a corner of your hard drive and only need to access it in case of emergency eg. iPad breaks

Sync that with Dropbox and you can access it from the iPad anytime but they probably won't need to, that's just a perk.