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Do you shut down your iPads during the night?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 15 4.8%
  • No.

    Votes: 296 95.2%

  • Total voters
    311
I'd like to know who voted yes - and purely out of curiosity, why.

I have super long days sometimes, and I don't need it on if I'm not going to be using it for a over a day or so. But when I do need to use it, (and it's mostly for work then) I just want the most time I can get with it, when I need it.

I manage 2 buildings, so different needs and different times, make that my decision to power down my iPad.-(tadá!);)

PS, if I'm home and I know I'm going to need it in the immediate future, I will turn it on, and leave it to when I need to jump into something at a moments notice.
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Rebooting when one experiences these issues is one thing. It doesn't justify shutting down your iPad every night and turning it on in the morning.

Doing this also masks the real issue: The solution isn't to just shut down your device every night, or even just rebooting when there's a problem. Those are just bandaids. The true solution is to find the app causing the issue, and either getting a patched version that fixes the problem, or finding an alternative app that does a better job at resource management.



This is a valid question. iOS is a mobile device OS, intended for long run times and use on limited resources. For the most part, save some memory management inefficiencies on Safari (which can be dealt with by quitting the app from time to time, if you're really having trouble), it's intended to be operational for days, weeks, months.




And this is why people get bad tech support: issues of older technology are conflated with current tech, some old, outdated truths are mixed in with just plain bad advice, and then you get people who think they know it all, when they really don't.

Here's the truth: It IS correct that shut downs and startups don't induce mechanical wear. That was the case on older desktop computers with spinning disk drives. But current disk drive tech has largely resolved this, and iOS devices (and pretty much every other smartphone and tablet) don't use hard disk drives at all. They use NAND Flash, which for all intents and purposes have no moving parts. So, starting up and shutting down an iPhone doesn't wear out the components mechanically.

The startup and shutdown process DOES, however, use power. Whether it uses more power than leaving it on at night in sleep mode is debatable. Given that average annual cost to power an iPad is $1.36, it's probably safe to say that shutting down and powering up your iPad every night isn't really saving you much power or money.

The notion of regular reboots and shutdown/restarting to keep your computer fresh is a holdover from the days when Windows 95 and Windows 98 were the dominant operating systems. Win95/98 had notoriously bad memory management and their power management was deeply flawed and unreliable. Back in the late 1990s, yes, it made sense to shut down your computer when not in use because your system WOULD be more stable when fresh. But that pretty much went away when Windows XP came out, and never really has been an issue on *NIX-derived operating systems, of which iOS is one.




Washers, dryers and dishwashers are different devices. They use hundreds, sometimes thousands of times more electricity than an iPad ever will. Washers, dryers and dishwashers also don't have a low power sleep mode state; they're either on or off. You also HAVE to turn off these devices from time to time if you want them to do their jobs, since they need to be loaded and unloaded. Most importantly, there is no point to keeping a dishwasher, washer or dryer on all the time when there's nothing to wash or dry.

By contrast: an iPad has a low power mode, uses way less power even when fully on, and there IS useful work being done when an iPad is in sleep mode: e-mail fetching, app updates, iCloud backups, and notification receipt.



Depends on the TV. Newer smart TVs have a lower power sleep mode and have apps that update in the background... in such cases it makes sense, just like an iPad, to keep it powered.

I think a more appropriate question is: Do you UNPLUG your DVR when you're not watching TV? Or how about: if you have a landline phone, do you unplug that at night?



Great for you. Though the reality is, it's possible to shut off an iPad every night and still have the battery wear out in less than a year. What matters are battery cycles and environmental conditions. If one really taxes the CPU and resources of an iPad during the day, they could expend more load cycles on a battery than the average, even if they shut down fully at night. At the same time, a light user could maintain good battery health over time, even if they keep their iPad powered on 24/7.

Also, you must've had one heck of a fluke battery, as lithium polymer and lithium ion batteries do degrade with age, regardless of use pattern. Even with minimal load cycles, 90% capacity over 4 years is largely unheard of.




You're right. But there's no help in doing it, either. And you're interfering with background processes which could be done efficiently overnight while plugged in, that must now be done manually by the user when on battery and in use... which uses more battery.



No, there's not much to imagine here, unless you're imagining fantasy.


TL;DR: If it really helps you sleep better at night to shut down your iPad every night, go right ahead. But the reality is, it's truly no better or worse than leaving it on all the time.

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Nope, because it doesn't matter either way. Though, it goes without saying that an iPhone is completely useless when turned off (since you know, it's supposed to receive calls and text messages and stuff). And the iPad's OS is largely modeled after the phone.


Perfect! Agreed with everything stated. Yes, I do shut mine down. I gave my reasons.:)
 
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Are you sure it will charge in that condition? I don't think it's supposed to be charged that way....

Of course it charges. It's perfectly fine to charge one of these batteries of a device that is powered off. The device powers on when you plug it in, at least in part, because then if the power button was broken you'd never be able to turn on the device.
 
Shutting it down every night seems obsessive and completely unnecessary.

That's like wiping the iPad screen every time after you touch it.

lol
 
Smartphones and tablets really don't use much every while sleeping unless there is something wrong. The greatest drain comes from the screen,which is turned off.
 
I've gotten so used to turning off my iPad 3 due to low power charging that I turned off my air 2 the first night I got it. I haven't done it since though.
 
Agree. This is a big difference I notice from my Nexus 7 Android tablet. It seems like the iPad can go for weeks in stand-by mode, but the Nexus 7 is dead after a couple of days if I don't power it down.

exactly my experience.

never turn it off. otherwise i would never use it, since the macbook starts up alot faster..
 
Never. I charged mine overnight to 100%
I checked just now, about 12 hours later it is still got 100%. Why would I shut it down?
I have been busy today installing a new back door among other things for my wife and have not touched the iPad. But when I need it I want it right then.
 
My wife and I shutdown the iPad every night or if we know we're leaving for a few days. It only takes minutes (less) to boot up and it absolutely helps the battery over the life of any device. We usually charge it when it gets between 15-20% battery.
 
I don't shut down any of my Apple devices unless I know I won't be using them for a week or more. I don't think Apple designs their products for them to be shut down constantly.
 
My wife and I shutdown the iPad every night or if we know we're leaving for a few days. It only takes minutes (less) to boot up and it absolutely helps the battery over the life of any device. We usually charge it when it gets between 15-20% battery.

So ridiculous.

If you preserve an extra one percent of the battery by shutting it down every night (700 times) for two years, is that worth it? Have at it.

I could have my car washed daily and it would help preserve the paint, but if I wash it once a month instead is it really going to look worse after three years? You guys are in the 5%, but know so much better than everyone else.
 
Working in tech support, I've come to discover that the people who never reboot their devices or better yet - never shut off their devices - are always the ones to complain about the following:

Slowness
Freezing
Wifi issues
Battery life

Always.

Ignoring your extreme generalization, your observation is self-evident. Assuming the poll here even remotely represents the average user, virtually no one powers off their device. If no one is powering off their device, then of course everyone with problems will be someone who doesn't power off their device!
 
I just let it sleep so it dreams, just like myself which I don't shut down. Easier to wake up that way. :)
 
I never shut down any of my devices (iPad, iPhone, MacBook) unless I'm having a problem with them (lag, crashes, etc).
 
Where in the world did I say I knew better than everyone else? I shared what I did as per the OP had asked... Why are you so combative?

It's inferred when you explain your reason for shutting it down despite 95% disagree with you and explain why. Just pointing out it your rationale makes no sense and is silly.
 
Nope.

If I had problems, I restarted my iPod Touch. I never bothered to shut it down if I knew I wouldn't use it for a while. I don't even shut down my notebook overnight anymore. Sleep uses so little power.

I intend to do the same with my new iPad.
 
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