iPad died and then came back to life, should I be concerned?

[brig2221]

I was using my iPad earlier this evening on a FaceTime chat with my sister. I remember the battery had 70+% juice left. I put the smart cover on it when I was done, thus putting it to sleep, and placed it on my desk.

My wife just came into the office and sniped the iPad to play Angry Birds. She walks all the way the other side of the house into our bedroom and calls me from her cellphone asking how to turn the iPad on.

I told her it should have come on the second she took the smartcover off. I walk in to find a dead iPad. No matter how many times I pressed the home button or the power button at the top, I couldn't get the iPad to do anything, it was dead. I even plugged it in thinking possibly something could have happened to the battery, nothing.

Just on sheer luck, I decided to hold down the power button AND the home button for some time. After about 10 seconds or so of doing this, the iPad turns on, but not fully, I get a small apple icon on the middle of the screen and it takes another 2 minutes to fully boot up. Once it finally fully booted it up, it showed 76% on the battery.

The iPad is fully functional and working now. A few questions, what the hell happened? Second, should I be concerned that I may somehow have a defective unit?

 

[Blarneystone]

I've had this happen with various iPhones. Just keep it in the back of your mind. It's probably just a fluke.

 

[mjr1]

Just got my iPad last night and had the same exact thing happen when I tried to turn it on this morning -- battery life had been in the high 80s and was at 75% when it came back to life. Hope this doesn't happen again.

 

[marlinmike]

My iPad 2 has done that a couple of times. Something is telling me it is locking up due to too many apps running (you know "multi-tasking" ) It's amazing to see just how many apps are running in the background. You can see at any time by "double clicking" on the Home button.

By rebooting (by holding the home and power button) you are obviously resetting all of your background applications.

Wish it had a "task killer" app but I haven't found one yet.

 

[Blarneystone]

My iPad 2 has done that a couple of times. Something is telling me it is locking up due to too many apps running (you know "multi-tasking" ) It's amazing to see just how many apps are running in the background. You can see at any time by "double clicking" on the Home button.

By rebooting (by holding the home and power button) you are obviously resetting all of your background applications.

Wish it had a "task killer" app but I haven't found one yet.

You already have one. Double tap home button. Press and hold an app icon. When the X appears, click it to close the app.

 

[brig2221]

You already have one. Double tap home button. Press and hold an app icon. When the X appears, click it to close the app.

I followed your instructions and found that I had every app I have ever used running in the background. The question begs to be asked, why was every app I haver ever opened sitting running in the background? The only way I know how to get out of an app is to hit the home button. Are you saying that by doing that, I am essentially relegating them to run in the background until I manually close them all as you described above?

 

[NYR99]

There is NO NEED to actually quit an app like this. I have NEVER killed an app and I have an iPad and have had every iPhone. These apps are using negligible amounts of system resources. The only apps that use systems resources are apps like Pandora, iPod, etc. (and only when your actually playing music).

I went to an AT&T store the other day and a lady had just got an iPhone 4. The AT&T rep was showing her how to use her iPhone and proceeded to tell her that she has to double click the home button and manually quit every app to save battery life and system resources. It took about all of my willpower to not go over there and tell the lady and the rep that this is absolutely not necessary.

 

[Night Spring]

I followed your instructions and found that I had every app I have ever used running in the background. The question begs to be asked, why was every app I haver ever opened sitting running in the background? The only way I know how to get out of an app is to hit the home button. Are you saying that by doing that, I am essentially relegating them to run in the background until I manually close them all as you described above?

No, they aren't ALL running in the background. That bar is more of a "recently opened apps" list. Some apps do stay running in the background indefinitely, mostly music apps like Pandora and other internet radio apps. Some apps stay open for a limited time -- for instance, the Zite app stays open at the last article I was reading if I exit the app and come back to it shortly afterwards, but if I come back to it after a longer time, it reloads to its opening page. And other apps shut down immediately when you press the home button. But any app you open will remain in that bar until you manually close them out. And Apple hasn't provided a way to differentiate between which apps are actually running and which ones aren't.

 

[Blarneystone]

There is NO NEED to actually quit an app like this. I have NEVER killed an app and I have an iPad and have had every iPhone.

I disagree it depends on what apps you are running. If you are running stuff like pocket cloud and docs to go at the same time you can get into a low memory situation. I've seen this almost weekly.