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The tedious chore of setting up a new iPad

profmjh

profmjh

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 7, 2015
1,734
1,800
UK
So my new iPad Pro arrived. Woot. But it doesn’t have iOS 11 pre-installed. So the already long and tedious process of setting it up is made twice as bad. What’s the betting it won’t let me restore from a back-up when it’s finally finished installing because it skipped that step to install the new OS. Which means I’ll have to start all over again.

Over half an hour wasted so far. “It just works.” Yeah. Right.
 
profmatt said:
So my new iPad Pro arrived. Woot. But it doesn’t have iOS 11 pre-installed. So the already long and tedious process of setting it up is made twice as bad. What’s the betting it won’t let me restore from a back-up when it’s finally finished installing because it skipped that step to install the new OS. Which means I’ll have to start all over again.

Over half an hour wasted so far. “It just works.” Yeah. Right.
Click to expand...
When I purchased my iPP10.5 it came with the current iOS. We just updated to iOS five or six days ago. It would seem you purchased one right before the GM started pushing out to the newly built devices. It happens at least once a year.

Not sure why you are installing anything from backup. I get new iPad / iPhone / Watch ect as soon as they come out ( part of my job ). Here's what I do.
Turn off backup on all of my iDevices.
Turn on new 'iPad'
Add my WiFi
Setup New Device
Enter my iCloud username and password.

Everything comes back! Notes, pictures, apps ( I do need to download them again from purchased ), contacts, ect. Could not be simpler.
 
Didn't have a problem with my Pro...

... updated it to iOS 11... started as a fresh iPad... reinstalled all my apps... then synced with the cloud to download all my photos/videos.

90 minutes maybe?
 
RedTomato said:
I think I'm missing something. Why can't you just update the new ipad to ios 11 out of the box, *then* go through the restore process?
Click to expand...

TravisPNW said:
Didn't have a problem with my Pro...

... updated it to iOS 11... started as a fresh iPad... reinstalled all my apps... then synced with the cloud to download all my photos/videos.

90 minutes maybe?
Click to expand...


Yeah I don't think even starting from scratch and re-provisioning accounts takes all that much time.

Is it 5 min? No, but seems like the OP is implying hours and hours and hours of setup.
 
I feel your pain. Loading up apps and such on any new device is a PITA — iPad is no exception. The fact you bought yours right when iOS 11 shipped exacerbates the agony but we all have to go through that update.
 
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Well, OK, I was being whiny, but I started the thread to give me something to do while I was waiting for it all. To be fair, once iOS 11 installed, I was able to proceed directly to setting up the iPad from a back-up. With previous iPads and iOS I have had to then erase all contents and settings and start all over again.

Uploading my photo library took many hours, but it turned out it had paused to save battery life without telling me.

But that was all hours ago. I’m loving the new iPad (Pro 10.5) — in particular the Apple Pencil is so much better than it was on my old iPad Pro (9.7). There is no delay at all. It really is like writing directly on to the screen.
 
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profmatt said:
Well, OK, I was being whiny, but I started the thread to give me something to do while I was waiting for it all. To be fair, once iOS 11 installed, I was able to proceed directly to setting up the iPad from a back-up. With previous iPads and iOS I have had to then erase all contents and settings and start all over again.

Uploading my photo library took many hours, but it turned out it had paused to save battery life without telling me.

But that was all hours ago. I’m loving the new iPad (Pro 10.5) — in particular the Apple Pencil is so much better than it was on my old iPad Pro (9.7). There is no delay at all. It really is like writing directly on to the screen.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you need a crying towel. Maybe a pacifier will also help.
 
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So basically: “I had to make an effort to do something that benefits me”

Gotcha bud
 
I've never thought it was tedious, it was actually enjoyable as it increased the anticipation of using it. Of course I opted to set it up as new, because my old iPad was just that old. I figured I wanted to start off fresh
 
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I just got a 10.5 pro yesterday. Wasn’t on iOS 11. I wish it was, but it wasn’t a big deal. Set up iPad as new (like I do for all my devices), then updated as soon as setup was done. All was and is well.
 
watergate528 said:
Sounds like you need a crying towel. Maybe a pacifier will also help.
Click to expand...


Little harsh maybe?

I do find that Photo's takes For-FREAKING-Ever to finally synch up, but that's because I insist on being lazy myself and just keep pretty much every photo I've ever taken on any Apple device (and usually multiples of each) in my library. There's plenty of fixes for the length of time it takes to synch them up, but that's on me more than Apple.

Otherwise, I think the OP has just hit the snag of having the misfortune of buying an iPad that shipped out during the annual iOS upgrade window. It happens.

Compared to swapping, say, a Windows laptop out for a new one.....I've no concerns about the upgrade time for iOS devices. OS X is actually pretty painless as well, assuming you iCloud or Dropbox for your personal files. I'd say ease-of-upgrade is actually an Apple design plus, not a minus.
 
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profmatt said:
So my new iPad Pro arrived. Woot. But it doesn’t have iOS 11 pre-installed. So the already long and tedious process of setting it up is made twice as bad. What’s the betting it won’t let me restore from a back-up when it’s finally finished installing because it skipped that step to install the new OS. Which means I’ll have to start all over again.

Over half an hour wasted so far. “It just works.” Yeah. Right.
Click to expand...
You consider it long and tedious to update an iPad to iOS 11, then restore the backup? Wow. It that must be nice....
 
I don't understand. I bought a Pro a few days ago. It wasn't on iOS 11 but didn't take long to update. Not seeing the issue here. They aren't going to preload the things from factory with beta software now are they?

I like the fact that Apple releases updates to their tablets. If this was Android, I'd be staring glumly at the static version number in the settings menu for months on end, if it even gets any update at all.

I like regular updates. Keep them coming Apple, please!
 
I'm glad the OP's initial impression turned around as the process proceeded.

It wasn't all that long ago that if your new iPhone/iPad had an older version of iOS than the backup, you'd run into a roadblock - "can't restore from the backup." You'd have to figure out that you'd have to proceed with an, "as a new device" setup, upgrade iOS, erase all content and settings, then setup again using the backup.

iOS 11 has added a new quick setup option, but even under iOS 10, the setup would detect the problem with the newer-version backup and offer to update iOS prior to proceeding with the setup. This saves a fair amount of wasted steps. Of course, if you've never encountered that installation option before, you might not know how it will play out.
 
MandiMac said:
Why? Sounds like an unnecessary step to me.
Click to expand...
Backup uses iCloud storage = money and time on network. Both of which are far more unnecessary than turning it off.

I'm all about backups, but I already have all my documents, notes, pictures, music, movies, ect stored in the cloud. I truly do not need another backup stored to the cloud.
 
ApfelKuchen said:
I'm glad the OP's initial impression turned around as the process proceeded.

It wasn't all that long ago that if your new iPhone/iPad had an older version of iOS than the backup, you'd run into a roadblock - "can't restore from the backup." You'd have to figure out that you'd have to proceed with an, "as a new device" setup, upgrade iOS, erase all content and settings, then setup again using the backup.

iOS 11 has added a new quick setup option, but even under iOS 10, the setup would detect the problem with the newer-version backup and offer to update iOS prior to proceeding with the setup. This saves a fair amount of wasted steps. Of course, if you've never encountered that installation option before, you might not know how it will play out.
Click to expand...
Interesting. While I do have iCloud backup enabled, I always do local iTunes backup/restore when I get new devices so I've never had an issue when trying to restore from different iOS versions.

Still, I find restore from iTunes and iCloud is very easy comparatively speaking. I remember I used to spend an entire weekend installing and setting up Windows, device drivers and all my programs just right and that's with my data centrally stored on a local file server.
 
We feel your pain, we really do. It’s sort of an Apocalypse Now moment. "Just works" should guarantee set-up by mindreading.
 
960design said:
Backup uses iCloud storage = money and time on network. Both of which are far more unnecessary than turning it off.

I'm all about backups, but I already have all my documents, notes, pictures, music, movies, ect stored in the cloud. I truly do not need another backup stored to the cloud.
Click to expand...
Ah, okay, gotcha. I‘m more the convenience guy and iCloud/Time Machine are my only backups. Saved my ass more than once.
 
I too actually kind of enjoy setting up a new "clean" iPad. Did if with my new 12.9 IPP. I have done it so many times with phones, computers, iPads, I am just used to it and it helps me to re-learn things I have forgotten. It gets easier...
 
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