Tips: turn off your iPad(2) regularly

[GoSUV]

I discovered this tip today. It applies to my 16GB 3G iPad2, but don't know if this also applies to other generations also. Maybe someone can find out and supplement the info.

Like many users, I regularly upload music, movies and other media to the iPad for consumption, but have found that the memory usage on it has been eaten up by a category called "Others", in addition to your music, movies, apps and pictures etc. At one point, the "Others" usage has slowly gone up to more than 6GB! I deleted all of the movies and music from the iPad but still more than 6GB is used by "Others", and as you know, for a 16GB iPad, 6GB is a lot of space for "Others" which I have absolutely no knowledge of whatsoever. I hardly play any games on it so it couldn't have been some huge saved game data. By going into "Settings > Usage" confirms I haven't been using a lot of space associated with my various apps...

So where has all my space gone? I tried resync'ing after resync'ing and still couldn't get the "Others" space back. I am reluctant to reset everything because I hate to lose the settings I carefully configured. So I just decided to turn it off by holding the sleep button, let it power off and turn it back on again. Voila. Upon syncing with iTunes all the "Others" consumed space is now freed and I can upload more movies again. I can only guess that the "Others" space might be some temporary cache data which gets cleaned up by power cycling, but won't if you just leave it go to sleep nor by syncing with iTunes.

 

[zurichuk]

I discovered this tip today. It applies to my 16GB 3G iPad2, but don't know if this also applies to other generations also. Maybe someone can find out and supplement the info.

Like many users, I regularly upload music, movies and other media to the iPad for consumption, but have found that the memory usage on it has been eaten up by a category called "Others", in addition to your music, movies, apps and pictures etc. At one point, the "Others" usage has slowly gone up to more than 6GB! I deleted all of the movies and music from the iPad but still more than 6GB is used by "Others", and as you know, for a 16GB iPad, 6GB is a lot of space for "Others" which I have absolutely no knowledge of whatsoever. I hardly play any games on it so it couldn't have been some huge saved game data. By going into "Settings > Usage" confirms I haven't been using a lot of space associated with my various apps...

So where has all my space gone? I tried resync'ing after resync'ing and still couldn't get the "Others" space back. I am reluctant to reset everything because I hate to lose the settings I carefully configured. So I just decided to turn it off by holding the sleep button, let it power off and turn it back on again. Voila. Upon syncing with iTunes all the "Others" consumed space is now freed and I can upload more movies again. I can only guess that the "Others" space might be some temporary cache data which gets cleaned up by power cycling, but won't if you just leave it go to sleep nor by syncing with iTunes.

I noticed that when I delete a 2Gb movie that I have finished watching, it doesn't necessarily free up the space until I close the 'Videos' icon manually,have you also tried closing down all the apps?

 

[Night Spring]

Goos idea! And I'm sure this works for all generations of iPads, as well as iPhones and iPod touches. I wouldn't, however, have titled this thread "turn off your iPad *regularly*" -- there's no need to do it regularly, just when you notice an excessive buildup of Other. Some people never have that happen, so they never have to do it.

 

[GoSUV]

I noticed that when I delete a 2Gb movie that I have finished watching, it doesn't necessarily free up the space until I close the 'Videos' icon manually,have you also tried closing down all the apps?

I am sure I have closed down the Video icon. But the "others" category was reported by iTunes space gauge at the bottom, even I unchecked and unsync the video from the iPad, the "others" space doesn't go down. I don't know if this is a bug or something. Never notice this with my iPhone4S and iPod Touch 2G.

 

[Rodster]

I would never suggest someone turn off their iPad regularly but I do. If i'm not going to use it for an extended amount of time I just turn it off. They boot up real quick anyway.

I find the battery doesn't drain as much shut down. I purposely left my iPad 3 turned off for 5 days and when I turned it on it was still at 100%. If I just close the lid it will drain the battery much quicker especially if Wifi is still on.

 

[bjpad2]

I only use mine 3 or 4 hours a day. If I turn it off when not in use the battery lasts a long time. If I don't turn it off the battery is sucked dry very fast.

There has always been a debate among computer users as to should you turn your computer off when not used or leave it on all the time. My computer supplier says most of his service calls are to people that turn their computers off frequently. I'm not sure that is scientific proof but I decided for my own use I will turn the computer on when I need it, and if I might need it later in the day I will leave it on. When I know I am through for the day I will turn it off.

For awhile I left my home computer on 24/7 but I found that monitors failed much faster even if powersaving features were enabled, and also fans and hard drives would fail faster. I've had hard drives make awful bearing noises if I let them run all the time. OTOH I leave my work computer on 24/7 without problems but I will replace that computer after it is 3 or so years old.

 

[GoSUV]

The regular turning off isn't just for saving battery power - well it is a welcome "side effect" anyway - but to workaround a bug I believe.

I tested again today, and found that I don't even have to load and unload videos a lot of times. I just have to load and unload a lot of videos, watch them, then either uncheck them when I sync the iPad with iTunes, or delete them right from the iPad, then the "Others" category of space usage will roughly occupy the combined sizes of my previous videos. If you load 4GB of videos into the iPad, then later remove them, the "Others" category will roughly suddenly occupy 4GB of space. Of course your videos/movies usage will go down but I guess that doesn't help. 4GB of wasted space is a lot for a 16GB iPad.

Once I turn off and on the iPad, the next time I sync with iTunes and try to load new video, the "Others" category will drop back to minimal usage. So that's why I believe this is a bug and the wasted space is likely some video caching data that the system ought to clean up by itself.