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iPad1 slow down after iOS5 update: FIX

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Marco Mornati
Author
Marco Mornati
I build, self-host and sometimes break software in production — writing about AI tooling, coding agents and infrastructure.

After I updated my iPad1 (I know it’s not the latest apple device, but I’m not an apple fanatic :)) to iOS5, and later to iOS 5.0.1, I noticed that was really slow in the normal usage and applications crashed almost once every hour. At the end I had an iPad but it wasn’t a pleasure to use it like the past.

The Problem
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After some tests, I started looking for something to fix these problems, knowing that Apple doesn’t allow the downgrade to old versions.

The Fix
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The solution I found, that seems to work after some days of tests, is to reset all settings, going to:

settings -> general -> reset -> reset all settings (maybe in English the menu names are not exactly these, but my iPad is in Italian :P)

With this reset you don’t lose your data (applications, photos, musics, mails, …) but it just restores the iPad settings to factory default. This means you have to re-enter your wifi key, you have to select your backgrounds but nothing more.

Important
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An important thing is to prevent restore of these settings from a backup. In fact, after restart, iPad asks you to enter some settings like the first time you start it up: language, location, etc… And then it will ask you if you’d like to restore the device using iCloud or iTunes. Well… Here you have to say NO ;)

Results
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Right now, my iPad works like with the previous iOS version: not slow, no apps crashes… At the end I have my iPad back.

Hope this could help someone else.