How to Migrate Data, Apps, and Settings to Apple’s 8th Gen iPad or New iPad Air

Apple announced the new 10.9-inch full-screen iPad Air in five different finishes and the 10.2-inch iPad in three different finishes at its September 2020 event. The new models just don’t look good. The iPad Air version shown above features Apple’s new Bionic A14 CPUs, Liquid Retina displays, and Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard support. The 10.2-inch iPad features faster A12 Bionic motors and compatibility with Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard. If you buy one of these new tablets from Apple, whether for design or performance reasons, below are the steps to seamlessly migrate data and settings from an older model to one of the newer devices.

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Before cloud services became popular, migrating files, content, settings, and other information from one tablet to another proved challenging. Apple’s iCloud service makes the process of migrating your settings from an old iPad to one of the new models announced this week much easier.

Begin the migration process by confirming that your old iPad is set to complete an iCloud backup. As reviewed in a recent TechRepublic Premium download describing proper and safe migrations to a new iPad, iPhone, or Mac, make sure that new apps and recently created content such as documents, photos, videos, spreadsheets, and similar material , have backed up iCloud. It doesn’t hurt to make a list of the apps you want to migrate to the new device as well, just to make sure no programs get overlooked.

Confirm that apps, keychain information, email, contacts, calendars, notes, messages, and other information are backed up by checking the iCloud settings on the old iPad. To do so, open Settings, tap your Apple ID, tap iCloud, and confirm that the iCloud Drive and iCloud Backup option buttons are enabled. Also, confirm that each app’s radio button is enabled for each app that you want to back up to iCloud and migrate to the new iPad. Review the backup settings displayed for each application and make any necessary adjustments (Figure A).

Figure a

Remember iPads need to be connected to Wi-Fi and a power charger to support any recent changes or new items. Force a backup by tapping iCloud Backup within Applications using the iCloud section and tapping Backup Now. Check your storage allocation (a status bar at the top of the iCloud window shows the amount of free space remaining) to avoid running out of storage space, which could prevent a backup from completing successfully.

iCloud presents the best and easiest method of migrating data to one of the new iPads – the alternative of manually installing and configuring apps and settings on the new device, not to mention manual email account setup, may be a factor. decisive. Feel free to purchase additional storage space if required. You can use the cloud storage account to back up everything from program data to Apple Watch backups, photos, and videos.

After confirming that all the data and settings on your old iPad are safely stored in iCloud, you can turn on the new iPad. Associate the new iPad with your iCloud account to begin the process of installing the programs, configuration information, and files that were backed up to the new device.

Note: Depending on the amount of data backed up to your iCloud account and the quality of your internet connection, the migration might take a few hours to complete.

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