How to prepare your iPhone or iPad for iOS 10

iOS-10-icon

iOS 10 releases to the public on September 13th and with that in mind, you’ve got less than two days to prepare your devices before you can download the latest and greatest iOS firmware release from Apple.

In this piece, we’ll talk about how you can properly prepare your devices for installing iOS 10 so the installation goes as smoothly as possible.

Obviously, if you’re jailbroken and you intend to stay jailbroken, then you should probably just disregard this post because upgrading to iOS 10 will cost you your jailbreak.

On the other hand, if you’re not jailbroken and don’t intend to jailbreak in the near future, then you should probably consider following the steps we’re about to talk about.

1. Make sure you have a compatible device

iOS 10 adds a ton of new features to Apple’s mobile operating system, but you’ll only get to use them if you can install it on your device.

As always, Apple limits the devices that iOS 10 can be installed on because of performance or usability reasons. Before using your time to download the software update from Apple, make sure you have a compatible device.

Those include:

  • iPhone 7
  • iPhone 7 Plus
  • iPhone 6s
  • iPhone 6s Plus
  • iPhone 6
  • iPhone 6 Plus
  • iPhone SE
  • iPhone 5s
  • iPhone 5c
  • iPhone 5
  • iPad Pro 12.9-inch
  • iPad Pro 9.7-inch
  • iPad Air 2
  • iPad Air
  • iPad 4th generation
  • iPad mini 4
  • iPad mini 3
  • iPad mini 2
  • iPod touch 6th generation

If you don’t have any of the devices listed above, then you won’t be able to install iOS 10 (sorry!).

2. Back up your device

Usually, software updates go pretty smoothly when you download them from Apple and attempt to install them, but at times, bugs in the download or glitches in the install process can leave you with having to restore in iTunes and losing all of your data.

Before all major upgrades, you should back up your device, either through iTunes or via iCloud. Doing this through iTunes might be faster if you have a slower internet connection.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a computer to do this with, you can use iCloud to back up your data, and if anything goes wrong, it’s easy to just restore from that backup and migrate all of your personal data and settings back to your device.

3. Know your Apple ID login details

Hey, it happens. People forget their login details all the time.

With Touch ID making App Store purchasing super quick and easy, you probably don’t enter your Apple ID password all that much anymore and it may have slipped your mind since the last time you had to use it.

It’s a good idea to make sure you know your Apple ID login credentials because you’re going to need them to set up and activate your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad after installing iOS 10.

If you don’t know it, you’ll be spending additional time sending a password recovery email to yourself to go through the steps of recovering a forgotten password to log into your account, so do yourself a favor and save yourself the frustration. Make sure you know your details ahead of time.

4. Get in range of a Wi-Fi network

If you want to download iOS 10, you will need a Wi-Fi connection because unfortunately Apple’s iOS devices don’t allow OTA downloads over cellular. You can’t even download iOS 10 on your Mac without a Wi-Fi connection.

Not everyone is going to be in range of a Wi-Fi network when iOS 10 drops. Some people might be at work, out camping, or perhaps just out and about where public Wi-Fi networks don’t exist.

Plan ahead of time to make sure you’re going to be in range of a Wi-Fi network so that you can download iOS 10 on launch day.

5. Be prepared for delays

You can bet everyone’s going to be slamming Apple’s download servers at exactly the same time. As soon as the announcement that iOS 10 has been released makes it to the public, everyone’s going to be infatuated with having the latest and greatest and will rush to download the update.

Because servers can only handle so much bandwidth at a time, you can expect delays, download errors, or even slow downloads. You might want to plan your day ahead of time so that slow downloads don’t ruin any plans you might have made.

If you’ve gone through this checklist, then you’re probably in good shape to download and install iOS 10 this week.

Are you excited to make the upgrade? Share in the comments below!