How to Prepare Your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch for iOS 8

How to Prepare Your iPhone/iPad for iOS 8

[Last Updated on Sep. 13, 2016]

Apple has released the latest iOS version – iOS 10, if you are working with an iPhone 5 later, iPad 4 or iPad mini 2 latter, or iPod touch 6 (check iOS 10 Supported Devices), and then make full preparation for iOS 10 update.

iOS 8, the 8th major release of the iOS mobile operating system for iPhone iPad, and iPod touch, was released to the public on 17 September, 2014. Although most iDevice users are working with iOS 9 and looking forward to upgrade to iOS 10, for those whose iPhone iPad is working with iOS 7, they need to upgrade to iOS 8 and iOS 9 firstly before upgrading to iOS 10. If you are one of them, follow us to make preparation for iOS 8 and make a smooth upgrade:

1. Check Compatibility

Before anything else, you need to ensure your iDevice is able to run iOS 8. Although Apple supports as many devices as it can, some older devices will not be able to run iOS 8. Apple has a list of iOS 8 supported devices on its websites, but for ease we place here:

iOS 8 Supportable Devices List

iOS 8 Supportable Devices List

If your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch isn't on the list above, it means your device won't be able to run iOS 8, and you will miss out some of the latest and greatest features. While this also can be a good excuse to update to the newest hardware, the iPhone 6 looks pretty awesome anyway, doesn't it?

2. Free Up Space on Your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch

common ios 8 upgrade problems and solutions

If you have checked update for iOS 8 on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you must have found that over-the-air iOS 8 update package is about 1.1 GB and requires you to have at least 5.8 GB of free space on your device. Do you have more than 5.8 GB free space on your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch? In order to update your device to iOS 8, maybe most of you are struck in the situation like this:

Image Credit: Twitter Users @becausenash and @joelcifer

If you are working with a 8 GB iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you will realize how much sacrifice you made for installing iOS 8, and you will desperately need to free up space on your iDevices before doing any update. To help you make the transition from iOS 7 to iOS 8 smoothly, we offer you 5 tips to spare enough free space on your device. Let's talk about them one by one.

1) Delete Unwanted Apps

Check your device and see if some apps are seldom used, and then uninstall them with the easiest way: Long press on the app you want to delete on the Home screen until it wobbles then click the cross that appears in the corner of the icon, and then go through all of your folders and delete anything you no longer user or need.

Remove Junk Files with iMobie PhoneClean

Remove Junk Files with iMobie PhoneClean

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2) Remove Junk Files

Normally, the longer you use your device, the more junk files stores there, and the slower your device becomes. There are many junk files, like log files, photo and video cache, iTunes sync cache, download temp file, app cache, app cookies, and app tem files. You know that it is difficult to remove all of them manually, so we offer a one-stop iOS cleaner – iMobie PhoneClean, which helps you remove junk files from iPhone, iPad and iPod touch with one click.

Delete Messages and Attachment with PhoneClean

Delete Messages and Attachment with PhoneClean

3) Delete Messages, Especially the Attachments

You know that messages normally take much space on your device, especially if you text a lot regularly or often receive some messages with large attachments. Therefore, at this moment you can remove these unwanted messages and attachments to spare space for installing iOS 8. However, you know that iPhone/iPad/iPod touch only allows you to delete messages one by one. This would drive you crazy, if you have got hundreds of messages to delete. Fortunately, just like clearing junk files, PhoneClean also can help you delete all messages at one click.

4) Delete Photos After Moving to iCloud or Computer

Except Messages, Photos and Videos also take a large part of space on your iDevices. If you don't believe what I said, you can go to Settings > General > Usage to check how much space are taken by Photos and Videos. If they do take much space on your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch, you can consider backing them up to iCloud or computer and then delete them from your device unhesitatingly.

To help you back up photos to iCloud and computer successfully, here are two detailed tutorials for you: How to Back Up Photos to iCloud and How to Back Up All Photos from iDevices to Computer (including Camera Roll, Photo Stream, Photo Library and My Albums photos). And after backing up photos, you can delete all of them from your device at once by following this guide: How to Massively Delete Photos from iPhone/iPad/iPod touch.

5) Delete Music After Backing Up to Computer

Backup Music and Delete Them from iPhone with AnyTrans

Backup Music and Delete Them from iPhone with AnyTrans

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Even though Photos and Videos can take so much space on your iDevices, if you are music lovers, the Music also can occupy a lot of storage. So transferring music from iPhone/iPad/iPod touch to computer and then deleting them from device is an effective way to spare space for downloading iOS 8 upgrade package. Absolutely, you can't copy music from iDevices to computer with iTunes, because it only supports syncing music from computer or iTunes library to iPhone/iPad/iPod touch.

However, you can easily make it with iMobie AnyTrans. You just need to: Run AnyTrans > Connect your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch to computer > Click Audio > Select Music > Choose all the songs > Click To Computer button to transfer all the songs from iPhone/iPad/iPod touch to computer.

Note:

  • Once transferred music from iPhone/iPad/iPod touch to computer, you can delete all of them from device with AnyTrans.
  • AnyTrans also can help you sync music from computer to iPhone/iPad/iPod touch after getting iOS 8 on your device.
  • If you also have some movies or music videos stored on your device, you can move them to computer with AnyTrans by reading this tutorial: How to Transfer Movies from iPhone/iPad to Computer.

3. Update Downloaded Apps

We have talked about deleting apps from iDevices above, now it's turn to update the apps you left. You know that the beta version of iOS 8 has been released for a long time, and many developers have released the new version of their Apps to support iOS 8. Thus, to make your Apps can function well after updating your device to iOS 8, you need to update them now. Check out whether there are updates for your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch apps with following steps: Launch App Store app on your iDevice > Click Updates at the bottom > Tap on Update beside each app to update the app to the latest version.

4. Install the Latest iTunes

Normally, the latest version of iTunes often has better compatibility with iOS. So if you plan to upgrade your device to iOS 8 Via iTunes, you need to update the iTunes to the latest version to prevent the unexpected errors occurred during the upgrade process. To check whether there is a update for your iTunes, you can run iTunes and click Check for Update on iTunes tab (on PC, the Check for Update stands in the Help tab). If you are unlucky to struck in situation like, your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch doesn't appear in iTunes when connecting your device to computer, you can follow this guide iPod touch Not Appear in iTunes to fix it.

5. Back Up Your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch

Every year, Apple releases a new iOS update. And every year, some poor soul loses some precious files, photos or videos during the upgrade process due to some unforeseen errors. Although it is not common, it's always a good idea to have a backup of your device. You know what they say, it's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. When it comes to backing up iDevices, people tend to back up iDevices with iCloud and iTunes. Here we offer you 3 method to backup your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch as followed:

Back Up with iTunes: Connect your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch to computer > Run iTunes if it doesn't run automatically > Click Device button > Click This Computer on Backups column > Choose Back Up Now.

Back Up with iCloud: Tap on your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch, Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup > Turn on iCloud Backup if it is closed > Back Up Now.

Back Up iPhone/iPad/iPod touch with iMobie AnyTrans

Back Up iPhone/iPad/iPod touch with iMobie AnyTrans

Free DownloadFree Download

Back up with AnyTrans: If you just want to backup some kind of iOS content instead of all the contents on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, such as, Contacts, Messages, Music, Videos, Apps, Calendar, Safari Bookmarks, etc, you can make it easily with iMobie AnyTrans. All you need to do is selecting the type of files you want to backup, and then back up to computer by clicking To Computer button.

As you can see, preparing your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch for iOS 8 helps you update to the latest version of OS as smooth as possible, and have backups and options to in place to restore your device no matter what happens. Except doing the things list above to prepare your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch for iOS 8, here we also offer two tips about iOS 8 updates as followed:

  • If you plan to upgrade your device to update to iOS 8 over the air, please ensure your device is fully charged and connected to a stable Wi-Fi network in case of upgrade failure due to low battery or froze half way.
  • On the day of launch, Apple's servers will most likely be bombarded with traffic from Apple fans eager to download the new operate system. This makes the upgrade may take much longer than normal, possibly up to several hours. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you should wait a day or two before upgrading. Not only can you avoid long upgrade times and potential issues, but also you can read users reviews about the new iOS 8.
  • After updating iOS 8 on your device, there are still things you need to do, such as, transfer music or photos from computer to iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, retrieve the lost data when updating, speed up your slow device or extend battery life, etc. Here is a guide about What to Do After Installing iOS 8 on iPhone/iPad).

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