Slow iPad 2 on iOS 9

THank YOU for your help. I've followed your tip and went even further. Because I've got another recent iPad and iphone, I really didn't feel the need to have all functions available on my rusty iPad 2. I nearly sold it! So, what I've done was: didn't activate my email account, didn't activate my iCloud account and abviously Photos app was off duty as it couldn't back up anything from the cloud. All in all, my iPad is running quick, smooth and let's me browse the internet or read my magazines in a bigger screen (comparing to my iPad mini or iphone 6) like in the old days. Thank you once again.

If you really weren't using iCloud, then this should be turned off anyways.

As far as email is concerned, using email in and off itself on the iPad really does NOT slow down the operation of iOS.

It's the constant interval downloading of emails that can.

So, if you setup your mail to only manually fetch email only when you always open the iOS Mail App, you do not put any extra procesding overhead on your iPad.

I have been manually fetching my emails on iDevices for many years with no detrimemtal performancd issues.

It's the constant automatic fetching of emails from the email service servers that can bog down the speed of your online Internet performance.

Also, it always good to keep your email account housecleaned on a regular basis.

Deleted and getting rid of SPAM/junk email, thinning out/deleting/trashing older emaiils that are no longer relevent, etc.

A disclaimer.

I make no guarantees, expressed or implied, that any of my own procedures will return EVERY older iPad to a usable, running condition.

Try all of the following:

Try resetting All Settings found in the Settings App under General and in the right column under Reset.

Try resetting histories and deleting/resetting caches in all of the web browsers you use.

If you use Safari, these functions maybe in the Settings App under Safari.

Other web browsers have their settings inside of the running app, itself.

If your iPad has been activated for iCloud, in the Settings App under iCloud, to the right, under iCloud Drive, tap iCloud Drive and make sure Safari is turned off for saving Safari data to iCloud Drive.

Also, under iCloud in the Settings App, in iCloud Drive, disable the saving feature for any other apps that you DO NOT want data being saved automatically to iCloud Drive.

OR turn off/disable iCloud and iCloud drive entirely if you do not use any iCloud functionality.

If using Safari is still causing issues,

Try changing/using another, different third party web browser.

I don't use iOS Safari too much any longer because I found it causing me some headaches on certain websites I, regularly, visit.

I commonly use another third party web browser, Perfect Web Browser (there are others that may suit your web browsing style better, so look at all of them first to see which third party browser may work better for you) and I never experience a lot of the issues that Safari was causing.

In Settings app, under the Safari settings panel, tap the panel and in the right hand window, turn off/disable Safari Suggestions.

In Settings App, under the General settings panel, tap the panel, in the right hand column, tap Spotlight, then turn off/disable Siri Suggestions.

In the Settings App under the General tab, to the right under Spotlight search, try disabling the search under apps that really do not need a search, like some games, remotes, apps that really do not need to be searched, etc., to reduce the list for Spotlight to search.

In the Settings App under the General Tab, in the right column, look for Background App Refresh and turn this setting to "off".

Try turning on Reduced Motion.

This is found in the Settings App in the General tab the left panel.

In the right panel look under Accessibility, the look for Reduce Motion and turn this feature "On".

You should see an appreciable performance increase on all iPad 2, 3 and 4 models.

Make sure you do not have a lot of apps running in the background in the iOS App Switcher.

Dbl click the Home button to check this.

If you have a lot of apps still active, tap and hold a finger on one of the apps and slide your finger up to quit the app.

If you can reach another app with another finger, you can quit more than one app simultaneously.

If you have the iOS Mail app set to automatically fetch mail at one of the default fetch time intervals, in the Settings App, under the Mail, Contacts, Calendar settings panel, tap this panel, in the righthand window, turn off/disable Push Mail and set fetching mail for either every hour or set for manual fetch only for all of your mail accounts.

If you are willing to do this (I, personally, wouldn't recommend this), some users have reported that turning off Find My Phone/iPad, in Settings App under iCloud, has improved iOS performance, although I don't how this feature could be causing such a performance slowdown, unless its a bug in iOS that is only affecting some iPad users.

Try another hard reset of your iPad by holding down both the Home and sleep/wake buttons simultaneously until your iPad goes to black and restarts with Apple logo, then release the buttons.

Good Luck!

If not all of my suggested fixes or possible solutions have completely returned your iPad to acceptable, normal or improved performance,.

Here is my own modified backup/restore procedure that has already worked, successfully, for several iPad 2/3 users, so far!

I have done this and my iPad 2 and 3 are working like new, " out of the box" units!

THIS PROCEDURE DOES NOT RETURN YOUR iPAD TO ITS PREVIOUS iOS VERSION.

Also, as a disclaimer.

I make no guarantees, expressed or implied, that any of my own procedures will return EVERY older iPad to a usable, running condition.

First, connect your iPad to USB and sync and backup your iPad to iTunes (make sure,FIRST, your iTunes is up to the most latest version).

Then disconnect/eject your iPad from the computer.

From just the iPad, in the Settings App under the General setting, look in the right column for Reset option, then erase and reset your iPad to completely erase your iPad and then, again, from the iPad, set it up as a new iPad setup to factory "out of the box" operation.

Then reconnect your iPad to the computer and make sure to cancel the syncing, by tapping the small X to the left in the top center iTunes display box.

iTunes should detect your iPad. If iTunes begins to try and sync, again, cancel the sync.

Select Restore from Backup instead and pick your last backup to restore back to your iPad.

Once the restore is complete, finish setting up the iPad and let it sync back to iTunes you can either cancel the sync, again or let it backup, again.

Then disconnect the iPad.

Do one hard reset of your iPad by holding down both the Home and sleep/wake buttons simultaneously until your iPad goes to black and restarts with Apple logo, then release the buttons.

Once your iPad is back to the Home screen,

In the Settings App under the General tab, to the right under Spotlight sesrch, try disabling the search under apps that really do not need a search, like some games, remotes, apps that really do not need to be searched, etc., to reduce the list for Spotlight to search.

In Settings app, under the Safari settings panel, tap the panel and in the right hand window, turn off/disable Safari Suggestions.

Try turning on Reduced Motion.

This is found in the Settings App in the General tab the left panel.

In the right panel look under Accessibility, the look for Reduce Motion and turn this feature "On".

You should see an appreciable performance increase on all iPad 2, 3 and 4 models.

If you have the iOS Mail app set to automatically fetch mail at one of the default fetch time intervals, in the Settings App, under the Mail, Contacts, Calendar settings panel, tap this panel, in the righthand window, turn off/disable Push Mail and set fetching mail for either every hour or set for manual fetch only for all of your mail accounts.

In the Settings App under the General Tab, in the right column, look for Background App Refresh and turn this setting to "off".

If you purchased any music from iTunes, you will need to redownload that content back to your iPad for playing directly from your iPad and not from Apple Music servers.

Also, if your iPad contained a lot of images in the Photos app, these will take time to regenerate the original AND thumbnail images themselves inside of the Photos app when you first launch it.

Good Luck!

Thanks!