How To Upgrade iPad Mini To iOS 11

How to update iPad mini to work on the latest version of iOS. Installing new firmware via iTunes and downloading the update “over the air”, without connecting to a computer via USB.

Preparing for upgrade

Before upgrading your iPad, you must back up your data. Backup can be saved to your computer via iTunes or in iCloud cloud storage.

Backup in iCloud:

  1. Connect your tablet to a Wi-Fi network.
  2. Open the settings and select the “iCloud” section.
  3. Click on “Backup”.
  4. Make sure the “Backup to iCloud” slider is set to active.
  5. Click “Back Up”.

Do not turn off Wi-Fi until the backup process is complete. To make sure that the backup is done, open Settings. Icloud. Backup. Inside you will see the date and time of the last backup.

How To Upgrade iPad Mini To iOS 11

If you do not trust cloud storage or are unable to connect to Wi-Fi, make a backup via iTunes:

  1. Launch iTunes, connect iPad.
  2. Select a connected device in iTunes.
  3. Click Create Copy Now.

To make sure that the backup is done, go to the “Overview” tab. The “Last Copy” item will indicate the date and time the copy was saved.

Ipad Update

After creating the backup, we begin to study the question of how to manually update the iPad mini. You can do this also in two ways: “over the air” or through iTunes. If you prefer a wireless update method:

  1. Connect the charger to your tablet to prevent emergency shutdown.
  2. Open the settings, go to the “General” section and select “Software Update”.
  3. Click “Download and Install”.
  4. After the installation file download is complete, click Install. You can select the “Later” option and indicate when to start the update or remind about its availability on the iPad.
  5. Enter password if necessary.

Usually, an over-the-air update goes without problems, however, at the download stage of the update, a message about a lack of space may appear. In this case, you need to clear the device’s memory from files or use the update via iTunes, in which the file with the firmware is downloaded to the computer.

  1. Make sure the latest version of iTunes is installed on your computer. Update the program or download the latest version from the Apple website.
  2. Connect your tablet via USB.
  3. Open iTunes and select the connected device.
  4. Go to the “Overview” tab and click “Update”.
  5. Click Download and Update.
  6. Enter password if necessary.

With this approach, iTunes will independently find and download to the computer the latest current version of the firmware that iPad mini supports. If you want to slightly speed up the update process, download the firmware to your computer yourself. To select it during installation, hold down the Shift key and then click on the “Update” button.

An explorer window will appear, through which you can specify the path to the file with the system update. This will save a little time that iTunes spends searching and downloading firmware to your computer.

Install iOS 10

If you want to upgrade your iPad mini to iOS 10, you can only do this with devices of the second generation and higher. When you start the update search on iPad mini, you will receive a message that the latest version of the system is installed on the tablet.

After the presentation of iOS 10, Apple excluded iPad mini from the list of supported devices. In the end, it looks like this:

You can install iOS 10 on iPad mini 2, 3, and 4 without any problems: the update is downloaded by air and correctly installed via iTunes if you download it to your computer first. The lack of support for iOS 10 on the iPad mini is most likely due to the fact that the old tablet model uses the Apple A5 processor, which does not pull the new system.

You can try installing iOS 10 on iPad mini in a roundabout way, but this will lead to the device working incorrectly or not starting at all. Therefore, there are two options: stay on the version that supports iPad mini, or purchase a next-generation tablet that has no problems with iOS 10 support.