When the old gives way to the new, the excitement of a new device wanes a little when faced with a daunting prospect: transferring a year or years’ worth of apps and files from the old device to a new one.

When I bought the new iPad (3rd gen) in Singapore a few weeks ago, I didn’t bring my mother computer with me, only the iPad 2 I was using before that. Without my computer and itching to try out the latest iPad, I thought of installing the stuff from my iPad 2 to my new one it via iCloud. To cut a long story short, it worked! So I’m sharing my experience doing the hassle-free transfer for those of you who would want to do the same.

Here’s what you need:

– A fast and stable wifi connection

– A working iCloud account

– Both your iPads running at least iOS 5

– More space in your new iPad than your old one

1) Back up the contents of your old iPad to iCloud – go to Settings, then iCloud and turn on the “Back up to iCloud” option. You can choose which items you want to back up, such as certain apps, calendar, bookmarks in Safari, etc.. Take note that I wasn’t able to transfer my videos in the video app or my music, which isn’t on iTunes match. I’m assuming that you’d need purchased content from iTunes to be able to transfer them. Take note you only have 5GB of free space!

2) To play it safe and avoid confusion, turn off cloud syncing on your old iPad after you’ve backed it up. Just go to settings, then iCloud, and toggle the Back up to iCloud option and turn it off.

3) Set up your new iPad. Choose “Restore from iCloud backup” when you get to that menu.

4) If you have a lot of apps installed, it will take several hours for your new iPad to download everything from iCloud. Files stored within these apps will likewise be restored. For music and movies not purchased fom the App Store, just transfer manually.

Some tips: delete apps you don’t need/use on your old iPad before backing up to make downloading faster. Monitor the progress of your restore from back up closely. Manage your storage space well, especially if you’re moving from a higher spec iPad to a lower-spec one.

I was quite happy with the results when I turned on my new iPad. Everything was just as it was.

There you go. Hope you have a seamless transfer of your stuff!

 

P.s.

My contacts are all messed up though (iPhone to iPad). Any help would be appreciated!