Memory?

[Melie]

My wife and I both use 1st gen iPads. More and more often, as we browse the Internet, our iPads just shut down to home screen. We have tried double clicking the home button and closing all apps running in the background and they still
do it. Is this a memory issue? (both iPads are 16GB)

Thank you, Mark

 

[giradman]

Hi Melie - you both are likely iPad 'experts' by now, but if not already done you may want to 'Reset' both devices (bottom procedure below) - if this is of no help, then go into 'Settings -> General -> About' and post what 'Availability' you have on your iPads - good luck!

When an app (or several) are misbehaving, I usually go through the following steps:

1. Force Close - open the multi-tasking bar (double tap the 'home buttom' or use multi-gesturing and swipe up); press & hold an app until all begin to 'jiggle'; find the offending app(s) and press the 'red circle w/ minus sign' - return to the home screen & try again.


2. Restart - press & hold the 'Sleep/Awake' (a.k.a. power) button until a red slider appears (may take a few seconds) - move the slider to turn off the iPad; then press & hold the same button until the Apple logo appears - wait for a restart.


3. Reset - press & hold the 'Power' and 'Home' buttons simultaneously until the Apple logo appears - this may take a longer time, so have patience; the iPad will 're-boot' - NOTE that none of these maneuvers will alter your apps, files, or settings.

 

[Kaykaykay]

iPad 1 has only 256 MBs of RAM, which is easily overtaxed by later versions of firmware and apps. Try closing all unnecessary apps, and restarting and resetting your iPad. iPhone, iPad, iPod touch: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch: Turning off and on (restarting) and resetting

Even with that, you might still experience crashes. I know my iPad 1 started crashing more frequently than my iPad 2, even on the identical websites, because iPad 2 has twice as much RAM.

I gave away my last iPad 1 months ago because it was getting too crash prone for me. I've been noticing in the past couple of weeks that my iPad 2 is becoming more sluggish and crash-prone as well. I've got an iPad 4, too, so I can compare. iPad 4 has four times more RAM as iPad 1 and twice as much as iPad 2.

 

[MattIM]

In addition to Kay3 advice, you should clear all of your Safari searches. Keep the number of tabs to a minimum, use bookmarks to keep your favorite sites in place, but clear the other searches. If you have notifications from various apps, clear those notifications regularly. The first two screen shots deal with Safari, the third picture is notifications that I get regularly. To see those notifications, press the time in the top center of your screen and scroll down.