There’s life in the old girl yet.

Are you the owner of an apparently useless iPad 2?

I am, and a few years ago after an update it became virtually useless. This really annoyed me as it was my 50th birthday present. It transpired that Apple had deliberately slowed the performance of older iPads and iPhones down, in order, they claimed, to prolong battery life, well, what’s the point in that if the device is too slow to use? The more suspicious amongst us suspected that we were hanging on to our old devices a little too long for Apples liking, however after a backlash, Apple relented and a new firmware update resolved the issue, however Apple made this firmware, IOS 9.3.5, the last that it would offer for these old devices.

My iPad 2 is now 10 years old and I still use it daily, which may make some wonder what you can do with such an old iPad. It is true that the list of apps that will work on an iPad 2 is getting shorter however there are a few notable exceptions. The apps that I use are:

1. Amazon Kindle – The ebook app still works well and is the app that I use most of all.
2. The Magzter app for e magazines is fully functional.
3. Trip Advisor also works well however you must have downloaded this app before and you will have to download the older version in the ‘purchased’ section of the App Store.
4. All of the native Apple apps still work fine

None of these are lightening fast of course, but are not so slow that you will give up waiting. The one app that is not great is the Safari browser, it still often works OK with more basic websites but if the website uses a lot of newer features you will get a ‘browser not supported’ message. Some websites like Facebook can offer up a simplified version that will work as does Twitter, but there are alternative browsers that will work, I found that Opera Mini works well.

Conclusion

If you are a Kindle ebook user for reading books and magazines then the iPad 2 makes a great eReader with a fantastic screen that offers your books and especially magazines in glorious detail and colour. The iPad 2 makes a great alternative to picking up a second hand Kindle device, many of which are no longer supported in terms of buying and downloading books direct from the Kindle and they now have to be ‘sent’ to the Kindle from the desktop app. In addition it effectively gives you a Kindle that also offers emails, calendar, contacts and the office apps.

Give your old iPad 2 a second chance as an eReader and re-kindle your relationship with the old girl.