Wait for public release of Monterey before upgrading hardware?

This may well be a dumb question but that never stopped me before. :slight_smile:

I will be upgrading my iPad, iPhone, and MBP (unless I go with the mini but I’m still leaning toward the MBP). I plan to upgrade the phone and Mac upon their availability in the fall and I presume they will come preloaded with Monterey.

My question concerns the iPad. My plan has been to purchase the new iPad next Friday. My only hesitation is that it will come preloaded with Big Sur, which means that I’ll be upgrading the OS once Monterrey is released. My OCD nature would much prefer a factory clean install of Monterey on a brand new device. I realize of course that:

  1. a year later I’ll be upgrading to whatever the new OS is at that time and

  2. I can do a factory reset to install Monterey once released. The latter option is a bit of a pain as I prefer to start from scratch and download everything fresh rather than copy apps over in the new OS. but hardly a show stopper.

My current iPad (2018) is functioning fine but the battery is not lasting long. This is an issue only because I use the iPad A LOT for A LOT of writing so I’m anxious to get the new iPad in my hands.

Given what I described above, if it was you, would you purchase the iPad now and in three months do a reset and a fresh install of Monterey or wait to purchase?

Addendum: I know I can have the battery replaced. However, my hardware refresh cycle is ~3 years so that I can repurpose still useable devices to others after having batteries replaced and other minor repairs completed.

Big Sur/Monterey is for macOS, not iOS/iPadOS, so you mean iOS 14/15. Not a big deal. It’s the sort of “Mental Typo” we can all make.

If you buy an iPad next week will come preloaded with iOS 14.

I see no reason to wait to buy a new iPad. I wouldn’t even bother doing a clean install for iOS 15, when it comes out. Just upgrade it. Apple has gotten really good at that, and iOS accumulates less “cruft” than macOS can.

(If you were debating whether or not to buy a new Mac then I would tell you to buy now because if you wait until Monterey is released, then the Mac you buy might not be able to run Big Sur, which you might want to run instead of Monterey.)

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From my experience running the IPadOS 15 public beta on a 2020 Ipad pro without reformatting, I’d concur and say go ahead, and don’t worry about the reformat. Works fine.

Yes, sorry about that. :slight_smile: As to the Mac, I always upgrade immediately so having Monterey pre-installed is a plus in my book. :slight_smile:

Would it not be a lot simpler (and cheaper) to just replace the battery in an Apple Store? Unless you need the M1 power.

Yes but I generally I have an upgrade cycle of approximately every three years on my devices. I have the funds to manage that and three years seems like a reasonable amount of time to keep my devices. I then re-purpose my existing devices to others.

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If there is an Apple Store nearby, I would definitely suggest getting the battery replaced instead of replacing the entire iPad, unless you have a burning desire for an M1 iPad.

In fact, it might be a good idea to replace the battery anyway for either resale value or whoever gets it as a hand-me-down.

(Personally, when my 12.9" iPad Pro battery dies, it will probably get re-purposed to a second screen for my Mac mini and be plugged in 24/7, so it won’t matter as much.)

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I think our posts passed each other. :slight_smile:

See my response above. And yes, I do have a large Apple store within about 15 minutes from my house.

Yup, they did.

I don’t have an Apple Store anywhere nearby, which is one of the only downsides to where we currently live.

I would buy now, install the beta, then decide at the time whether to do a factory reset when the “final version” of the OS is released.

I put that in quotes since Apple seems to be doing fairly major updates throughout the year now, so going from beta to non-beta seems unlikely to demand a re-install for my personal levels of need for this sort of neatness. And I spent years on Windows, so fresh installs are second nature to me.

I just bought a new MacBook Air. It’s been a while since my laptop was killed off. I was never particularly eager to upgrade my computers much unlike the iPads, iPhones in which it doesn’t faze me. On the contrary, I look forward to the new releases.

At any rate, my keyboard was acting peculiarly this evening so I called AppleCare. Wound up being something readily fixed.

The lady mentioned my computer, which has BigSur 11.3.1., needed to be upgraded. Can you tell me what release she may have been referring to? Some upgrades are more significant than others.

I understand that Monterey is still a beta.

I think she was referring to the Big Sur 11.4 update:

Follow these instructions:

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Thanks so very much, Christian! Looks like that’s it!

Beautiful critter, btw.

Likewise, and defragging hard drives! :slight_smile: