So looking at Twitter, I see a lot of people painstakingly withstanding 1 hour or more of upgrading your devices. How to make it faster? Apple doesn’t have an app for that, but fortunately, I’m here to offer some handy tips.

Before Upgrade

1. UPDATE iTUNES TO 8.2!!! I waited an hour or so waiting for iTunes to update to 8.2. I was stupid enough not to and of course, 3.0 needed 8.2
2. UPDATE ALL YOUR APPS. Update all existing apps and games. You don’t want to add this as an extra step after OS 3.0.
3. CREATE SOME 20-30% FREE SPACE. I un-synced my 2.47 GB music on my iPhone 8GB. Back up time will move significantly faster. You can try removing other stuff (like photos). If you decide to remove apps, remember data gets reset.
4. BACK UP YOUR FRIGGIN DEVICE! If you don’t, prepare to lose your contacts, calendars, photos etc etc etc. You can force back up by right clicking your device name on iTunes (while connected) then clicking Back up. This might take time, but oh so worth it.
5. MAKE SURE YOUR DEVICES ARE ALL PLUGGED IN CORRECTLY. You sure don’t want your laptop to die while you’re in the process of updating.
6. CREATE 1 FREE ICON SPACE. Apple adds the Voice Memo icon. If you have all 9 pages used up, remove one app. If you don’t you’re going to find yourself moving pages and pages worth of apps because one icon from the first page gets move to the second. (Note: You can now use ELEVEN pages instead of 9!!!)
7. Upgrade

Now that you have the new OS. What to do next?

After Upgrade

1. RESTART YOUR DEVICE. Always always helpful. The upgrade already forces a restart but still, do it.
2. CHECK IF CONTACTS ARE THERE. Note, this may take a couple of minutes to come back up. I panicked, waited and there are my contacts.
3. SYNC, UN-SYNCED STUFF
4. UPDATE YOUR APPS AGAIN. Out of 653 apps on my library, 57 of them needed updates. I think Apple specifically held tons of updates pending OS 3.0 release.
5. You’re ready to roll

Be on the lookout for our special 3.0 games and updates article! Have fun!