Ios5 transition went okay on my iPad2! I just wanted to give people some encouragement.

Question

What steps did I follow?  First I updated all the applications in iTunes.  I then eliminated all the apps I no longer use.  I took an extra precaution in that I de-clicked the folder of photos that I synced with the iPad2...my theory being I can always re-synch that later and it reduces what needs to be transferred, backuped, etc.  I then Sync'd my iPad2 with my computer in order to have the latest backup.  The only error message was that it couldn't transfer the new versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote because they required a different version of the operating system (i.e. ios5...which makes sense).
I then asked it to check for to see if there was a newer version of the operating system available, and it reported there was and whether I wished to download and install...which I said yes.  The download process started and the dialogue box estimated the time to download as 7 hours.  I turned off the light and went to bed.
This morning when I came back there was a dialogue box asking me to resolve some conflicts between the computer's version of some addresses and those on the iPad.  I clicked through these, making choices, and then simply followed the onscreen prompts on the iPad2 to complete the process.  Once completed, everything came up 'normal' on the screen!  I opened the Settings app and went to iCloud and made my choices there, including starting Photo Stream.  All went well.  I checked my contacts...all good.  I did choose synch and backup using the cloud and re-checked the photo folder that I wanted to be connected with in Aperture.  I then did a Synch and all the photos were restored to the iPad (much quicker synch by the way!).
So I just wanted to share this with everyone with the hope that more and more people will have this experience.  I think my overall advice based on my single experience is, clean up your systems, de-link things like photos, maybe music, and clean those off your device with a synch before you do the conversion.  In other words, I tried to make what needs to move as small as possible to reduce the potential for glitches.  And then...don't watch and let the system perform.  There may be a tendency to pull the plug in the middle of a long process and that is almost always problematic.
Good luck!

Answer 1

What steps did I follow?  First I updated all the applications in iTunes.  I then eliminated all the apps I no longer use.  I took an extra precaution in that I de-clicked the folder of photos that I synced with the iPad2...my theory being I can always re-synch that later and it reduces what needs to be transferred, backuped, etc.  I then Sync'd my iPad2 with my computer in order to have the latest backup.  The only error message was that it couldn't transfer the new versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote because they required a different version of the operating system (i.e. ios5...which makes sense).
I then asked it to check for to see if there was a newer version of the operating system available, and it reported there was and whether I wished to download and install...which I said yes.  The download process started and the dialogue box estimated the time to download as 7 hours.  I turned off the light and went to bed.
This morning when I came back there was a dialogue box asking me to resolve some conflicts between the computer's version of some addresses and those on the iPad.  I clicked through these, making choices, and then simply followed the onscreen prompts on the iPad2 to complete the process.  Once completed, everything came up 'normal' on the screen!  I opened the Settings app and went to iCloud and made my choices there, including starting Photo Stream.  All went well.  I checked my contacts...all good.  I did choose synch and backup using the cloud and re-checked the photo folder that I wanted to be connected with in Aperture.  I then did a Synch and all the photos were restored to the iPad (much quicker synch by the way!).
So I just wanted to share this with everyone with the hope that more and more people will have this experience.  I think my overall advice based on my single experience is, clean up your systems, de-link things like photos, maybe music, and clean those off your device with a synch before you do the conversion.  In other words, I tried to make what needs to move as small as possible to reduce the potential for glitches.  And then...don't watch and let the system perform.  There may be a tendency to pull the plug in the middle of a long process and that is almost always problematic.
Good luck!