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How to Downgrade the iPad 2 to iOS 6 in 2015

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The iPad 2 supports the latest version of iOS, but it’s nearing the end of its lifecycle. Plus, iOS 8 doesn’t even run that well on the older tablet, so here’s how you can downgrade your iPad 2 to iOS 6 for better performance.

The iPad 2 and the iPhone 4s are the two oldest devices that iOS 8 supports, which might be good news for owners of these devices, as they can run the latest and greatest software, but it really hasn’t been all roses, as many owners of the iPad 2 and iPhone 4s have reported major slowdowns when running the new software.

While minor updates have been released for iOS 8 to fix iPad 2 and iPhone 4s performance, it hasn’t done a whole lot to drastically improve performance on the older iOS devices.

There are settings you can change to improve performance a little, like navigating to Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion, which will turn off the parallax effect and tone down other animations in order to make the user interface a bit smoother on older devices.

iPad-2

However, nothing will really ever be as helpful as downgrading to an older and more stable iOS version. Luckily someone has discovered a way to downgrade the iPad 2 all the way down to iOS 6, which many users are saying improves performance a lot for the older tablet.

Here’s how you can downgrade your iPad 2 to iOS 6 (unfortunately, it doesn’t work on the iPhone 4s currently).

Downgrading Your iPad 2 to iOS 6

One Redditor has discovered by accident that it’s possible to downgrade an iPad 2 to iOS 6. Normally, Apple doesn’t allow you to downgrade to an older version of iOS, let alone downgrading by full two versions, so this user ended up finding a way to do it using some jailbreaking software.

iPad-2 (1)

With that said, this will technically jailbreak your iPad 2, but Cydia doesn’t install, which is rather odd and is still being looked at by jailbreakers, but in the end, it will downgrade your iPad 2 to iOS 6.1.3.

The first thing you’ll want to do is download Redsn0w 0.9.15b3 and use it to downgrade your iPad 2 to iOS 5.0.1. Downgrading to iOS 5.1.1 won’t work, as it will update you to iOS 8.1.3.

Downgrading to iOS 5.0.1 first is essential, as it will lead to upgrading to iOS 6.1.3. Once you are on iOS 5.0.1, you can download and install iOS 6.1.3 like you would with any normal iOS update, but you’ll need to do it over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update.

From there, wait for iOS 6.1.3 to download and install, and once the process is finished, you’ll be left with an iPad 2 running iOS 6.1.3.

iPad-2-1

One of word of warning and a possible downer: You can’t do this without iOS 4 SHSH blobs. These are essentially the digital signatures that Apple generates and uses to personalize iOS install files for your specific device. You can save these in Cydia by using TinyUmbrella, but if you haven’t been saving them, you’re out of luck.

If you try this out and find that it doesn’t work, then you most likely don’t have iOS 4 SHSH blobs saved. Otherwise, enjoy a speedier iOS experience on your older iPad.

Many users report that this dramatically speeds up their iPad 2, with one user saying that games and Safari are where they see the biggest differences: “San Andreas runs like butter while it was a bit slow and had noticeable lag on iOS 7 & 8.”

28 Comments

28 Comments

  1. Néstor

    02/16/2015 at 10:30 am

    Works on iPod touch 5? D:

  2. Barry Wilson

    02/16/2015 at 9:44 pm

    I never noticed the flashlight icon before. Thanks! Good to know.

  3. Vijay Ram

    02/17/2015 at 7:35 am

    Sir
    How to downgrad ios 8.1.2 to 7.1.2 in Iphone 4s

  4. shahg4

    02/19/2015 at 12:56 am

    When you will be able downgrade iphone 4s

  5. jory ray

    04/22/2015 at 6:55 pm

    I am having trouble doing this

  6. tom

    05/28/2015 at 8:58 am

    ?!!!! How it make to work?

  7. Rooney

    05/30/2015 at 7:19 pm

    Hey buddy. I am with a problem. When I put the IPSW by redsn0w the program just returned this message “That IPSW is not supported by this version of redsn0w. What can I do?

    • Devon Scott

      06/17/2015 at 1:38 pm

      redsn0w does not support a IPSW that is above IOS 6.0. You would need to download the IPSW that is supported for your device and has the version of 6.0 and Below

  8. Adriel (@adrielo)

    06/23/2015 at 6:12 am

    I tried this and it did not work. redsn0w_mac_0.9.15b3 says that it does not support iOS iPad2 5.0.1.
    cite:
    “The first thing you’ll want to do is download Redsn0w 0.9.15b3 and use it to downgrade your iPad 2 to iOS 5.0.1.”

    “redsn0w does not support a IPSW that is above IOS 6.0”, IOS 5.0.1 is certainly not above IOS 6.0.

    Any solution to this?

  9. Danny

    07/13/2015 at 7:46 am

    Their is a way to downgrade the iPad 2 and iPhone 4s to iOS 6.1.3 WITH NO SHSH BLOBS it’s actually easy

    • Raksmey

      10/11/2015 at 5:11 am

      what can i do, sir?

  10. Danny

    07/13/2015 at 7:47 am

    And you don’t need redsn0w all you need is a few files and iTunes 12.0.1 and some time

    • Sarah

      08/24/2015 at 8:38 pm

      Can You email me…..dukes sad at gmail. Tia

    • Raksmey

      10/11/2015 at 5:13 am

      can you tell me the way?

  11. The Quantum Self (@TheQuantumSelf)

    07/15/2015 at 6:40 am

    If i had the blobs I could downgrade to any version i want. This is useless.

  12. drumhead

    07/19/2015 at 1:33 pm

    For those saying it’s easy without the blobs.. Can you tell the rest of us?
    Thanks!

  13. Lynxy

    07/29/2015 at 8:44 pm

    Does this work for 1st gen iPads?

  14. AndyKn

    09/27/2015 at 4:06 pm

    I’ve finally managed to get this to work but had to overcome a few issues, particularly that I just couldn’t invoke DFU mode using the buttons:
    1. The latest Redsnow (redsn0w_win_0.9.15b3) doesn’t like the latest iTunes (12.3.0.44), I had to use an older version of iTunes (11.3) so the mobile device support files are in the correct place (I had to rename itunes library.itl to keep al my library settings once I reinstalled the latest itunes at the end)
    2. Download the latest iOS and use it with Redsnow to create a DFU invoking firmware
    3. Run redsnow to restore to iOS 5.0.1 and get to the redsnow prompt to put the ipad into DFU mode. Leave it at this prompt.
    4. Run itunes and use shift restore to load the DFU invoking firmware prepared earlier
    5. When that fails in itunes, click OK on the error message in itunes and unplug the ipad from the PC and reconnect it. It should then be in DFU mode and you can click OK on the redsnow prompt to manually enter DFU mode from earlier.

  15. Niels04

    01/11/2016 at 4:07 am

    AndyKn what about the blobs part? did you use those or not?

    • AndyKn

      01/12/2016 at 7:19 am

      I can’t remember exactly but think it RedSn0w did use them to restore iOS 5.0.1, step 3

  16. RoReplay

    02/04/2016 at 6:34 am

    Mine said (in the OTA update) iOS 9.2.1. How to fix these?

    • AndyKn

      02/04/2016 at 9:42 am

      Try it anyway.

  17. Ryan

    02/25/2016 at 9:34 am

    Craig Lloyd, a bit of advice… you really need to move your “SHSH blobs” disclaimer to the TOP of this article. You should realize that 99.9% of the users reading this will have never heard of these, and definitely wouldn’t have saved them before upgrading to a newer iOS, only to find out how slow it truly was.

    Because of the whole SHSH blobs thing, this article is very misleading and pretty much useless to anyone outside of hardcore tech nuts. Seriously, the only people who would’ve known to save their SHSH blobs wouldn’t be reading this article as they would’ve already determined how to do this from technical forums.

    Thanks for getting our hopes up while reading the whole article, and then destroying us with a disclaimer at the END of it. …

  18. abc

    02/25/2016 at 10:58 am

    Ryan is right, rubbish article

  19. No time wasted

    03/24/2016 at 5:54 pm

    That’s why whenever I see one of these articles I do what smart people do and read the comment section says. You can usually determine if something is good or not by the comments. Idioys spend time on something only to find out it is crap.

  20. bob log

    04/30/2016 at 8:08 pm

    DO NOT DO THIS.

    • AndyKn

      05/01/2016 at 3:50 am

      Why not?

  21. Ghost of Jobs

    05/21/2017 at 4:36 pm

    What a waist of thyme.

    Typed on my iPad 2.

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