You’ve likely noticed the red notification on your iPad’s Settings app reminding you to upgrade to the latest version of iOS. For some, this update comes as a relief; while for others, this seems like an awful lot of unnecessary work that your not sure how to accomplish. If your more of the second user group, don’t fret, we’ve put together a Step-By-Step walkthrough on upgrading to iOS with a backup from iTunes or iCloud. If you find out that you’ve not enough storage, skip down past the videos for troubleshooting steps, and if you’re just curious about what included in iOS 8, read on at the bottom of the article.

Upgrading with an iCloud Backup

If you’ve got the iCloud space, it’s definitely an easier route to upgrade, make sure you’ve backed up recently and get on your merry way. To perform your backup, visit Settings > iCloud > Backup/Storage & Backup (Turn On) and press Backup Now. Wait for the backup to complete, then update the iPad to iOS 8 from the Settings app, using Software Update, and when the final Apple progress bar finishes loading, follow the video below to setup your iOS 8 device:

Upgrading with an iTunes Backup

If you’re on iTunes, you’ve got a few more steps. Plug your device in, connect it with your USB cable, then let follow the prompts on iTunes to ‘Sync & Backup’.  After you’ve completed the ‘Backup’, get your sync cable ready and watch the following:

Not Enough Storage

While attempting to download the iOS, you may find out that your device does not have enough storage remaining to accommodate the update. It sounds like you need to free up some space by deleting some apps, music, or content and we’ll help you figure out what you can delete. Start by visiting Settings > General > Usage and you should see the Storage section. Within this area, you’ll find a list of all the apps and their content in the order of largest file size to smallest. You can use this list to see what you should eliminate in order to download the iOS update.

To delete an app, navigate to the home screen where all your app icons appear, hold your finger over the app’s icon and wait for the apps to start ‘jiggling’. At this point you should see an ‘x’ in the corner of each app, you can click this ‘x’ to delete the apps. After you’ve freed up the necessary space and updated to iOS 8, you’ll receive some of that space back – because the system uses half that space to store the iOS download the other half is used to install the iOS upgrade to. When the upgrade is completed, the iOS download storage space is freed up.

Still stuck backing up your iPad? Follow Apple’s support KB here.

Whats New in iOS 8

Apple’s made many changes within iOS 8. You’ll find that you can now send iMessages containing the audio of your voice and health or fitness apps may work together an report data into the new Health (kit) app. Apple’s included support for new keyboards, including predictive text and swipe based keyboarding. Touch ID with iPhone 6 and newer now supports Apple Pay allowing RFID (or short range proximity) payments without touching or scanning a code from the device. iCloud now acts more like Dropbox or Google Drive and Airdrop lets you exchange files with your Mac!

Parents will be pleased to hear about Family Sharing, allowing users of the same family and same credit card to now share their apps among multiple Apple IDs. Similarly, parents of Family Sharing can require their children to have their purchases approved with a prompt to the Parent’s device.

The iOS 8 is compatible with the iPhone 4s, 5, 5c, 5s, 6, and 6+; iPad Air, Air 2, 2, 3, 4, mini, mini 2, and mini 3; and the iPod touch 5th generation. If you’ve moved to iOS 8 and have a Mac, you’ll enjoy some of the benefits of Yosemite when you upgrade your Mac to 10.10 to be featured in a separate post.