How to Install iOS 6 on Your iPhone or iPad

As WWDC 2012 rounds out and everyone calms down from the Mac high, there’s a new mobile operating system that got released for developers and will be coming out very soon. iOS 6 is Apple’s next-generation operating system that redefines what iOS 5 was all about. If you’re an Apple Developer or if you’re reading this article after iOS is released to the general public, here’s how to install it.

There are two ways to install iOS 6, the easy way that may keep code from your older operating system or the slightly longer method that clean installs your whole system. When iOS 6 comes out, there will be an easy upgrade method that will let you update your device over the air and not lose all of your data that you have on your iPhone. This over the air update can come with some consequences if you have many apps and when upgraded could leave behind some older iOS code that can corrupt some parts of the system. The second way is a little more time consuming but gives you a clean plate to work with, that means all apps are deleted and is like new.

Depending if you want to put the time into reinstalling everything on your iPhone you’ll have less crashing overall and avoid the chance that anything. To do the latter method and clean install your whole system, plug in your iPhone into iTunes and under your device, click the restore button. From here iTunes will download the latest available version of iOS and install it on your device.

If you want to do the first, and less desirable method, go into the General menu in Settings and click Software Update, from there your device will check what the latest version is and alert you when you can install any new updates. When you do this method, it is recommended that you have it plugged into a power source because it will not install any updates if your battery is less than 50%.

My personal method of installing updates to my iPhone and iPad is doing a clean install, I feel like it gives me a better and smoother version that upgrading over a software version. I also happen to like it because I accumulate tons of apps and it’s a nice starting point for cleaning up.