Today's mailbox question:
I'm pretty sure that Apple is going to announce the iPad 3 tomorrow and I want to sell my old iPad as soon as possible so I've got the funds to put towards a new one. How do I securely wipe my iPad so that the data can't be recovered by the next owner?
There are two ways to erase an iPad. There's the right way and the wrong way. Both ways will wipe your iPad securely, but the wrong way will leave you tearing your hair out when you get your new iPad. I'll show you the right way first.
Now here's the wrong way.
Why is this the wrong way? Because doing it this way will overwrite your iTunes backup file for your iPad, and that means when you do buy your new iPad, you won't be able to restore it to the current configuration and have to set it up manually. And trust me, that's both a real pain and an enormous time-suck.
Another thing worth checking before selling your old iPad is whether your iTunes backup file is encrypted (the Summary tab will show you). If it is encrypted, do you remember your password? I've lost count of the number of people who get to this stage of restoring a new iOS device only to realize that they've not only forgotten the password, they've forgotten they ever password-protected the file in the first place.