Wednesday, April 01, 2026

resetting my iPad (9th generation)

This morning, the mail app wouldn't read my Yahoo mail.  So I tried to delete Yahoo from mail and it seems to lock.

After that, I decided to delete the mail app.  And add it back.

Added Gmail back.  Then Yahoo.  Then hotmail.  Didn't see my hotmail at first, so I added it and it said it was already there and I went in and activated it.

But after adding back the mail app, when I moved email to folder, it didn't remember the folder it was supposed to go to (though it did for a few emails).  I figured maybe I had to train it and moved a bunch manually, but it didn't see to remember.

I had noticed the iPad had kept prompting to me to upgrade to the later iOS.  iOS 26 or something.  Apparently 26.4.

So I decided to do that.  It took like an hour but finally completed.

Now the look of my iPad is different which will take getting used to.  And the email still is behaving the same.

As I was still half-sleeping, I decided to (wth) reset the iPad and start from scratch.  That disables FindMy among other things.  But I figured it'll come back once I set up the iPad again.

Plus this will be practice for when I get my next iPad

So here goes...

Apparently, it finished the reset and now it's showing a welcome screen in a bunch of languages.

I'll press the Home button (I wonder how you'd do this on a new iPad without a Home button, probably swipe or something).

Select Your Country or Region
United States

Appearance
Choose how you would like text and icons to look on iPad
Default

Quickly Set up iPad
Bring your current iPhone or iPad near your new iPad to sign in to your Apple Account and get set up.
looking for nearby devices...
set up without another device [since I don't have one anyway]

Wi-Fi Network
[sign into my router]

It may take a few minutes to activate your iPad

Data & Privacy [two people shaking hands]
This icon appears when an Apple feature asks to use your personal information.
[Continue]

Age Range
Child 12 or younger
Teen 13 to 17
Adult 18 or older
[I will choose Adult]

Touch ID
Use your fingerprint in place of your passcode or account password for purchases
[Continue]

Place your finger
Lift and rest your finger on the Home button repeatedly.
I'll use my right thumb for starters [repeat for a number of times]

Adjust your grip
keep going to capture the edges of your print
[Continue] [for like 6 more times]

Complete
Touch ID is ready.  Your print can be used for unlocking your iPad
[Continue]

Create an iPad Password
Tourch ID provides the convenience and security of fingerprint access.  Occasionally your passcode will be required for validation

Passcode Options
Custom Alphanumeric Code
Custome Numeric Code
4-Digit Numeric Code

[I'll switch to 4-digit number code, since that's what I've been using]

Transfer your apps & data
from iCloud backup
from another iPad
from Mac or PC
from Android
[Don't Transfer Anything]

Apple Account
Sign in with an email or phone number to use iCloud, the App Store, and other Apple services.

[enter email]

Two-Factor Authentication
Enter the verifcation code sent to your other iPad

Well, my old iPad Mini is around, but let me see what happens if I press didn't get a code?
Resend code to other iPad
[can't get to other iPad]
Send Code to Phone number
You can also receive a verification code via text message or phone call
[Text the Code]
OK that worked

Teams and Conditions
Agree

Signing in...

Your iPad Settings
You can match the settings of your other iPad or customize
[Cutomize]

Update your iPad automatically
Future software updates will be automatically downloaded and installed for you as they are released.  You can manage this in Software Update settings.
Continue
[Only Download Automatically]

Location Services
Location Services allows Maps and other apps and services like Find My to gather and use data indicating your location.
[Turn on Location Services]

Apple Pay
Use Apple Pay to make secure payments in apps and online
[Set Up Later]

Screen Time
Get a weekly report with insights about your screen time and set time limits for apps you want to manage.  You can also use Screen Time on children's devices and set up parental controls.
[Set Up Later in Settings]

IPad Analytics
[Don't Share]

Light or Dark Display
Light or Auto or Dark
[Light]

Siri
Find information and get things done, simply by asking
Just say "Siri"
Press and hold the side button [I assume the Home button on the iPad 9]
[Continue]

Select a Voice
Choose a voice for features like Siri, Maps, and Safari.  You can manager this in Siri settings.
[Voice 4]

then it asks to say things like "Siri, how's the weather?], etc.
Siri is Ready
iPad will listen for "Siri" or "Hey Siri" at the beginning of requests.
Once you're talking to Siri, you can add another request without saying its name again
[Continue]

Improve Siri & Dictation
Help improve Siri and Dictation by allowing Apple to store and review audio interactions with Siri, Dictation, and Translate on this iPad
This data is not assoicated with your Apple Account and will be only store for a limited time.
[Share Audio Recordings]

Get Started
finally gets to the desktop (or whatever you call it on iPad)

Turn on Location Services to Allow "Wallet" to Determine Your Location
[Settings]

Settings had an exclamation point.  Wanted me to set up Apple Pay.  Set it up later

There are two main screens

The first screen has icons for clock, notes, calendar, Top Stories, weather
then blow that are two rows of icons 
Facetime  Files Reminders Maps  Home Camera
Apple Store Games Books Apple TV News Settings
then on the bottom dock are
Message Safari Music Email Calendar Photos Notes Settings and a folder of Utilities

The second screen has
Clock Weather Stocks Find My Contacts Phone
Translate Shortcuts Voice Memos Meature Magnifier Passwords
Podcasts Preview Photo Booth iTunes Store Calculator Health
Freeform Journal Tips
and the same doc below

I think I can put most of the second screen in a folder and move it to the first screen

The screen keeps going dark after a several seconds, let me change that.

Settings
Display & Brightness
Auto-Lock
it was set for 2 minutes, let me change that to 5 minutes

I wonder if FindMy still has my AirTags on there
Allow "Find My" to use your location?
Allow while using app
What's New in Find My
share item location
Get help finding a lost item by sharing its location with an airline or trusted person.  They will be able to see the location of your item on a map
[Continue]
Find your Friends & Lost Items
Get notified when friends share their location, when you accidentally leave items behind, and more
[Enable notifications]
"Find My" would like to send you notifications
[Allow]
Susan is my People
Devices has Michael's iPad and Mike's iPad Mini
Items has Corolla, Luke Air, Mike's keys
[yay!]

let's try "Directions]
Allow Maps to use your locaton
Allow while using app

get notified when friends share their ETAs
notifications include shared ETAs and updates about your photos and reports
[Enable Notifications]
Maps would like to send you notifications
[Allow]

Help Improve Maps?
Allow Apple to use your significant locations and app launch locations to improve Maps?  You can change this later in Settings.
[Allow]

Allow widgets from "Maps" to use your location?
[Allow]

I'll put all the apps on the second screen into a folder for now.
I'll also put Home from the first screen there too
that makes room on the first screen, so now I'll move the folder to the first screen

let me now add my gmail to the mail app
allow it to access mail, contacts, calendars, notes

I got 26952 mails in there
Mail Categories
Try Categories
[Turn Off]

not seeing the images in my emails
Your network settings prevent content from loading privately

It's downloading 3000 messages
Gmail says 13484, I assume that's 13484 unread messages

I want to automatically display the images in my email / let me google the loading privately message

Settings, Apps, Mail, Privacy Protection
turn off Protect Mail Activity
Mail Privacy Protection works by hiding your IPaddress and loading remote content privately in the background, even when you don't open the message.  This makes it harder for senders to follow your Mail activity

let me leave it on for now, I guess I can tap "Load Content" if I actually want to see the message for now

I simplified the dock / I moved stuff from the left side and hid stuff from the right side, I believe Camera and Home were items that were on the right side of the dock
on the left side is mail, Safari, and Calendar.  on the right side is Settings and the categories folder

I think they right side of the dock might be dynamic
ok, we'll see if any items get added to it

***

First app to install is Fi, so I can track Percy and Sunny.

Now the right side of the dock has Fi and the App Store.  I guess I didn't have to hide the others previously as they would have probably disappeared eventually.

Next I'll do Worddle
Then YouTube
and so on...

Wednesday, March 25, 2026

Fire HD 10 (11th generation)

My Fire HD 8 is getting old and slow (it's the 10th generation from 2020), so I was in the market for a replacment.  Saw this Fire HD 10 (11th generation) for sale for $69 on Facebook Marketplace.   It's a 2021 model, but looking at the reviews, the latest 2023 (13th generation) model isn't all that much faster.  Plus this one came with 64GB instead of 32 and came with a case.  Looking at it now, it's only 1 year newer than my Fire HD 8.  So we'll see how much faster it is.

Picked it up and the case looks in excellent condition, unlike my old beat up cases.  It's a Moko case.  That's the same brand case as on my Fire HD 8.

OK, let's set it up.  Looks like the guy reset it to factory default.

Choose English (U.S.)
Log into my WiFi network.
Installing your updates...
then the screen blanked out
press the power button and the display goes back on
Register your Fire
Register your Fire using your existing Amazon account to get access to a large selection of digital content.

Email
Amazon Password
Continue
Registering your 'fire

Meet Your Fire Tablet
play the video

Restoring your Fire Tablet
if you restore to an earlier backup, this information will be restored
Device settings
Wi-Fi networks and passwords
Email settings
Bookmarks
Appls
Some settings for apps (varies by app)

Please note
If your Fire tablet is not on the latest OS version, it will update and restart your device
Your apps will download and install automatically.  Date and content from the apps will be restored based on their configurations
This may take a few minutes

Mike's Fire Tablet

[Cancel Restore]  / I want to set it up from scratch 

Enable Location Services [check]
Backup Device to the Amazon Cloud [check]
Save Wi-Fir Password to Amazon [uncheck]

Make this Tablet kid friendly?
Your Tablet allows you to create a personalized experience for up to 4 children, including custom home screen, preferences, and content.

With child profiles and Amazon Kids you can...
Set time limits and educational goals
Discover what your child enjoys with Parent Dashboard
Add your own content to the walled garden

Yes, create a child profile
Not now*
* you can always add child profiles later in the Amazon Kids app or Settings

Not now [I'll look up how child profiles work later]

[Continue]

Set screen lock
Set a lock screen PIN or password to protect the data on your Fire
PIN (instead of password

do I  have a PIN on my HD 8?
let me restart it and see...
nope, no PIN
so choose [Not Now]

Join Kindle Unlimited (3-months free)
No thanks

audible
Your first audiobook is free
Try for Free or No thanks
[No thanks]

Enjoy books alredy included in your Prime membership!
[Not now]

Get apps and games for free
[Not now]

Alexa Tutorial
[Continue]

Get started with Alexa Hands-Free
[Agree & Continue]

Try it now.  Just ask.
"Alexa, what's the weather?"
79 degrees Fahrenheit
partly sunny
[Continue]

Customize Hands-Free in Settings
Hands-Free allows access to Alexa even if your table is passcode-locked.  You can change this in settings.

The wake word is set to "Alexa" by default.  You can change it in Settings.

Turn Hands-Free off in Quick Actions or in Settings.  You can still press and hold the Home button to speak to Alexa.

[Finish]

Finally get to the Home screen

There are initial 19 icons on the screen.  Four rows with five icons on each row

Shop Amazon  Silk Browser    Appstore           Prime Video  Amazon Kids+
Utilities            Kindle              Amazon Music Audible         Freevee
Gallery             Games              Amazon Alexa Email             Camera
Settings            Amazon Photos Files                Microsoft 365 (Office)

Checking Settings
Storage
Internal Storage: 54.24 GB free of 56.36 GB

Display
Sleep
After 1 minute of inactivity
let's change that to 5 minutes

Brightness level is 52%
let me up that to 60%

I'm surprised freevee is on there
when I open it up it says Prime Video is the new exclusive home for Freevee TV shows movies and Live TV
Go to Prime Video
Back to Freevee
Oops
We had trouble loading additional contents

[So I guess I can uninstall it, but there is no uninstall option]

Prime Video is already logged into my account

Microsoft 365 asks me to sign in

Kindle
Syncing your account...
[took a little while]
my Library appears, nothing downloaded yet

a couple of books showed up even though the loans expires: Year of No Clutter, How Not to Invest, The Art of Spending Money.  [And I see more later.]

It shows the book in two colums, horizontally, but one colum vertically.  On my Fire HD 8, it's one column both ways.

let me adjust the font size, it's a little smaller than on my Fire HD 8.  It was on the fourth notch (out of 12).  Bump it up to the fifth notch.  Still two columns.   Ah, I see I can force it to single clumn in Layout.  (No matter the font size, it'll still go to two columns if that's how it's set.)  The sixth or seventh notch looks about right to me.

Looking at the app store.  Appstore Library.  I don't see YouTube TV and only a third party version of YouTube.

Let me change the Device Name.  It's currently named MICHAEL's Fire.  I'll rename it for Fire HD 10 (11th generation 2021) 3/25/26

How about email?  This is where my Fire HD 8 lags.  I often have to exit and go back in in order to delete emails.  Let's set it up.

put in my gmail first

switpe to delete [this is something I don't normally do]
swipe left on a message to delete it.  you can retrieve accidentally deleted messages by tapping on Undo at the bottom of the screen.

Got the email setup.  I wouldn't say it's blazingly fast, but faster than the HD 8 at least.  It's functional, at least so far.

***

[3/26/26] what have installed so far?  Zen Word, Facebook Messenger, Facebook.  Uninstalled Microsoft 365.

YouTube TV doesn't play all that well.  The bottom of the screen doesn't clear when I go full screen.  I want to install the Google Play Store so I can installed the apps not supported by the Amazon Appstore.  Starting with YouTube TV and YouTube.

I see I wrote down how to do it on my Fire HD 8.  It looks like I liked the instruction from How-To Geek the best.  So I'll go with that one.

Look up install Google Play Store on Fire HD 10.  Didn't see the How-To Geek article, so I added How-to Geek to the search and got this link dated Aug 24, 2023 (updated Sep 19, 2025).

Settings
Security & Privacy
Apps from Unknown Sources
says Silk Browser Not allowed / tap on it and Allow from this source

Find my Fire Tablet model.  It's Fire HD 10 (11th generation).
See my Fire OS version.  It's Fire OS 7.3.3.1

with that information, proceed to download the appropriate files (look for trhe Download APK button with the file size)

Google Account Manager v.7.1.2 [tap on it]
DOWNLOAD APK 6.25 MB
Silk needs storage access to download file.  [this message wasn't in the article]
[Continue]
Allow Silk Browser to access photos, media, and files on your devie?  [Allow]
File downloaded [don't open it]

Google Services Framework v9-4832352
DOWNLOAD APK 4.59 MB
File downloaded
(4.59MB)

Google Play Services (64-bit ARM, nodpi, Android 9.0+)
there's a bunch of links that showed up, I'll choose the one at the top which is the latest dated March 23, 2026
Google Play Services 26.11.32
DOWNLOAD APK
246.56 MB
Downloading file...  [then the messaged disappeared for serveral seconds]
File downloaded

Google Play Store (Android 10+, universal, nodpi)
the how-to geek website is getting popup ads now :( [not interested in buying a vacuum]
close the tabs and open up the article again
I'll choose Android 10+ (the second link)
Download APK
93.74 MB
File downloaded

OK, now back to the article on the laptop to proceed
close Silk on the Fire tablet
Open Files app
Downloads
change to list view (tap on the square at the top right)

install the files in order

com.google.android.gsf.login

Your tablet and personal data are more vulnerable to attack by unknown apps.  By installing this app, you agree that you are responsible for any damage to your tablet or loss of data that may result from its use.
[CONTINUE]
Google Account Manager
Do you want to install this application?  It does not require any special access
[INSTALL]
App installed
[DONE]

com.google.android.gsf
[same prompts]
Google Services Framework
[INSTALL]
App installed
[DONE]

com.google.android.gms
[same warning]
[CONTINUE]
Google Play services
[INSTALL]  [taking a while]
App installed
[DONE]

com.android.vending
There was a problem parsing the package

OK, let me look for another article and see what file to install for Google Play Store

techradar says to "pick the most recent one and find a file that’s listed as nodpi and universal for the version of Android your tablet has.

Last time, I chose the first Android 10+ on the list.  This time, I'll choose the second one which is the sixth link.

It's confusing. All the articles I see (including Wired, Android Police) imply there's only one version of the Google Play Store to install.  WTH, I'll pick the one at the top and work my way down.  Wait, that one doesn't say nodpi.  Let me choose the third one which is actually Android 12+, but I think the Fire tablet only supports Android 9.  So let me go to the sixth one which suppords Android 6.0+.

This reddit post says he got the problem parsing the package on his Fire HD 8, so he chose a 6+ package and it worked.  Let's try this Android 7.0+ APK (not bundle)

Download APK
94.14 MB
File downloaded

OK, go back to files
com.android.vending [try this one]
got the warning
[CONTINUE]
Do you want to install?
[INSTALL]
App installed
[DONE]

restart the tablet
OK, let's see
the Play Store icon is on 
tap it
Sign in
nothing happens at first
Checking info
sign in with your work account
Back up device date [turn off]
Sign in with your work account
sign in again, that account already exists
close the app and re-launch it

Welcome to Google Play
Get started
Level up your experience
Not now

OK
I'm in, it looks like

Let me delete the files that were download, since I don't need them now.  Well, at least the one that was giving me an error

OK, delete them all.