IPad – Can’t open the iPad mini

OK, I'm somewhat embarrassed, but it looks like the problem fixed itself after a couple of days. After noticing the issue first, it was reproducible for a couple of days. I backed up the iPad to iTunes, did a factory reset as a new device, and the issue was still there.

After that, I called Apple Support and they suggested replacing the device, since it seemed to be a hardware issue. I couldn't replace the iPad at this time since I was travelling, so I told them I would wait another couple of days.

When I was back from traveling, I backed up the device again and called Apple Support to arrange the pickup of the iPad. While on the phone with them, I had to describe the issue again and while doing so, was trying to replicate the issue while talking on the phone. Guess what, it worked this time and has worked now for the last couple of days without any issues.

I'm not sure how the issue fixed itself, but there are several possible explanations - not sure how reasonable they are, though:

• The iPad was with me on two atlantic flights (Europe - US and back), maybe the pressure change has fixed the issue, if it was a hardware issue. I remember that the issue was still there when I got to the US, but was gone after I got back.
• Doing another backup/sync with iTunes fixed the issue, which would mean that it was a software issue.

There may be other explanations that I don't see at the moment. While it all is a bit mysterious, I'm glad that it's working now. Let's just hope that it doesn't return.

Update July 2013

The problem returned after a couple of weeks. I finally called Apple Support and they exchanged the device for a new one, since mine was still under warranty. The new one works perfectly fine. So it looks like it was a hardware problem after all.

Possibility 1: Bug in a third-party app

Third-party developers have the ability to turn this icon on and off in their applications. This is a problem when the app does not disable the icon appropriately when it is finished with network operations.

The spinning wheel is set based on the networkActivityIndicatorVisible property and is set like so:

[[UIApplication sharedApplication] setNetworkActivityIndicatorVisible:YES];

Restarting the device fixes this until the offending app enables the icon and, once again, does not disable it. Apple apps will handle the icon properly, but iOS leaves it up to the third-party developers to handle it on their own. Sloppy developers can definitely cause the issue you are seeing.

The explanation from Apple's developer page on this topic:

Specify YES if the app should show network activity and NO if it should not. The default value is NO. A spinning indicator in the status bar shows network activity. The app may explicitly hide or show this indicator.

Because this is explicit, bugs in code may cause this to remain visible long after a network operation finishes. My suggestion to you is to track down the offending app and submit a bug report to the developers.

Possibility 2: Actual networking is happening in the background

The accepted answer from this Apple.SE question suggests that it may be actual network activity causing the spinning wheel to remain visible.

• The network you've connected to needs some more configuration, and it's taking some time to get the configuration information set properly from the router (or, more likely, DNS server)
• Your phone is polling for a lot of data to transfer - maybe there are a lot of apps to update, or you have a lot of email to sync, or you have a lot of cloud data to download
• Your phone is trying to hit an important server, and is having trouble connecting to it (say, it's trying to poll apple servers to check for software updates and the servers in questions are down). The spinner is going to stay up for a while, until your phone gives up or gets an actual connection.

This is certainly possible. It may not be a bug in anyone's code and reflect actual networking that your phone is doing in the background.