The strange case of the iPad Mini 5th Gen with “corrupted” storage

I got the latest generation iPad Mini not so long ago. It is out of warranty, but definitely not that old. It is a child of the pandemic. I got it because I wanted to use it for a more comfortable reading experience because of its larger screen size. I won’t call it a better screen because it does not have an OLED screen like the Samsungs or the newer iPhones.

I expected the larger iPad to be more powerful than my iPhone XS Max. However, it turns out that the iPhone is more reliable and powerful, and has a better build quality. This has just been my experience comparing the two devices so far. The iPhone seems to work better in almost every way than the iPad Mini.

But, what I did not expect was the constant crashing after the last Tablet OS update. It started a few weeks ago, and got worse over time with the newer updates. This was what was happening:

• First the apps started “dying” — which is something we have all observed occasionally before, but not with core apps like Apple News. Google News used to crash as well. Youtube never crashed though for some reason.
• Then the iPad started “logging out” and going to the lock screen after a black screen of death.
• Then black screen of death + iPad reboot.