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Apple Accidentally Allowed Downgrades All the Way Back to iOS 6 Early Today
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I haven't downgraded in a while and I'm happy on 9.3.5 but I could have sworn when you downgrade it prompts a pop up to accept conditions? I wondered if Apple added any new language regarding risk.
Nope, since downgrading has never been officially supported by Apple - I don’t even think the word “downgrade” exists in any official Apple publications - all you see before conducting the procedure is the standard dialog that pops up when restoring any IPSW through iTunes, i.e. “iTunes will restore your iPhone to iOS x and confirm the restore with Apple” 🙂
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Assuming you're on 9.3.5, you can jailbreak it with Phoenix (easy) and install Coolbooter to dual boot iOS 9 and iOS 6. Only disadvantage of this is that your device's storage will be partitioned, so you won't get access to the entire storage space on either OS - it'll be split in half or whatever you decide.
I never jailbreak a device that I use daily - all the times I had to restore my jailbroken 3G & 3GS due to f*cking stuff up got me kinda turned off lol - but I messed around with this on several of my old devices including the iPhone 4 and iPad 2. It worked great, solid piece of code that was also real easy to use. If you've ever played around with basic jb tweaks like Winterboard you'll have no trouble figuring out how to use coolbooter. (Thats the advantage of never selling off old devices - I get to mess around with them when I'm reaaaally bored on Tuesday nights haha 😀)
Btw: TOTALLY agree w/ you about the photos app. The current one is just a mess with all the "collections", facial recognition and whatnot. Also miss the old Notification Center where notifications were grouped by app... and slide to unlock... and when you played music the album art would cover the entire lock screen instead of just showing a blown up thumbnail... and every single icon... yeah, I think you have figured out by now that I'm one of those sentimental guys who miss the classic iOS UI 😉
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B4U
macrumors 601
Did not think I said the bullet needs to be fired from a firearm...
By physically putting a bullet into my mouth would be technically considered as "putting a bullet in my head".
All right, just kidding.
But that pretty much sums up how much I would dislike to have the 4S be running anything newer than 6.1.3.
Macyourdayy
macrumors 6502
Id love it if my ipad 4 ran as sweetly on any of the other ones as it did on 6, but so many apps don't run on those early versions. Then again very few interesting things run on 11, but seriously, everything since 6 has been like molasses, so might as well be on 9.3.3. Not sure if I should turn it up to 10 though but the install messages and/or constant downloading of updates has almost broken me.
I sure miss 6 though. At least I can't accidentally turn it up to 11, but I can't believe how screwed up my 6s+ is just going from 9 to 10.
bashman2020
macrumors regular
i was opportuned to downgrade from ios 11.2.1 to ios 10.3 on my iphone 5s when the signing window was opened we hope apple mistakenly open all signing windows back so everyone can downgrade if they want to . i'm glad i'm running 10.3 on my 5s everything feels so smooth and no lags or bugs whatsoever
danpass
macrumors 68030
user1234
macrumors 6502a
What about personal data such as photos, real-time position data, phone numbers, phone logs, private messages, email and so on? Getting access to email allows a hacker to reset passwords to most services you have signed up for. Even if you like most people have nothing to hide, it's a big headache to recover access to services and it can take a lot of time and effort. As for phone numbers, if hackers get a hold of your entire contact list, your can bet all those people are going to receive scam phonecalls. Maybe just once or twice, or maybe several per day.
Then it's the bigger issue of botnets. If we are ever going to get rid of those, we can't have devices with known security problems that allow hackers to take them over and turn them into botnet peers.
Also, when you bring an infected device into someone's wifi network hackers can get access to other stuff on that network. When if you don't have anything critical doesn't mean others don't, and by running outdated software you are putting others at risk.
Security updates are important. It's not wise to leave known security holes unfixed because "there's noting critical on this device".
rafark
macrumors 68020
Having a security hole doesn't mean your whole device is at the mercy of anyone out there. Devices from this decade are already very secure, and extremely hard to hack. Highly unlikely (read: pretty much impossible) a hacker would get access to your sensitive data if you only downoad from oficial sources, and no hacker would bother trying if you're not a high profile person.
If they ever manage to hack your device, most likely they wouldn't have access to all of your data, but only some of it. Say they have access to your email adress (again this is very, very unlikely, but just for the sake of the debate), they wouldn't have your password as it would be encrypted and they wouldn't have access to the key because it would be store somewhere else they don't have access. So again, no hacker would spend years researching holes just to get a nobody's email adress to sell it to spammers. It's not profitable.
iOS devices are not as open as regular computers.
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user1234
macrumors 6502a
Unlikely sure, impossible, no. It's easier than many may believe to exploit some of the issues, while others are very difficult to exploit.
Botnets are scanning the internet for insecure devices all the time. Leaving known issues unpatched is not good for anyone. Infected devices on public wifi can also quite easily infect other services on the same network, given that they have unpatched issues of a kind that can be exploitable that way.
Krack and BlueBorne are two issues in particular that really shouldn't be left unpatched.
I can say though that it would be better for Apple to release security updates independent of OS updates, and not force OS updates on devices that are not powerful enough to smoothly run them. Much like what they do with macOS. That would allow users to stay on older iOS versions while still keeping their devices secure.
It’s a shame we have to take a performance hit just so Apple’s executives and shareholders can continue to feed parasitically off our blood...
Yup. 6.1.3 still signed for iPhone 4S and iPad 2. Seems like they're not planning to stop signing it so good news for everyone using these devices who want better performance than the most recent version 🙂
^This, This and This^
I think the cats out of the bag now and people are realizing that previous iOS still work fine and in some cases better than the latest keynote iOS. The bag and the cat are that now we know Apple has slowed down previous users iPhones just because they wanted the latest and greatest iOS touted at this years keynote. When it slows down people have just bought the newest iPhone. It's a win win for Apple but people are beginning to realize an older phone running an older version of iOS example 6s with iOS 9.3.5 still works perfectly and Apple should support that.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
I agree to an extent. I’m still using windows xp and wish Microsoft offered security patches.
Will 6.1.3 work better on my iPad 2 than 9.3.5? Not interested as the loss of functionality and apps aren’t worth it.
sracer
macrumors G4
I still use XP. By applying the following patch to your XP system, you can continue to receive updates (primarily security patches) until April 2019.
https://www.extremetech.com/computi...ple-hack-gives-you-five-more-years-of-updates
http://www.zdnet.com/article/registry-hack-enables-continued-updates-for-windows-xp/
Of course Microsoft's official position on this hack is that it doesn't fully protect Windows XP users. I've had no problems with it, but obviously that is no guarantee for everyone.
I have an iPad2 on iOS 7.1.1. If I revert to 6.1.3 and don´t like it, can I somehow go back to the state before, i.e. 7.1.1, or do I have to go all the way to 9.3.5, which I would like to avoid?
justperry
macrumors G5
KingSH007
Suspended
The only apps not working on 6.1.3 that I know of are Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsapp, Viber, Microsoft's Office suite, Twitch, Youtube studio, and some other less-known apps. Most of the mainstream stuff works.
Yes, they are older versions of apps, but they work.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
There are some apps that require at least ios 7 such as Siriusxm. But doesn't ios 6.1.3 suffer from a loss of facetime?
I also won't be able to answer the my iphone on my ipad when connected to the same wifi network. I guess its some of the little things.
Avenged110
macrumors 6502a
If you wanted to update from iOS 6, you would have to go to 9.3.5.
Having used both, iOS 6 performs far better on an iPad 2 than anything after.
This is something Apple should do for older devices "especially" 32bit iDevices that are no longer supported.
...which is useless if the apps don't work. The only apps that would work properly is Apple stock apps except FaceTime.