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Apple Pulls Ability to Restore iPhone 5c, iPad Mini, and More [Updated]

Never assume malice (or conspiracy) when a naive logical explanation will suffice.

These devices are all over 10 years old. They are all officially out of support. The signing certificates have probably all expired. It is probably not worth the expense and logistical support overhead to renew those signing certificates for however few legacy devices might still be out there.
 
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Since this only impacts cellular devices, I’m wondering if there is a royalty/licensing fee issue. Either Apple no longer wants to pay the fees to Qualcomm (or whomever) to allow these installs to continue. Or, as someone else has mentioned, Qualcomm may have discovered a vulnerability on these older devices and is refusing to fix it, and Apple doesn’t want to be liable for allowing *new* installs of known defective software.

Either way, this feels like finance or legal telling Apple to pull the plug on supporting these older devices. Definitely reinforces the point we are only renting these devices from Apple and they can (and will) pull the plug on them at some point in the future.

On the flip side, kudos to the battery tech! To have a battery that old hold more than a 10 minute charge after all of these years is pretty cool. Also, maybe this change will slag a bunch of old devices being used in overseas scam call/texting operations. (One can only hope)
 
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littlepud said:
Never assume malice (or conspiracy) when a naive logical explanation will suffice.

These devices are all over 10 years old. They are all officially out of support. The signing certificates have probably all expired. It is probably not worth the expense and logistical support overhead to renew those signing certificates for however few legacy devices might still be out there.
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And considering the impacted devices are all cellular devices, Apple probably has no choice as the Cell Carriers would need to be providing the updates or supporting their baseband connection.
 
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I had to look at the devices list twice since I have an iPhone 5S and iPad mini (WiFi only) that I plan on fixing (screen for iPad, battery and screen for iPhone).
That was close and this news is forcing my hand to do it asap.

Thanks Apple for unplanned expenses
 
dominiongamma said:
The problem with those phones were the screen size was too small, and the battery life wasn’t that great, I’m glad that battery tech has advanced and chips too
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That wasn't a problem, that was a unique feature. Despite iPhones being large these days, Apple still didn't do much for proper UI scaling - empty unused white spaces everywhere. My old iPhone 5 had enough screen real estate for everything. Moreover it felt great in hand and in pocket, using 200 gram phone these days is super fatiguing
 
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Folks this is why we need competition, this is why we need regulation and this is why we need to "control" devices we pay our money for. If we give them an inch they will take a mile. What's stopping them from 4-5 years down the line saying you can't restore your iPhone 17, when you were planning on giving it to a parent or your child? What's stopping them from preventing you from selling your device that's fully paid off? I'm not anti-business, but we as consumers need to stand up to these sorts of practices. We don't work our butts off to be treated like garbage and lose access to our own products.
 
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winxmac said:
Apple,

giphy.gif


I don't understand.

They should have fixed the activation server for iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE 2016 still running iOS 9.x

They should just allow iOS 6.1.3/6.1.4 iPSW restore for iPhone 4s and iPhone 5.

They should just allow iOS 8.4.1 iPSW restore for iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, and iPhone 5s.

Why block iPSW restore for older devices?
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Because jailbreaking is forever?
 
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littlepud said:
It is probably not worth the expense and logistical support overhead to renew those signing certificates for however few legacy devices might still be out there.
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What “logistical support overhead”? Apple is a multi trillion dollar company with thousands of employees and the systems for activating these devices are already in place. Apple loses more money in the random lawsuit here and there and that still doesn’t make a dent in its finances. This is absurd.
 
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I’m gonna be honest, I don’t like movements like this. While it is true that the devices affected are very, very old, and the number of users potentially affected is minimal… why? This has a negligible cost for Apple, and the gains are also insignificant, as those users probably have a newer iPhone anyway, so the push factor for selling more modern devices isn’t there. However, this affects the preservation of devices that may still fe functional in their own way. The ability to perform a DFU restore, while not necessary for correctly working devices, may be needed in case something goes wrong.

I don’t have a theory on the why, but there’s an interesting common denominator in the devices that were left without any signed IPSW: They are all 32bit devices.
 
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Folks, it's really not that complex. Apple is the world's largest "tiny startup" with very limited resources. At the very last minute, literally after the signing and firmware had been shipped and available for years, Apple discovered they just weren't quite ready to truly delight customers anymore. So, Apple had to pull the signing and firmware. Believe you me, nobody was more surprised by this than Apple. It came out of nowhere. With their very limited resources, Apple was forbidden from resolving the issue quickly. In the meantime, Apple is thrilled to announce that customers of these devices can ensuring ever-growing profits for Apply by taking their experience to a whole new level, with the best-in-class iPhone 17 series, featuring the game-changing Apple Intelligence. Apple thinks you're gonna love it!

But seriously, don't expect any explanation other than the usual PR pablum.
 
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I do think that Apple should provide a final version of iOS for all unsupported iPhones that turns them nto a 'dumbphone' i.e. that lets it make calls and receive SMS texts and nothing else, essentially freezing it.

No App Store, no Apple apps (apart from the above) and no 3rd party apps.

Have it totally decoupled from your apple account, so it's a true dumb phone.

Call it iOS legacy mode or something & make this a mandatory install, so people realise that they're on an unsupported device and it's soon going to be semi-bricked.

Then the decision to not support it will be at the network level i.e. when networks in those countries turn off 3g and 4g frequencies.
 
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Rychiar said:
who's got a functional device that old anyways? long past time to upgrade
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You realize that "functional" is solely due to software and what the network providers offer, right? A battery or worn port can be replaced. I have an iPod from 20+ years ago that still works—yes, I've increased the storage and replaced the battery, and the click wheel eventually wore out and needed replacement, but the device still functions, and I use it daily. An OG iPhone will function just fine—we consider it non-functional because we have been trained to think that way when Apple and the network providers plan obsolescence.
 
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bluecoast said:
I do think that Apple should provide a final version of iOS for all unsupported iPhones that turns them nto a 'dumbphone' i.e. that lets it make calls and receive SMS texts and nothing else, essentially freezing it.
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And if even companies like Apple (you know ... "the good guys" as I'm always getting told here) won't do this on their own, then I think legislation should be introduced to attack the problem.

This is such an incredibly wasteful way to go about technology.
 
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vertsix said:
This is new. Apple has always had at least one version of software signed for all devices they've released. This is not the case anymore for these devices.
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Not for my iPhone from 2007. It just spins at the activation screen if I try to use Apple’s software update mechanism. I had to jailbreak it in order for it to function. Tried it multiple times to see if I could get back to stock software but it doesn’t work.
 
ricketysquire said:
Folks this is why we need competition, this is why we need regulation and this is why we need to "control" devices we pay our money for. If we give them an inch they will take a mile. What's stopping them from 4-5 years down the line saying you can't restore your iPhone 17, when you were planning on giving it to a parent or your child? What's stopping them from preventing you from selling your device that's fully paid off? I'm not anti-business, but we as consumers need to stand up to these sorts of practices. We don't work our butts off to be treated like garbage and lose access to our own products.
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you can still reset the devices on-device; you can't do it anymore in very, very specific circumstances from a Mac or pc. You can restore those devices when you're planning on giving them to parents or children. You can still sell those devices, wipe them before doing so. None of the scenario's you give are impossible on those devices. If though you set a passcode and forget it you can no longer restore them using the Mac. Guess what you can't do with your iPhone 17 pro if you forget your access code and have no access to your find my iPhone iCloud passcode?
 
PBG4 Dude said:
Not for my iPhone from 2007. It just spins at the activation screen if I try to use Apple’s software update mechanism. I had to jailbreak it in order for it to function. Tried it multiple times to see if I could get back to stock software but it doesn’t work.
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You can install any iOS version on the original iPhone and iPhone 3G up to iOS 3.something. There was no signing required for those releases. I think jailbreaking it may have done something weird to it for you?
I have a collection of old iPhones and always chuckle when someone puts up an ad for an "original iPhone with iPhoneOS 1.0!" as if that's an achievement. Everyone with an OG iPhone can put iPhoneOS 1.0 on it at any time by connecting it to a Mac or pc, downloading the OS and installing it on there 🙂
 
PBG4 Dude said:
Not for my iPhone from 2007. It just spins at the activation screen if I try to use Apple’s software update mechanism. I had to jailbreak it in order for it to function. Tried it multiple times to see if I could get back to stock software but it doesn’t work.
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The original iPhone is immune from all this because it doesn't support signed firmware. You can restore any version of iPhone OS ever released for it without a problem. So, what you're encountering is something else.
 
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