I am not at all pleased with this. I foolishly updated my iPhone 6S from iOS 11 to 12.3.1 without checking to see if there was a jailbreak available. I have Automatic Updates turned off, and have been waiting for a 12.3.1 jailbreak. The other night, I left my phone alone for a few minutes, and it updated itself to 12.4. This is infuriating! I downloaded the 12.3.1 .ipsw as fast as I could and tried to downgrade it to no avail. Apple stopped signing it immediately after forcing the update.
My jailbroken iPhone 4 running iOS 6 (I wish it was 5) is more functional than my phone running iOS 12. I can do all the tasks I regularly do with a swipe, tap, or double tap on a certain area. I was absolutely dumbfounded at how little progress Apple has made as far as usability is concerned and every update just gets uglier and uglier. I'm not a fan of the flat, cheap knock-off of iOS look that has plagued us since iOS 6 and Yosemite. It looks like it was designed by color blind kids working in a Korean slave labor camp drawing icons with out-of-the-tube colors and their hands behind their backs. At least with my jailbroken iOS 6 phone, I can restore the professionally designed icons and dock.
I was waiting patiently so I could make my iPhone usable, but they literally forced this update without permission. Jailbreaking aside, I don't like to update ANYTHING until I know it doesn't break anything important. Is there any way to force a restore to the older iOS after Apple has stopped signing it? This is just dirty pool. When I buy a device and tell it not to update, I expect that choice to be respected. I was the biggest proponent of Apple since the release of OS X Public Beta in September of 2001 and sold millions of dollars worth of stock and hardware for them up until they fired Scott Forstall and put that insane minimalist Jonny Ives in charge of OS development. The man has no clue. There are so many things that STILL don't work after all the years he's been in charge of destroying Apple software. For instance, you still can't adjust the speed that media scrubs by pulling down from the scrub bar like in iOS 5 and before. And when selecting text, it doesn't scroll down past what's on the screen when you reach the end of what's displayed. Why in the world would they break these things that made the user experience so simple and elegant?
You used to be able to give an iPhone to anyone and they could use it easily. Now, there is a manual that is 3000+ pages in Books because the interface is so unintuitive. It's minimalism to the point of insanity. Not only that, the quality of the apps has declined remarkably. People who have been getting slowly boiled like frogs probably don't notice it, but when you suddenly go from a highly functional piece of art to a dumbed down, eyesore imitation of what was once great, the shock is palpable. I have tried dozens of apps to manage my prescription medications, and none of them come close to the features of the app I used in iOS 4–6. Same with apps for lists, date calculators, and many more. I have to carry around 2 phones because there are simply no replacements for things that are vital to my day-to-day use. I used to be accused of being a fanboy, but I was just enthusiastic about the genius and quality standards that Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall were injecting into the products. Then, not long after Jobs died, they pushed Forstall out because he refused to release crap or compromise quality—just like Steve. Since he's been gone, it's a been a downhill slide and I can't believe so few people notice it. They have truly drunk the Kool-Ade and are like lemmings. They will gladly swallow whatever crap Apple puts out and think it's great without noticing the decline.
With their aggressive release schedule, they barely get an OS working before they release a new one. The least they could do is allow users to opt out of forced updates! The really ironic thing is that they used the Maps app in iOS 6 as the excuse to fire Forstall, and it's not any better than it was! I am on a very tight budget due to a disability, and I spent what is a lot of money for me to buy an unlocked iPhone so I could go Google-free, but the keyboard in iOS is still an absurdly dysfunctional relic that hasn't improved, and the Maps app is just as bad as it was in iOS 6, so I'm having to use Gboard and Google Maps. At least the Gboard is somewhat sandboxed in iOS so every word I type doesn't go into Google's profile of my private life, but come on, Apple! They've gone from being the trend setter to a sad imitation as far as appearance and functionality are concerned, and this is as sad as it is aggravating!
