Apple Stops Signing iOS 9.2.1, Downgrading From iOS 9.3 No Longer Possible

[DEMinSoCAL]

May I ask why? 9.3 has been incredible for me compared to 9.2.1... Huge huge change in performance on my iPad mini 2 although it still isn't perfect. Control Center is perfect now on iPhone 6, and everything is overall more zippy.

I never had the freezing bug with the links and I don't know how to trigger it or anything.

Went to use flashlight yesterday and like more often than not, the flashlight icon was greyed out. It's such a PITA to have to reboot my phone just to use the flashlight. Searching on this problem, it's existed forever, yet, here on 9.3.1, we still have it.

It's SO hard to implement a LED flashlight that works all the time?

 

[ike1707]

I thought 9 would be solid as a rock by now, the way 8, and 7 were in years previous..

Honestly, despite all the complaining, I think it is. The only ongoing issues I deal with were preexisting quirks from either 7 or 8.

Try using Siri to add 15 numbers together- if the arithmetic runs on too long it cuts off the result from view.

voice dictation causes the same thing in the quick response field when I reply to a message(in the pull-down menu). More than a couple lines and it does something similar.

Proof: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7429423

 

[smacrumon]

Depends. A developer with limited resources might only want to focus on the latest version of the OS with the latest APIs. Thus Apple's action makes sense, as it ensures that most iOS users will be on the latest OS. It simplifies a lot of legacy headaches.

Now, this is ideal when it is paired with Apple putting an effort in ensuring the high quality of the latest release. iOS9 has been quite rocky. Even iOS8 was not alright until several versions later. Thus I can understand people's desire for a downgrade. If every latest release is high quality, there might not be a need to downgrade.

Yes, and that is the point clearly explained in your final sentence. The latest releases aren't high quality unfortunately, so downgrading seems necessary sometimes. Improve the quality, and downgrades for most would be eliminated I suspect.

 

[SeattleMoose]

I'm surprised. I thought 9 would be solid as a rock by now, the way 8, and 7 were in years previous. I wonder what the underlying issue is behind the scenes. Maybe their top software geniuses are working on something else? Like a copy of Amazon's Echo?

Roman Empire syndrome. Genius gets rich, discovers good life, and loses fire for work. Happens all the time. Make it big by doing the least amount possible by age 30...goal of every young person since the mid 80's.

 

[simonmet]

I never encountered this bug. Was it 6S/6S Plus only? What types of links triggered it?

No it was caused by the Booking.com app but required an OS update to fix and was the reason for 9.3.1.

 

[hlfway2anywhere]

Uh, yeah, this is why I'm going to be on 9.2 for a while. I'm pretty sure iTunes has told me several times about 9.3.1 even though I told it to stop telling me. Ugh. I hate modal popups.
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There was this one on the MR front page, for one:

The other reported bugs were for 9.3.

iOS 9.2 problems include "issues with personal hotspot, issues with the smartcover volume display, an odd keyboard bug, various iOS 9.2 installation problems, Wi-Fi problems, issues with Calendar, clipboard issues, new Apple Music problems, Touch ID problems, and more." source:http://www.gottabemobile.com/2016/01/18/ios-9-2-problems/

The Siri was patched the same day it surfaced, so that leaves me with my original question. What known issues are in 9.3.1?

 

[Parasprite]

Went to use flashlight yesterday and like more often than not, the flashlight icon was greyed out. It's such a PITA to have to reboot my phone just to use the flashlight. Searching on this problem, it's existed forever, yet, here on 9.3.1, we still have it.

It's SO hard to implement a LED flashlight that works all the time?

This may or may not apply to your situation.

My 5c flashlight worked sporadically until the camera stopped working completely because that function relies on the back-facing camera to work. If the camera fails the hardware test the phone assumes the flashlight won't work either and grays it out.

This might suggest that what you have is a hardware issue rather than a software bug. If you have Applecare I'd recommend you get it looked at.

 

[XTheLancerX]

Well.. There is no ticket for you to going back now, if the update screwd your phone, your stucked with it.

I am still stay at iOS 7 with my iPad Mini first generation and iPhone 4S. iPod touch 6, iPhone 6S, iPad Mini 4 and iPad Air 2 still at iOS 9.2. After all these bugs, I am not going to update.

I don't really care with my Android phones (Nexus, Moto, Xiaomi and Meizu), all I need to do is reflash old firmware and be happy (Nexus and Moto need flash files and adb commond, while Xiaomi and Meizu just need put .zip file on the root directory and hit restore).

Updating to x.x or x.x.x updates of the same main iOS version is not typically going to "screw your phone". It usually does quite the opposite. For me iOS 9.3.1 has been leaps and bounds better than 9.2.1. 9.2.1 was better than 9.0.2, etc.

However updating to new main versions (iOS 7.x.x to iOS 8.x.x), especially to x.0 versions (iOS 7.0, iOS 8.0) are the updates that will "screw your phone".

Keep your iPhone 4S and iPad mini 1 on iOS 7. iOS 9 will trash them in terms of speed, because it is 2 full iterations or main versions of iOS newer, much more to handle. Update your iPod touch 6, iPad mini 4, and iPhone 6S to iOS 9.3.1, they ALL will see ***performance improvements*** as they're already on iOS 9. 9.3.1 is simply a much more refined version of iOS 9... More refined than 9.2.1 even.

9.3 brought my iPhone 6 and iPad mini 2 closest to the superior iOS 8.4.1 performance they've ever been at since iOS 9. I don't understand your logic of not updating to a "point" release of the same main version. These pretty much always make devices work better than before as long as it's coming from just an older version of the same main release.

I'm surprised. I thought 9 would be solid as a rock by now, the way 8, and 7 were in years previous. I wonder what the underlying issue is behind the scenes. Maybe their top software geniuses are working on something else? Like a copy of Amazon's Echo?

iOS 7 and 8 were not rock solid until the final versions of the respective releases. iOS 7 had TONS of UI glitches and springboard crashes, it was slow, laggy, bad. iOS 8 was slow, laggy, bad, springboard crashes as well, more jetsam events, copy and paste was impossible, couldn't delete iCloud safari tabs, etc etc etc... iOS 9 still has work to be done just like iOS 8 did at its earlier-mid stages.

 

[sudo1996]

Roman Empire syndrome. Genius gets rich, discovers good life, and loses fire for work. Happens all the time. Make it big by doing the least amount possible by age 30...goal of every young person since the mid 80's.

Some blame the collapse of the Roman Empire on a good king dying and being replaced by an ******.
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From a developer point of view, I also would love to test on multiple iOS versions on my device, but I can't do this on a real device, I'm more or less locked into one version. Unfortunately the simulator doesn't catch all issues that are present on device.

Yeah, it's unfortunate. I'll bet Apple has such tight security to prevent downgrading just so people can't exploit old vulnerabilities for jailbreaking if they accidentally update.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

This may or may not apply to your situation.

My 5c flashlight worked sporadically until the camera stopped working completely because that function relies on the back-facing camera to work. If the camera fails the hardware test the phone assumes the flashlight won't work either and grays it out.

This might suggest that what you have is a hardware issue rather than a software bug. If you have Applecare I'd recommend you get it looked at.

I've found when the flashlight is disabled, my rear camera works fine. I can take pictures, even pictures with flash.

 

[Parasprite]

I've found when the flashlight is disabled, my rear camera works fine. I can take pictures, even pictures with flash.

Oh. Well I'm out of ideas.

Still sounds more like a hardware problem but I could be wrong.