Downgrading an iPhone From iOS 17 to iOS 16 is No Longer Possible

[FeliApple]

Users should always have the right to downgrade to the iOS version the iPhone came with. Apple does not have to nanny its users. If they prefer an old version, they should be able to keep it.

At the moment only rich users have the option of downgrading by buying a second iPhone in the first place just to have the option to return to the old version.

"Signing" iOS should only be a security measure to make sure that it really came from Apple, but Apple uses signing to make users keep a new version against their will.

Apple should allow us to install whatever version we want, whenever we want. Why do I say this? I’m running the best iOS version for my iPhone Xʀ, iOS 12. Perhaps a certain app that I want to use starts requiring iOS 14. I want it? Cool, Apple says. You can have it. Update your iPhone... to iOS 17, and obliterate it. What if you don’t like what it does to your iPhone? Just buy the new one then.

How should it be? Sign everything, all the time. I want that app? Okay. I’ll update to iOS 14.6. I don’t like iOS 14 and prefer to go back to iOS 12? Allow that, too. Any version, at any time. Maybe it’s iOS 13 that I want, or iOS 15. I can’t try them, because I can never go back. Maybe iOS 15 is perfectly fine for my Xʀ. Can I try it? (Or could I try it back when it was the latest?), well... no, because I can never go back.

You can fight this by staying behind, but it isn’t optimal. Some developers are very aggressive in removing support for older iOS versions, which is obvious, nobody runs them because everybody updates and downgrading is not possible.

 

[arlomedia]

Can someone answer this for me? Does this mean that eligible devices on iOS 15 and below can no longer upgrade to iOS 16? Do they have to jump straight to iOS 17? Or is going from 15 -> 16 still an option?

In general you can only update to the latest public version, or if your device doesn't support that, the latest version your device does support. So if your device is running iOS 15 and supports iOS 17, you can no longer update to iOS 16.

Oh, but I have an iPhone 12 with iOS 15 and it is giving me the choice of updating to iOS 16 or iOS 17! I've never seen that before -- not sure if that's a new option or how long it will be there.

 

[ios3]

For devices that support iOS 17, I believe there is still an option to update OTA to iOS 16.7

 

[v0lume4]

In general you can only update to the latest public version, or if your device doesn't support that, the latest version your device does support. So if your device is running iOS 15 and supports iOS 17, you can no longer update to iOS 16.

Oh, but I have an iPhone 12 with iOS 15 and it is giving me the choice of updating to iOS 16 or iOS 17! I've never seen that before -- not sure if that's a new option or how long it will be there.

Thanks for the information. Same here, I can currently seeing an option to upgrade to 16 OR 17. I wonder how long that option will stay there.

 

[madmozg]

That's a loaded topic.

1. User chooses to remain on an older version of the operating system.
2. Developers have moved on and only support the latest.
3. User has an issue with an app due to an incompatibility between the app and their chosen operating system.

Should Apple or the developer have the burden of providing support because a user is refusing to keep up with the latest?

Users *do* have the choice to keep using a particular operating system by turning off automatic updates and never upgrading, so that argument doesn't hold water. The signing prevents downgrading *after* an upgrade has already taken place — either automatically, or manually. In both cases, the user is responsible for the upgrade happening, not Apple.

I updated my iphone 11 pro to 17 and starter to have eye strain and nausea, took a video tests of the screen what is going on, then downgraded to 16 and took also a video of the screen and compared both! It turns out that after the update to iOS 17 apple changed the PWM frequency which cause me bad feelings and made that phone unusable. so about what choice you r talking about? why the hell I cannot downgrade to prev version ? Here is a proof for you -

 

[paulcons]

Rats, I had come here in hopes of finding a way to change my 17.x back the the last 16.x... 17 totally breaks something I do a LOT of and as that might not be of top concern to many users, to me it is (has to do with alarms & timers). I have a sneaky feeling it might take forever to fix if they decide to actually fix it. Which they may not decide to fix at all. This is one of those things that if Steve were still around, he''d have it fixed pronto.