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iPhone 5 or earlier I need to update from ios 8 to 9... but no higher.

S

Sacha Baptista

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 6, 2011
9
0
Hi,

I have a rule : Never update anything. I truly believe that updating one's device and keeping it up to date is the fastest way to make it obsolete, therefore I never update anything.

So here I am with my jailbroken iPhone 5s, ios 8.1.3, working like a charm, but I've been receiving notifications from whatsapp : they're stopping support for ios 8 devices starting on feb 1, 2020.

Unfortunately, I absolutely need whatsapp for work, and there is no way around it.

So, I have to upgrade my phone but I don't want to end up on ios 12 because, as I said, I believe that will make it obsolete sooner than it would normally be. Plus, I want an ios that I can jailbreak.

Is there any way I can install ios 9.x.y on my phone? If so, how? I've seen it's possible to download unsigned ipsw files but I am not clear on how to instal them.

Any help is hugely appreciated.

Thanks :)
 
If it's an iPhone 5 it can only upgrade to a max of iOS 10. iOS 10 is fine on a 5, but it has the unresolved battery throttling issue that can't be disabled- battery has to be replaced to unthrottle it. There's no way you can upgrade to iOS 9 and you wouldn't want to anyway. I have a phone on iOS 9 and Safari is very crippled and almost zero apps available today will run on it.

I'm with you in not upgrading the OS- but if you go that route you'll need to upgrade THE PHONE every 4 to 5 years.
 
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Sacha Baptista said:
Hi,

I have a rule : Never update anything. I truly believe that updating one's device and keeping it up to date is the fastest way to make it obsolete, therefore I never update anything.

So here I am with my jailbroken iPhone 5s, ios 8.1.3, working like a charm, but I've been receiving notifications from whatsapp : they're stopping support for ios 8 devices starting on feb 1, 2020.

Unfortunately, I absolutely need whatsapp for work, and there is no way around it.

So, I have to upgrade my phone but I don't want to end up on ios 12 because, as I said, I believe that will make it obsolete sooner than it would normally be. Plus, I want an ios that I can jailbreak.

Is there any way I can install ios 9.x.y on my phone? If so, how? I've seen it's possible to download unsigned ipsw files but I am not clear on how to instal them.

Any help is hugely appreciated.

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

Go find and buy a 9.x.x ios then sell your 8.x.x
Wish you luck
 
Sacha Baptista said:
Hi,

I have a rule : Never update anything. I truly believe that updating one's device and keeping it up to date is the fastest way to make it obsolete, therefore I never update anything.

So here I am with my jailbroken iPhone 5s, ios 8.1.3, working like a charm, but I've been receiving notifications from whatsapp : they're stopping support for ios 8 devices starting on feb 1, 2020.

Unfortunately, I absolutely need whatsapp for work, and there is no way around it.

So, I have to upgrade my phone but I don't want to end up on ios 12 because, as I said, I believe that will make it obsolete sooner than it would normally be. Plus, I want an ios that I can jailbreak.

Is there any way I can install ios 9.x.y on my phone? If so, how? I've seen it's possible to download unsigned ipsw files but I am not clear on how to instal them.

Any help is hugely appreciated.

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

As long as you don’t do internet banking or buy things using your phone then updating to get the best security settings shouldn’t be an issue.
 
Wasn’t there a recent jailbreaking breakthrough that allows you to upgrade/downgrade to any version of iOS without needing Apple to sign it as long as you have a phone that doesn’t have A12X chip or newer (XR/XS/XS Max or newer)?
 
Get an iPhone X or Xr or Xs or 11, that way whatever iOS it comes with, you will be good to go without updating for some years to come.
 
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You cannot. Whatever you do, don’t buy an iOS 9 64-bit device. You will be forced to update it, because there’s a horrible activation bug for 64-bit devices on iOS 9. I was forced to update a 9.7 iPad Pro from iOS 9 to iOS 12 and an iPhone 6s from iOS 9 to 13. They were totally crippled.
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xxray said:
Wasn’t there a recent jailbreaking breakthrough that allows you to upgrade/downgrade to any version of iOS without needing Apple to sign it as long as you have a phone that doesn’t have A12X chip or newer (XR/XS/XS Max or newer)?
Click to expand...

It’s tethered.
 
FeliApple said:
You cannot. Whatever you do, don’t buy an iOS 9 64-bit device. You will be forced to update it, because there’s a horrible activation bug for 64-bit devices on iOS 9. I was forced to update a 9.7 iPad Pro from iOS 9 to iOS 12 and an iPhone 6s from iOS 9 to 13. They were totally crippled.
[automerge]1577715730[/automerge]


It’s tethered.
Click to expand...
Can you link me to that jailbreak.?
 
Sacha Baptista said:
Hi,

I have a rule : Never update anything. I truly believe that updating one's device and keeping it up to date is the fastest way to make it obsolete, therefore I never update anything.

So here I am with my jailbroken iPhone 5s, ios 8.1.3, working like a charm, but I've been receiving notifications from whatsapp : they're stopping support for ios 8 devices starting on feb 1, 2020.

Unfortunately, I absolutely need whatsapp for work, and there is no way around it.

So, I have to upgrade my phone but I don't want to end up on ios 12 because, as I said, I believe that will make it obsolete sooner than it would normally be. Plus, I want an ios that I can jailbreak.

Is there any way I can install ios 9.x.y on my phone? If so, how? I've seen it's possible to download unsigned ipsw files but I am not clear on how to instal them.

Any help is hugely appreciated.

Thanks :)
Click to expand...
Interesting that you are a jailbreaker - yet you choose to ask this in the general iPhone forum where jailbreaking is generally dismissed. Never mind that an actual jailbreaking forum on MacRumors exists - you didn't ask there.

Go figure.

Anyway, you need two things with a highly likely end result of failure.

1. You need SHSH blobs for the version of iOS 9 you want to go to.
2. You need to be jailbroken.

You have one of those things, but if you don't have blobs - no soup for you.

Finally, as someone already mentioned, there'a activation. Apple has been denying iOS 9 activations for some devices, particularly the iPhone 6s/6s+. So, even if you arrived there, you may not get it activated.

Something else to keep in mind since you have an iOS 8 jailbreak. Every jailbreak above iOS 9.1 is now Semi-Untethered. That means you rejailbreak your device every time you reboot it. You'd need to go to iOS 9.1 or below to remain fully untethered. Every 15 days you need to resign the jailbreak app by using Cydia Impactor or the jailbreak app does not work. There is a way around that by using Reprovision. But…

Lately Apple has been squashing the signing services so getting the app resigned by using Cydia Impactor has been hit and miss.

This is why you need to pull your head out of the JB sand and take a look around at what's happening once in a while. If you'd paid any attention to the JB community at all you'd know everything I just told you and wouldn't have to be asking any of this.
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DJ_Smith said:
Can you link me to that jailbreak.?
Click to expand...
Scroll through the JB matrix: https://old.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/wiki/escapeplan/guides/jailbreakcharts
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FeliApple said:
You cannot. Whatever you do, don’t buy an iOS 9 64-bit device. You will be forced to update it, because there’s a horrible activation bug for 64-bit devices on iOS 9. I was forced to update a 9.7 iPad Pro from iOS 9 to iOS 12 and an iPhone 6s from iOS 9 to 13. They were totally crippled.
It’s tethered.
Click to expand...
If you are already jailbroken on iOS 9, there is a way to work around this. I have a 6s and a 6s+ on 9.0.2. I've renamed the Setup app so that any attempt at reactivation pushed by Apple fails. The Setup app (where it has that Hello screen to set the phone up) runs on top of Springboard and takes over. Once it runs, you can't quit it. But if it's prevented from running then the phone functions.
 
Last edited:
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eyoungren said:
Interesting that you are a jailbreaker - yet you choose to ask this in the general iPhone forum where jailbreaking is generally dismissed. Never mind that an actual jailbreaking forum on MacRumors exists - you didn't ask there.

Go figure.

Anyway, you need two things with a highly likely end result of failure.

1. You need SHSH blobs for the version of iOS 9 you want to go to.
2. You need to be jailbroken.

You have one of those things, but if you don't have blobs - no soup for you.

Finally, as someone already mentioned, there'a activation. Apple has been denying iOS 9 activations for some devices, particularly the iPhone 6s/6s+. So, even if you arrived there, you may not get it activated.

Something else to keep in mind since you have an iOS 8 jailbreak. Every jailbreak above iOS 9.1 is now Semi-Untethered. That means you rejailbreak your device every time you reboot it. You'd need to go to iOS 9.1 or below to remain fully untethered. Every 15 days you need to resign the jailbreak app by using Cydia Impactor or the jailbreak app does not work. There is a way around that by using Reprovision. But…

Lately Apple has been squashing the signing services so getting the app resigned by using Cydia Impactor has been hit and miss.

This is why you need to pull your head out of the JB sand and take a look around at what's happening once in a while. If you'd paid any attention to the JB community at all you'd know everything I just told you and wouldn't have to be asking any of this.
[automerge]1577724484[/automerge]

Scroll through the JB matrix: https://old.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/wiki/escapeplan/guides/jailbreakcharts
[automerge]1577724618[/automerge]

If you are already jailbroken on iOS 9, there is a way to work around this. I have a 6s and a 6s+ on 9.0.2. I've renamed the Setup app so that any attempt at reactivation pushed by Apple fails. The Setup app (where it has that Hello screen to set the phone up) runs on top of Springboard and takes over. Once it runs, you can't quit it. But if it's prevented from running then the phone functions.
Click to expand...
Yep, I read that after I was forced to update everything. If I had known, I would have updated to iOS 10 back then, but oh well.
I was so pissed after I updated to iOS 7 on my iPad 4... I can’t be pissed now. It wasn’t my fault. I heard about this thing when the latest version was iOS 12... updating to 12 to avoid disaster would have been useless. I just kept using it until it deactivated. I didn’t want to jailbreak. I guess I could have jailbroken it to avoid it, but I didn’t want to, and to be perfectly honest, after two years of this stupid nonsense being around, I thought Apple had already stopped deactivating devices.
 
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If the OP ends up looking for an iPhone with a difference iOS version, I personally would stay away from iOS 9. Just go right to iOS 10.

It seems to be much more optimized for older iPhones.
 
eyoungren said:
I've got a 4, a 4s a 5, a 6s, a 6s+ and a Pixel 3a XL. Oh and the 6s/6s+ are running iOS 9.0.2.

What do you think? Time for a new phone?

;)
Click to expand...

And what’s the point of using these old devices? If you do it for a kick, “(wo)man against the machine” type of challenge, I get it. However, if you want an actual well functioning device with everything the latest iOS has to offer, I would just upgrade my hardware.
 
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Sacha Baptista said:
Hi,

I have a rule : Never update anything. I truly believe that updating one's device and keeping it up to date is the fastest way to make it obsolete, therefore I never update anything.
Click to expand...

How did you come up with this logic? In general NOT updating your device will make it obsolete sooner because apps will start requiring a newer version and will no longer run on your device.

There's no way to upgrade to intermediate iOS versions because they're no longer signed by Apple.

iOS 12 runs great on a 5S. There's nothing obsolescent about it and no significant reason to avoid it. Sure, you'll lose your jailbreak, but you have to decide whether jailbreak + apps no longer worth it is more valuable to you than a fully updated 5S with all apps working and no jailbreak.

Up to you.
 
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one more said:
And what’s the point of using these old devices? If you do it for a kick, “(wo)man against the machine” type of challenge, I get it. However, if you want an actual well functioning device with everything the latest iOS has to offer, I would just upgrade my hardware.
Click to expand...
No kicks, no challenge and they function fine.

But they aren't my primary phones. I don't sell my phones when I'm done with them. They get used for other purposes because they are still functional.

The 4 for instance is basically an iPod at work. The rest have other uses I put them to. They are still capable of running apps, using BT and WiFi.

Only one actually has a cellular connection and that's my 6s+ which I use as a secondary phone.
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zorinlynx said:
…because apps will start requiring a newer version and will no longer run on your device.
Click to expand...
You mean newer apps won't run, right?

Because I've got an iPhone 4 on iOS 7.1.2 and it still runs apps. They didn't just suddenly stop working because iOS 7 is old and unsigned. Same with my 6s+ on 9.0.2.
 
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