iOS 6 Users on Devices Able to Run iOS 7 Must Upgrade to Fix FaceTime

[irnchriz]

Yeah, when your car's turn signals stop working due to some manufacturer defect, it's not much of an issue, just use hand signals.

Oh yeah, that's exactly the same thing. /s

How about someone explains exactly how apple could roll out an update to ios6 for devices which are capable of running ios7?? How can they release a patch which will only update ios6 users? Remember that they would have to do it in such a way that it was easy to do so that all users would understand how to do it.

Lots of bitching and moaning here with no actual intelligent thought behind it.

 

[C DM]

Oh yeah, that's exactly the same thing. /s

How about someone explains exactly how apple could roll out an update to ios6 for devices which are capable of running ios7?? How can they release a patch which will only update ios6 users? Remember that they would have to do it in such a way that it was easy to do so that all users would understand how to do it.

Lots of bitching and moaning here with no actual intelligent thought behind it.

So because the end users don't have a fully worked out solution that is the job of the manufacturer to begin with then no such solution is possible and people should just accept whatever is being thrown at them? Yup, that's sure intelligent thought right there.

 

[sbrhwkp3]

Welcome to iOS 7!

 

[AgentElliot007]

I have iOS 7. I have had it since day 1 of the betas. It's not perfect but I wouldn't go back. I say that to point out that I have no stake in this fight. That said...

I understand why some people don't want to move to iOS 7, and that's absolutely fine. It's their decision and some have pretty good reasons relevant to their own circumstances. In that sense, I think it's really dumb that Apple has decided not to fix this outside of forcing people to upgrade to iOS 7. This is functionality that shipped with their phones, and they absolutely could fix this to work with iOS 6, likely without much effort even. They obviously haven't had much of an issue getting the vast majority of people to switch to iOS 7, so they shouldn't be too put off that there are still some people left who want to stay with iOS 6. Trying to force them to change to something they don't want to get functionality that should work back is not a way to make them any happier.

Overall, I just think it's silly that Apple is allowing this to be an issue. Just do what you have to do to make it work on iOS 6 devices again and call it a day. This is a silly thing to let people get pissed off about, and it's bound to lead to negative press and no doubt more unnecessary lawsuits being filed, that likely won't go anywhere, but we'll still end up hearing about it from 80 different tech sites. If these people are stubborn enough to not upgrade, they'll no doubt be noisy about it too. It's just not worth it to make an issue out of it. Give them the ability to use the functionality they paid for with iOS 6, take comfort in the fact that they'll eventually have to deal with the new interface when they upgrade devices, and leave it alone.

And to those expressing some sort of twisted joy over these people being forced to upgrade, are you being serious? If so, do you ever listen to yourselves?

 

[shandyman]

Wait a minute, here. This is something that has been thrown about on this thread fairly often, and it just doesn't ring true.



Apple did update 6. It is 6.1.6. Just because 6.1.6 is not available for your device doesn't mean that Apple is not supporting 6.



There are currently 11% of all iDevices using iOS 6. I am willing to venture a bet with you that the majority of that 11% are 3GS's or 4th generation iPod Touches, and that only a small minority of that 11% are devices capable of running iOS 7. I would even go so far as to suggest that of that small minority, that the vast majority of those users simply don't know or care about an update and that only a very small minority of that small group (I would venture a guess that actual percentage is measured in the thousandths or hundredths of a percent) are refusing to upgrade on purpose for whatever reason, be it aesthetics or performance issues, etc.

Exactly this. The people defending iOS 6 are in the minority, a small minority compared to the user base. Also, if iOS 7 was so disliked by so many, then you'd see new iOS device sales drop, which they haven't! But god forbid anyone using common sense and logic....

 

[AgentElliot007]

Oh yeah, that's exactly the same thing. /s

How about someone explains exactly how apple could roll out an update to ios6 for devices which are capable of running ios7?? How can they release a patch which will only update ios6 users? Remember that they would have to do it in such a way that it was easy to do so that all users would understand how to do it.

Lots of bitching and moaning here with no actual intelligent thought behind it.

They've done odd updates before. Remember when the OTA software update software needed updating on the iPhone 5 or 5s? I honestly can't remember which one, I just know I had to do an unusual update on one of them to get OTA updates to work that I'm pretty sure came through the app store with other app updates. It was only for specific devices affected with the issue, so they obviously have some ability to target updates. Developer devices also get specific patches. We're not talking about rocket science here, we're talking about a little software patch.

Worst case scenario, they could probably set up a site that allowed you to login with your Apple ID and then enter a device UDID that would then be set to receive the patch, similar to the way the developer program works. Then the patch gets sent out through OTA and applied, and the system goes back to trying to get you to update to 7.1.1 like normal. It's not the most elegant, but if you're cantankerous enough to try and stay on iOS 6 and then piss and moan when something like this happens, I think this sort of solution will suffice.

 

[roadbloc]

Nobody lost any features. All they have to do is upgrade and the features are all there.

Thus if one does nothing, one loses features. Yes?

 

[vpn]

We have to make a decision When things have changed.

?) get a new device
"The new os is made for new device, and I can afford it"

?) upgrade to new os
"It seemed so good and there are no known problems as yet, I'll
take the risk although can't undo it, at least many people have had
it done according to that adoption rate"

?) keep original os, get app(s) for replacement
"just want to keep my device as I bought it"

?) forget it all
"..." (you can imagine)

?) ... (imagine again)

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The same story might repeat sometime later.

So support each other and don't get separated by numbers or words, we're all users of apple product.

 

[Avenged110]

Oh yeah, that's exactly the same thing. /s

How about someone explains exactly how apple could roll out an update to ios6 for devices which are capable of running ios7?? How can they release a patch which will only update ios6 users? Remember that they would have to do it in such a way that it was easy to do so that all users would understand how to do it.

Lots of bitching and moaning here with no actual intelligent thought behind it.

Just as they did with the "iOS Updater" application when that was rolled out to iPhone 5 to fix an issue preventing future OTA installs. Apple clearly has the ability to target any subset of devices on any version of iOS they so choose with a robust install system built into the update mechanism. It would actually be very simple to push iOS 6.1.6 to us, they're just choosing not to put out effort. Granted, I'm not complaining, I saw this coming. And whatever, there's nothing I can do about it, I just won't use FaceTime. But this would really be something Apple could solve with a minimal amount of effort.

 

[The Man]

For some, there is reason to stick with iOS 6.

My mother is almost 70 and she never used a computer before the iPad 1. Her eyes are bad. The transition from iOS 4 to iOS 6 was very hard because she was so used to having Safari having those tabs as screenshots. After almost a year with my iPad 2 and iOS 6, she still doesn't get how these top bar tabs on the iPad function. Somehow, it's very abstract to her. And the the tap targets are so small, like the close buttons, she simply can't see some things. And using magnification function -- useability feature -- doesn't work for her, because that is also very abstract to her, and difficult. I've shown her iOS 7, and it's hard on her eyes. She needs the 3Dness of iOS 6 to distinguish things to tap on.

Personally, I like iOS 7. But I've come to see that for people with eye disabilities and my mother's age, it's less ideal.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

The iPod Touch 4G is left with about 26MB of usable non-system memory after the "upgrade" from iOS 5 to iOS 6. I suppose you don't consider that to be any loss of functionality to restore the prior functionality of FaceTime that was eliminated by a bug (can we say flaw) in Apple's software. Don't belittle those of us who are in this very real bind: having to choose between a properly functioning device and no FaceTime or a ****ty working device to be able to FaceTime like we used to.

So your issue is that you want to stay on iOS 5 and not upgrade to 6.1.6 with your 4th Gen Touch if I understand you correctly?? I assume you are on the 8GB version? OS's are going to get bigger over time, not smaller. I am not belittling you or your device when I say this, it is just reality.

One of the main reasons after new features (both those that are visible to the end user and those that improve security and other things in the background that most users don't think about) that OS's get bloated and inefficient is because they have to support different devices' hardware setups. Compare the size and efficacy of iOS and OSX to Android or Windows.

I'm sorry that you are in a bind, but it is a by product of doing their best to support as many devices as they can on the latest hardware, which in general is a very good thing for most users.

 

[theoretician]

Can anyone confirm 6.1.6 actually gets FaceTime to work for an IPod Touch 4th Generation?

Mine is running 6.1.6 (the latest version) and it is still unable to connect to anyone using FaceTime. I have tried the following experiments:

Macbook Air running 10.9.2 could not FaceTime successfully to my wife's iPhone 5c running iOS 7.1. She updated to iOS 7.1.1 and now I can connect to her phone (so the statement that anything beyond 7.0.4 is OK does not seem correct - it needed 7.1.1).

My iPod Touch 4th generation running 6.1.6 is unable to connect to anything using FaceTime (though the apple store works fine). It used to work fine.

 

[G4DP]

Performance != lost functionality. Slower performance is inevitable on older devices as software progresses.

That's more horse hockey. How many horses have you got at home with you.

Software doesn't have to slow down slightly older hardware. Apple have proven this themselves with Mac OSX. Snow Leopard was significantly faster than Leopard. Mountain Lion was faster than Lion. All this on a 6 year old machine.

The only reason for it to slow down is terrible and piss poor coding.

 

[attila]

Haha, good move to get those last stubborn people to update to iOS 7. Bravo Apple, I approve.

Didn't affect me, still run iOS6 on my iPhone 5.

My operator tells me to upgrade to run 4G.

I'll wait 'till iOS8.

 

[Jynto]

This image has never been more applicable to a thread.

 

[576316]

Didn't affect me, still run iOS6 on my iPhone 5.

My operator tells me to upgrade to run 4G.

I'll wait 'till iOS8.

Okay so wait until iOS 8 which will look identical to iOS 7 with a few new features. Not quite understanding what you will have achieved. Unless you're expecting them to totally redesign iOS again? In which case, I have some bad news for you.

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This image has never been more applicable to a thread.

Image

Bravo, purely for the Doctor Who reference.

 

[Menneisyys2]

One of the main reasons after new features (both those that are visible to the end user and those that improve security and other things in the background that most users don't think about) that OS's get bloated and inefficient is because they have to support different devices' hardware setups.

This still doesn't explain why for example the speed of the 3GS has been severely reduced under iOS6. The RAM usage didn't increase almost at all.

 

[576316]

Not going to happen, sorry

iOS 8 here I come

What difference are you expecting?

 

[diddl14]

Well I wouldn't expect apple to prioritise fixing a bug for an iOS that's not current, that only a small amount of the user base is actually using. Priorities should be on the current OS, which the high majority of users are actually using.

That's a no brainer and not the problem.

Some people on here are determined to think the worst, that it makes me wonder why they stick to iOS if they dislike it so much. If I was that unhappy, I'd change. I was unhappy with windows 8, I switched to Mavericks.

So if you are unhappy with an OS you would switch. Makes sense. What do you do when you're happy with the OS and one day, a major feature stops working? Would you happily switch?

For the record, I love Apple products and as App developer, I'm actually making a living from the AppStore. I met many Apple engineers last year at WWDC and admire them for their work. Still, I'm under the impression that this partial FT-blackout was f*cked up big time. Despite my love for the company and its employees...

 

[BeardNBelly]

ITT a load of people who complain about something not being fixed, when it already is fixed.

It's simple the certificate expired because of a security flaw the way to you fix a security flaw will usually stop older software that does not make use of the key from working.

Think about it you share a flat with 5 people one person loses that key, but they had the address written on the key fob, so the flat is no longer secure. you change the lock and offer everyone in the flat a new key for free to carry on accessing the flat.

people bitching about FaceTime not working on old software is the housemate who decides they'll just ring the bell to get in because they don't want to change their key because they don't like the shape. AND omg its a silver key they like the look of their brass key, and couldn't possibly make use of or enjoy the benefits of the new key.

 

[Rodster]

That's more horse hockey. How many horses have you got at home with you.

Software doesn't have to slow down slightly older hardware. Apple have proven this themselves with Mac OSX. Snow Leopard was significantly faster than Leopard. Mountain Lion was faster than Lion. All this on a 6 year old machine.

The only reason for it to slow down is terrible and piss poor coding.

Which Apple hopes will get the user to buy a new iDevice. That's why my iPad 3 still runs great on iOS 5.

 

[macnisse]

I must be naive. Why can't Apple just update the certificate?

Excactly, why?!

 

[AtomicEdge]

Can't create free software that's actually good enough to compel people to voluntarily upgrade to? Solution: Break the version they stayed with.

A big F U right from Apple's own mouth. When was the last time that Apple so directly disrespected its customers? I'm struggling to recall their service ever being so poor. Just offer the fix you created to iOS 6!

How though? Make 2 different updates available in OTA, then build a new menu to let you pick? Of course that new menu would need to be included in an update first.

Or they make everyone go to the new version of 6.x THEN go to 7.x, which is annoying for anyone else upgrading.

Excactly, why?!

They have, in the latest version of 6.x and 7.x

 

[tevion5]

Microsoft didn't force ME and Vista with such tricks.

iOS 7 is not Vista level broken, calm down.

 

[Dave.UK]

Some people on here may knock Android, however a situation like this wouldnt exist because the OS and the core apps are kept seperate - meaning you can be running an older version of Android and still receive the lastest apps from Google.

Maybe its about time Apple started looking at seperating the core apps from ios so they can receive updates as and when without requiring an entire system update.