Apple servers briefly enabled signing of older iOS firmwares, allowing users to downgrade to earlier versions

Apple's servers started to sign older versions of iOS for a number of hours on Wednesday night, an issue that gave iPhone and iPad owners a brief opportunity to downgrade iOS to an earlier release, with some hardware found to be downgradable to iOS 6.

The servers were signing firmware versions for iOS from the latest version 11.2.2 update, released earlier this week, to as early as version 6, according to Reddit. The version available to users shown on tracker IPSW.me depended on the model of iPhone used, with newer devices able to revert as far back as the version of iOS available at its initial release.

By signing older versions, this allowed any user to take advantage of iTunes' firmware restore facility to use the earlier versions. This also made it easier for users wanting to jailbreak their devices, by allowing the iOS device to downgrade to a breakable version of the operating system.

The signed iOS bonanza took place for a number of hours before Apple's servers reverted back to their previous state, where only the more recent releases for each iPhone were signed and usable. It is highly likely that this was either a bug or a mistake performed by Apple employees, and was completely unintentional.

Apple has yet to comment on the event.

Shortly before the mass firmware signing took place, another post on Reddit noted that some iOS devices no longer had any signed firmware versions available. At one point, the first to third-generation iPads, iPad mini, third and fifth-generation iPod touch, and the iPhone 4S did not have a restorable version of iOS, after Apple's servers unsigned iOS 9.3.5 and iOS 5.1.1.

Apple has a policy of preventing older versions of iOS from being used on its mobile hardware, with legacy operating systems unsigned as newer firmware updates become available. Unsigning stops users from reinstalling legacy versions, forcing them onto newer releases that cannot be jailbroken, offer more security, and have the latest features available for Apple's hardware.

35 Comments

wood1208 2930 comments · 10 Years

About 6 years ago

There should be older version of IOS available to downgrade to and newer version if someone wants to upgrade to new features version.

macxpress 5910 comments · 16 Years

wood1208 said:

There should be older version of IOS available to downgrade to and newer version if someone wants to upgrade to new features version.

So you can downgrade your phone and re-unlock exploits in the OS. Yeah, thats a great idea! There are reasons why Apple does things the way they do and its not to lock you into a specific OS. The reason I just mentioned alone should be more than enough. Also, if you have an App that requires iOS 11 and you downgrade to iOS 10 well guess what, it no longer works!

tipoo 1121 comments · 14 Years

Noooo, missed it!

Even if this was a goof up in an already bad year of goof ups, I'm given the veery slim hope that they're going to start allowing these all the time in response to the performance degradation complaints (not the battery ones). Only thing would be they'd have to at least security patch them.

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

wood1208 said:

There should be older version of IOS available to downgrade to and newer version if someone wants to upgrade to new features version.

No. When you enter the walled garden you know what you’re getting into. If you want more choice then switch platforms.

muthuk_vanalingam 1366 comments · 8 Years

macxpress said:

wood1208 said:

There should be older version of IOS available to downgrade to and newer version if someone wants to upgrade to new features version.

So you can downgrade your phone and re-unlock exploits in the OS. Yeah, thats a great idea! There are reasons why Apple does things the way they do and its not to lock you into a specific OS. The reason I just mentioned alone should be more than enough. Also, if you have an App that requires iOS 11 and you downgrade to iOS 10 well guess what, it no longer works!

Your argument is NOT really practical. There are plenty of people (we are talking about few hundred millions of people here) with more than 2 years old iPhones/iPads and they DO face significant performance issues EVERY year after upgrading to the LATEST and supposedly GREATEST version of iOS. Your solution to them is - Learn to live with it because it is secure OR replace it with a newer device (which is what you are more likely doing hence you probably never faced the slow-down issue). And you assume this is good enough for each and everyone owning an old iPhone/iPad. Apparently it is NOT enough of a solution for the people who are struggling with older devices. People who are reasonable about this issue asks for a different solution - Allow the people to downgrade to previous version of iOS which did NOT exhibit significant performance issues AND provide security updates alone to even older versions of iOS for 4 years.

You may argue it costs additional money for Apple to support older versions of iOS. But that is another short sighted view, purely from a shareholder point of view, with total disregard for end-users. If you are an Apple customer, you should demand the best for you as a customer. In this case, good performance for life time of the device (i.e. 4 years) AND security updates for 4 years. Maximizing Apple's profit SHOULD NOT be your objective as a customer.