After releasing iOS & iPadOS 15.6.1 last week with bug fixes and security improvements for the iPhone and iPad, Apple is at it again this week with the company’s standard process of unsigning older firmware after pulling the plug on the previous iOS & iPadOS 15.6 release.
By unsinging iOS & iPadOS 15.6, Apple has made it so that iPhone and iPad users can’t use ordinary means of downgrading from the newer iOS & iPadOS 15.6.1 release. It also impacts software upgrades, preventing users on older firmware from upgrading to iOS or iPadOS 15.6 without being compelled to download iOS or iPadOS 15.6.1 instead.
Non-traditional downgrade methods, such as using futurerestore, and non-traditional upgrade methods, such as using DelayOTA, will still work assuming the user jumps through the necessary hoops to use these methods.
While Apple’s unsigning of older firmware is a thorn in the jailbreak community’s side because most jailbreaks depend on older firmware that haven’t patched the security vulnerabilities used by tools, it rarely affects the general public apart from when users feel like downgrading their firmware when a software update introduces new bugs.
With the above sentiment in mind, there are legitimate purposes outside of jailbreaking to downgrade iPhone or iPad firmware. Examples include when iOS 14.7 broke the ability to unlock paired Apple Watches with an iPhone’s Touch ID authentication and when iOS & iPadOS 13.2 imposed overly-aggressive app backgrounding management. These weren’t the only times, and likely won’t be the last, which is why iDB supports the concept of Apple allowing downgrades, as unlikely as that may be.
For the most part, Apple’s role in limiting software downgrades is about control. In limiting software downgrades, the company can have a better handle on ensuring that users are on the firmware version they want their users to be on. Doing so not only pleases shareholders by inflating firmware upgrade adoption numbers, but also gives Apple an unfair advantage in the cat-and-mouse anti-jailbreaking game.
If you’re ever curious about whether a particular version of iOS or iPadOS is being signed for your iPhone or iPad, you can head over to the IPSW.me website to find out or use Hyperixa’s new IPSW app for jailbroken and non-jailbroken devices. You can also use our downloads page to download any firmware version for the device you’re using.
Are you upset to see that Apple is no longer signing iOS & iPadOS 15.6 following the release of iOS & iPadOS 15.6.1? Be sure to let us know in the comments section down below.