Abstract created by Sensible Solutions AI
In abstract:
- Apple has paused 4 iOS updates for older iPhones after Telstra reported that iOS 16.7.13 prompted community connection issues on iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X fashions.
- In line with Macworld, the crucial difficulty prevented customers from making emergency calls to 000 companies in Australia, prompting quick motion.
- The pulled updates have been designed to increase iMessage and FaceTime performance past 2027 however contained no safety patches, minimizing quick dangers.
It’s been an enormous week for iOS. On Monday, Apple rolled out iOS 26.2.1, the newest level replace for the present model. Then it stunned everybody by additionally releasing new variations of iOS 18, iOS 16, iOS 15, and even (for the primary time since 2023) iOS 12. These updates to older variations of iOS seem to have been designed primarily to permit iMessage and FaceTime to maintain engaged on older iPhones past January 2027, when the certificates would in any other case have expired.
However no good deed goes unpunished, and it now appears these surprising updates might have prompted extra issues than they solved.
In a assist doc revealed right now (and first noticed by 9to5Mac), the Australian telecoms agency Telstra experiences a problem “stopping some older Apple gadgets from connecting to our community, together with calls to 000” and cites iOS 16.7.13 on the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X because the seemingly trigger. That’s the brand new model of iOS 16 launched yesterday, and the corporate advises house owners of these gadgets to not replace till the problem is resolved.
(The quantity 000, by the way, is the Australian equal of 911 within the U.S. and 999 within the U.Ok. Shedding entry to it’s a severe matter.)
Telstra later up to date the web page with the information that Apple had “paused” not simply iOS 16.7.13, but in addition iOS 18.7.4, 15.8.6, and 12.5.8–in different phrases, the entire non-26 iPhone updates launched this week–to “examine” the trigger. It isn’t clear if the problem has affected customers of another networks, nor certainly if it’s been reported exterior Australia, however Apple isn’t taking any possibilities.
As 9to5Mac observes, Apple’s launch notes point out that each one 4 updates include “no revealed CVE entries,” which is to say, they don’t patch any safety points. So pulling the updates whereas the corporate tries to unravel the community difficulty shouldn’t be an issue… supplied the investigation doesn’t final till subsequent January.
