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Is iOS 15 already unsupported?
- Thread starter iHorseHead
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That's what I was thinking. I understood that iOS 15 will receive security updates till iOS 18. I think I read it on MacRumors somewhere. Not 100% sure. iOS 16 also dropped many devices, but it appears that iOS 15 is unsupported, because iOS 16 received security updates and iOS 15 did not.
Merry Christmas to everyone!
Lets not forget the Apple TV HD (I have one on my bedroom TV) has an A8 and receives tvOS 17 updates.
Apple definitely never made that commitment.
It sees like Apple may patch critical security flawys and severe bugs on older iOS, versions but having said that. It’s far from patching all the issues being found. As it stands today I would say iOS 15.x and below are out of support even though updates might arrive.
Talking to some of my colleges that are developing and supporting apps for Android and iOS they struggle with having to test some of their apps for all the different versions. They are forced to support iOS 12 and above.
There are smart software that are being used to simulate devices and OS, but they still need older devices too.
Talking to some of my colleges that are developing and supporting apps for Android and iOS they struggle with having to test some of their apps for all the different versions. They are forced to support iOS 12 and above.
There are smart software that are being used to simulate devices and OS, but they still need older devices too.
Yes because Apple doesn't tell you what the unpatched flaws are exactly. They just decide internally whether to patch it and when many months later it might be publicly known that iOS 15 devices have an unfixed flaw and what this flaw is it might already have been too late with affected iPhones having been exploited in the wild for months. Just that already happened in the past and by the time Apple stepped in and fixed it damage was already done to targeted individuals. So this is not a theoretical problem. If your iPhone does not support iOS 17 and you keep using it with an older iOS version including 16 the device is by definition more at risk. Whether that matters to you is an entirely different question.
That's what I was thinking. I understood that iOS 15 will receive security updates till iOS 18. I think I read it on MacRumors somewhere. Not 100% sure. iOS 16 also dropped many devices, but it appears that iOS 15 is unsupported, because iOS 16 received security updates and iOS 15 did not.
Merry Christmas to everyone!
It's very likely that iOS 15 will be patched at least until iOS 18 ships. That would match the MacOS cadence of the 3 most recent versions receiving security updates (MacOS 12, 13, 14).
Monterey launched in 2021 (along with iOS 15) and will receive updates until 2024 when MacOS 15 is released.
Where it gets a little uncertain is when a large Apple user base is still using older devices that cannot and will not ever run a new version of iOS. This is why iOS 12 and iOS 15 have been supported for so long--there are too many active devices out in the wild that it at the least would be undesirable--and at most would be 'irresponsible' for Apple not to support them. A major exploit could compromise the internet and tarnish their good name.
Think Windows XP and the IE and Wannacry security updates released after support ended in 2014:
Updating Internet Explorer and Driving Security
Security Update for Windows XP SP3 (KB4012598)
Apple can claim they care about security all they like, but as long as they won’t allow my iOS devices to install the latest security update of the major version I’m currently on, it’s no use.
I will explain it better with an example:
My iPad Air 5 runs iPadOS 15.6. If I want a security update, I need to install iPadOS 17.2.1, which would bring performance and battery life issues (if not now, then eventually). Why can’t you allow me to install iPadOS 15.8 if I’m already on iPadOS 15? Because you would allow downgrades if you signed iPadOS 15.8 for the Air 5? Then sorry, you don’t care that much about security.
Obliterating my devices through the malware that are major iOS updates has not been, is not and will NEVER be an option.
I agree.
While Apple has opened up and are patching their devices, more OS versions and are more transparent of what is being fixed there is still room for improvement seen from an IT-security perspective.
The above also applies to MacOS and many other Apple devices.
Its something that can be solved most of the times, sure there are some HW design issues that are hard to fix completely with a SW patch, but most can be fixed.
I can only hope there will be a push from lets say EU or bigger countries that Google and the Android manufacturers, Apple and MS need to provide updates for a longer time and take a bigger responsibility in the future.
At least Google has stepped up the game now with 7 years of support both for major version updates as well as timely security updates. That's better than the average (I think?) 6 years Apple provides both iOS upgrades as well as commits to fixing all known security vulnerabilities (since they only promise it for the latest iOS version). Overall an iPhone will get updates for 7 years too but it will already have been on a 1-2 years old iOS version that might have vulnerabilities actively exploited.
Until release of the Pixel 8 series Apple was providing the best support of all manufacturers and now Google is starting to match it and hopefully will go up to 8 or 10 years. Once Apple has replaced the Qualcomm tech and other third party tech with their own in-house solutions they'll be able to provide firmware updates for those hardware components themselves and hopefully extend the software support then.
Google might want to provide more than 7 years but without every single of the many vendors committing to provide firmware updates for that entire time Google can't do it. And Apple's in-house approach might pay off there and allow them to pull ahead again. The trend will likely be going towards longer support and hopefully customers will vote with their wallets and stop giving manufacturers like Sony or LG their money that just don't care. Thankfully LG is out of that business now.
Apple seems to support ios devices for at least 7 years, even though ios devices seem to be no longer eligible for new ios releases after 6 years.
Apple provides security updates for about 7 years, but devices eligible for new operating systems get all the latest patches. Apple does care about security. What they don't care about is supporting older operating systems ad-infinitum. It's all on the device holder to stay with older, unpatched versions of ios.
This comment is false on so many levels. Not saying there isn't at least one device that through updating the performance became terrible, but for a12 devices and newer, there is not evidence devices get "obliterated".
Android phone manufacturers do the same thing, so Apple isn't the bad exception here. If an Android smartphone receives a major version upgrade then the previous version for that device won't see a single update anymore. The OTA updater will tell you there is a security update available and that it includes the new Android version. At least for my Pixel it works this way. Apple is in fact an exception here in that they provide these updates for another month to give people a bit of time to wait with upgrading. After iOS 17 released Apple still provided 16.7, 16.7.1 and 16.7.2 for all devices including those supported by iOS 17.
Could they keep releasing iOS 16 updates for newer devices? I'd assume there is still device-specific code in every update (including firmware for different modems and other hardware from 3rd-party vendors) that they'd have to work on and then test for that specific model. It's certainly not entirely free to do it and since they do support the device on a higher iOS version they have kept their update support promise and putting any effort into the older version seems unnecessary.
Luckily Apple did patch the Triangulation exploit on iOS 15 even for devices that support iOS 16, otherwise such devices can be taken over completely and silently simply just by knowing your phone number. That's the kind of exploits that exist even for relatively secure devices like iPhones. The more time passes the more likely it becomes for such exploits to be widely available for sale online. At least for some people that are for example victims of stalking that's a real problem and not theoretical. Also older iOS and Android versions have worse permission settings and app sandboxing putting users more at risk of having their personal data stolen.
As long as Apple keeps making us choose between security and performance/battery life, Apple doesn’t care. I could, potentially (I can’t say that with absolute certainty), install iPadOS 15.8 on my iPad Air 5. Installing iPadOS 17.2.1 is not and will never be an option.
Apple provided those… for a little while. I can no longer install iPadOS 16 on my iPad Air 5 running iPadOS 15. It’s pointless, and beside the point: I would perhaps want iPadOS 15.8. Supporting iPadOS 16 is the same garbage.
It‘s not unnecessary, because I pay for those theoretical security updates with performance and battery life. On the other hand though… people will happily see their devices be repeatedly broken by updates, so people don’t care, henceforth Apple won’t put in the effort.
The only possibly acceptable solution for Apple is allowing the latest version of iPadOS 15 via OTA (because if they signed it via iTunes it would allow downgrades and Apple doesn’t want that) for all devices that are currently running iPadOS 15. Anything else is garbage.
After years of this though… Apple clearly doesn’t care, mainly because those of us who stay behind is a negligible percentage of the total. I’d love to know this: out of all the iPhone Xʀ in circulation, how many run iOS 12? I reckon some more iPad Air 5 run iPadOS 15 because it is newer, but still, the number would be very small. We aren’t enough, sadly, just like we aren’t enough staying behind so as to impact iOS adoption rates so as to entice Apple to do something about iOS updates being malware and irreversibly obliterating devices.
I reckon Apple just thinks: “it’s the usual number of stubborn holdouts and there’s nothing we can do about them, but as long as the number stays as low as it is now, we can accept that“.
Apple provides security updates way after they stop supporting an operating system or device; eg iPhone 5s; proof that apple does care.
People who refuse to update because of mistaken beliefs of performance drops, it’s all on them.
Forcing users to obliterate devices just to install security updates isn’t caring.
Yes, agreed on 32 bit chips. But not iPhones with the a12 and later - no obliteration there.
Once again, we aren’t discussing this. The point is that “support” isn’t support if you won’t allow us to install the latest update of the major version we are on.
So... does Apple support iOS 15? I’d say no.
But you still discuss it
…therefore it’s being discussed.They don’t support iOS 15 if they’ve stopped issuing updates since 10/2023 as 15.8. That you have a misconception about what future updates due to hardware imo is on you and not apple.
Happy New Year!
Apple never promised this and there is nothing else you could get that does it better since as I mentioned other manufacturers stop support for older versions even sooner than Apple. It's a known curse that software updates over time slow tech down as their hardware requirements keep going up and software programming seems to have gotten sloppier over the years
On the other hand some users in this forum report that upgrading their devices made them snappier and breathed new life into their device - but that likely only goes for expensive Pro models and certainly not the most basic SE versions. If you get SE models you'll always have to compromise somewhere, users are free to choose a better experience over a longer time by spending considerably more money in the Apple universe, or switching to a competitor if they really think that's going to be any better than Apple.
I wish my old Pixel 4 had received updates for more than 3 years, a critical flaw remained unpatched allowing to skip the lockscreen and accessing all data without knowing the passcode. So in the trash it went as a phone without a working lock is useless to me. If it had gotten support for another year or two I'd have been very happy as the hardware was fantastic. I wouldn't dream of disabling updates on purpose. Who knows what else is messed up and vulnerable in iOS 15 at this point in time? The triangulation exploit was bad enough...
On the other hand some users in this forum report that upgrading their devices made them snappier and breathed new life into their device - but that likely only goes for expensive Pro models and certainly not the most basic SE versions. If you get SE models you'll always have to compromise somewhere, users are free to choose a better experience over a longer time by spending considerably more money in the Apple universe, or switching to a competitor if they really think that's going to be any better than Apple.
I wish my old Pixel 4 had received updates for more than 3 years, a critical flaw remained unpatched allowing to skip the lockscreen and accessing all data without knowing the passcode. So in the trash it went as a phone without a working lock is useless to me. If it had gotten support for another year or two I'd have been very happy as the hardware was fantastic. I wouldn't dream of disabling updates on purpose. Who knows what else is messed up and vulnerable in iOS 15 at this point in time? The triangulation exploit was bad enough...
Maybe they’ll continue, but my comment was more along the lines of a theoretical new update, like they keep doing for iOS 12.But you still discuss it
They don’t support iOS 15 if they’ve stopped issuing updates since 10/2023 as 15.8. That you have a misconception about what future updates due to hardware imo is on you and not apple.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year!
It's not ideal but isn't it possible to flash third party Android ROMs onto the Pixel? At least it wouldn't have become e-waste.
Having said that I have a Samsung tablet (SM-230) that never got a single update, nor has any third party ROMs due to the complexity of its chipset.
3rd party ROMs don't include those fixes because Google never fixed them in the older Android version. The 3rd party ROM developers would have to either backport Google's fixes to the older Android that the vulnerable device is running, or fix it themselves. The most popular ROMs such as LineageOS don't do this. Even worse, LineageOS doesn't even support A14 for devices that are officially on A14 already. So even devices supported with A14 by their manufacturers would currently still be on A13 missing lots of Google's patches if you installed LineageOS on them.
Even worse, most third party ROMs including LineageOS require an unlocked bootloader which means secure boot gets broken and the entire Android security model goes flying out the window. Bootloaders should never remain unlocked as that is just as bad as some lockscreen exploit. Why can't LineageOS lock the bootloader? On the one hand few smartphones support it, Pixels are a great exception here in that they do allow it, officially and all, no hacks required. On the other hand it's LineageOS, it runs in a debug mode for all supported devices. That is a mode that is never meant for end-users to run their devices with, and if you tried locking the bootloader Android just wouldn't boot anymore.
There are 3rd party ROMs that at least on Pixels allow keeping the bootloader locked and they also attempt to provide fixes for vulnerabilities. Unfortunately they can only provide real support as long as the device manufacturer provides updates. Once Google stops supporting their Pixels there are no more firmware updates for the hardware.
At the beginning of 2023 there was a really bad issue in the Samsung modems that some modern Pixels use. Users were advised to disable Wifi calling and VoLTE until fixed because an attacker only needed your phone number so this really needed fixing ASAP. The only one who could provide a fix for that was Google because they have the support contract with Samsung for their modem. If those Pixels had been out of support and Google hadn't provided a fix then no 3rd party ROM could have done anything about it. They are completely reliant on Google to provide firmware updates for the Pixel hardware. Thankfully all affected devices were still in support at the time and were patched by Google.
Unless you want to be at risk for any number of vulnerabilities both in firmware as well as in Android itself unsupported devices sadly belong in the trash. 3rd party ROMs with their unlocked bootloaders just make it worse.
Samsung actively works against the 3rd party ROM community. Samsung on purpose downgrades security on their smartphones if you install a 3rd party ROM. This led to the ROM community to abandon Samsung many years ago and why you won't find great 3rd party ROM support for Samsung devices anymore now. Their hardware is nice with the flip phone, foldables and whatnot. But you can only use it safely with Samsung's Android. Since Samsung doesn't want other ROMs to be installed there is no way to do it in a safe manner that retains full device security. That is currently only possible on Pixels because Google officially allows it, on their pixel tablet as well. It's great as the specific 3rd pary ROM GrapheneOS can make use of that and provide an alternative Android experience that is just as safe as Google's own. If you ever replace the Samsung tablet I suggest a Pixel tablet, but not the current first generation. The hardware is mediocre. I hope the successor will be more competitive.
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