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WHY 10.3 ONLY available thru iTunes?

P

pr0230

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Original poster
Feb 7, 2013
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So I tried to update my IPAD 4 and 10.3 was NOT available, the screen showed I was on latest version.

Then I wrote to the forum here and was informed that it could be updated thru ITUNES... and that is correct... iTunes showed "THERE IS AN Update"...

Now I understand that apple is ending 32 bit support ,migrating away, but I don't understand why there is a back door ONLY update for 10.3... BTW - iTunes for me is located on a machine that is connected to the internet via wifi so in a sense , Im still updating OTA... Over the air..??

update = Did my 5s and iPad via iTunes. Both went very fast and smooth. 5s was 2.24 GB download... iPad was 1.77 GB download
 
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Today I updated my ipad, 5S and 7 all to 10.3 OTA. While I was waiting for someone at a starbucks. I did all 3. Surprises me with your claim because it wasn't so for me.
 
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chilman said:
Today I updated my ipad, 5S and 7 all to 10.3 OTA. While I was waiting for someone at a starbucks. I did all 3. Surprises me with your claim because it wasn't so for me.
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Don't know your iPad model but 5S and 7 are surely supported by Apple when iOS 11 arrives.
 
It probably relates to some models not having powerful enough onboard CPU's to handle the conversion to AFS.

Even my 7+ took quite a while, and I hardly have much data on my phone, so I can't imagine how long it would take on an full iPhone 5, let alone older iPad.
 
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Dwalls90 said:
It probably relates to some models not having powerful enough onboard CPU's to handle the conversion to AFS.

Even my 7+ took quite a while, and I hardly have much data on my phone, so I can't imagine how long it would take on an full iPhone 5, let alone older iPad.
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But downloading OTA to install has any unique steps than iTunes install? I mean, do iTunes install copies data to your computer during update? I don't remember any of such. iOS is loaded on device to complete install anyway.
 
Shirasaki said:
But downloading OTA to install has any unique steps than iTunes install? I mean, do iTunes install copies data to your computer during update? I don't remember any of such. iOS is loaded on device to complete install anyway.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure. I agree that normally seems unreasonable, but we haven't seen Apple change the iOS filesystem before..

Maybe the OP had a beta profile, which prevented him from seeing the final 10.3 release?
 
iTunes always downloads the full OS and installs it. OTA only downloads the changes since the last update.
The difference is which files are replaced--with the iTunes update, it replaces all of the OS files even if some of them are the same copies that were present prior to the update.
The full update is likely to be more stable, as you could have a modified version of a file that the OTA updaters didn't expect to be modified, causing an incompatibility.
It's also why the size of the OTA update is,say, 650 MB, while the iTunes update will be around 2 GB.
 
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Dwalls90 said:
I'm not sure. I agree that normally seems unreasonable, but we haven't seen Apple change the iOS filesystem before..

Maybe the OP had a beta profile, which prevented him from seeing the final 10.3 release?
Click to expand...
nope
 
I've seen numerous reports of it not showing on 32-bit/A6 based devices (iPhone 5, iPhone 5C, iPad 4). This was the case with a spare iPhone 5 I have. It went without a hitch in iTunes but never showed up under software update on the phone itself running 10.2. Previous to 10.2 it was still on 7.1.2 and even it would reliably show updates, I just always declined them till now - finding the performance of iOS 10 to be surprisingly good for an old device near the end of it's update cycle.
 
Shirasaki said:
But downloading OTA to install has any unique steps than iTunes install? I mean, do iTunes install copies data to your computer during update? I don't remember any of such. iOS is loaded on device to complete install anyway.
Click to expand...

Replacing the underlying file system without wiping the data can be tricky proces. Even trickier to do it without a separate storage device or partition.

Impressively Apple did it relatively seamlessly but I guess the cost of doing it requires iTunes on certain devices. Maybe data was moved between them for temporary safe storage or something. The OTA is generally a patch, through iTunes is iOS in its entirety. So maybe certain devices just couldn't be patched. A lot of speculation on my behalf but I'm more surprised it went as well as it did for so many people.

Watching the testing and limitation on MacOS currently highlight the difficulty in this transition, at least when it comes to preserving the data already on the drive. You need to wipe it, time machine with AFS doesnt work, current versions wont be compatible with launch versions, its not compatible with Fusion drives, etc, ugh.[/QUOTE]
 
How is the iPad 4 on 10.3?

Ours is still on 9.3.5. I wish I would have never upgraded it past iOS 6. Man that thing was fast back when we got it! Now it chugs quite a bit opening and closing apps and browsing the web. Good thing we mostly only use it for Netflix and YouTube now.
 
imagineadam said:
How is the iPad 4 on 10.3?

Ours is still on 9.3.5. I wish I would have never upgraded it past iOS 6. Man that thing was fast back when we got it! Now it chugs quite a bit opening and closing apps and browsing the web. Good thing we mostly only use it for Netflix and YouTube now.
Click to expand...

Better than I expected. I moved from iOS 7 to iOS 8 and I was disappointed, things were just so fast before I updated. So, I held off on even trying iOS 9, but more recently I updated my iPad to iOS 10.2.1 and I was pleasantly surprised by the performance. Still not like it used to be, but it definitely was not really “laggy” as I was expecting and it was better than iOS 8.

Yesterday I updated to 10.3 and it was not much different, maybe a hesitation here or there but not too bad. I gained about 0.35 GB extra space.

I imagine that this will be the end point for our model iPad.
 
kwokaaron said:
That's what I've heard as well. Getting mixed information as to whether my iPhone 5 actually has APFS now or not.
Click to expand...

I think there maybe some confusion on what 32 and 64 bit actually is.

Regardless APFS can "support" 32 bit, that is how everyone on 10.3 can run apps that haven't been compiled 64 bit.
 
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