back to article Apple's iOS updates brick iPads

Apple's latest iOS 9.3.2 update appears to be bricking iPads. Reports of borked iPads emerged on Twitter thanks reportedly to a hardware issue requiring users to possibly restore their devices or contact support. And people have. Users have Tweeted to Apple Support (@AppleSupport) with complaints their iPads cannot be …

  1. djstardust

    Apple could spend

    Some of their billions on a software QC team. that would be a good start.

    1. Hud Dunlap
      Gimp

      Re: Apple could spend

      The start would be getting rid of Tim Cook.

    2. paulf
      Gimp

      Re: Apple could spend

      Quality at Apple went to shit around the time Jobs died. He may have been a complete asshat (YMMV) and perhaps it was a coincidence but his shouting tantrums and obsession with design+UX seems to have kept people more focused than under the current regime.

      I'm not saying Apple stuff was bug free under Jobs (it most certainly wasn't!) but iOS 8 took 7 revisions (8.0.0/8.0.1/8.0.2/8.1.0/8.1.1/8.1.2/8.1.3) until it was reasonably stable and iOS 9 (the "stability release") being not much better says a lot. My favourite iOS 9 bug is the random complete deletion of all my media files (music/podcasts/videos) from the iPhone which can only be restored with a sync from iTunes. This has only happened since iOS 9 and on two different handsets.

      For related reasons the MBP is still on 10.8 Mountain Lion, although I'm probably going to have to suck it up soon and update to El Capitan.

      As others have said - perhaps Cook and Co could spend some of those billions on some Software QC?

      1. Halfmad

        Re: Apple could spend

        I use to repair macs in the 90s and early 00s, the quality has consistently gone up hardware wide (on the whole), but with each iteration of IOS in particular QC issues keep creeping in and more frequently it's due to the reliance of being able to quickly rectify the problem over the internet, rather than ensuring it's not happening to begin with.

        When an OS was distributed by post/courier they HAD to get it right, now it's increasingly left to consumers to do the final phases of testing.

        Bottom line at Apple though is that under Jobs people were took scared to screw up, under Cook nobody seems to give a toss.

        1. paulf
          Unhappy

          Re: Apple could spend

          @Halfmad

          "Bottom line at Apple though is that under Jobs people were took scared to screw up, under Cook nobody seems to give a toss."

          I think that describes it perfectly. A culture of fear and intimidation isn't a good way to run a company but it seemed to work for Apple under Jobs. The alternative, under Cook, doesn't seem to be working as well as the methods used by the previous incumbent.

          To those down voting my previous comment (presumably because they think Apple's software is perfect?) two more bugs in iOS 9.3.1 I've just remembered:

          1. My iPhone refused to connect to my car using Bluetooth. A reboot fixed this (the phone not the car!).

          2. My iPhone couldn't get my position more accurate than +-1300m (i.e. over a kilometre) when another phone GPS device was within a few metres. A reboot fixed this.

          Yes, I know, "Have you tried turning it off and on again"; but that isn't the kind of thing you expect from devices that are as reassuringly expensive as Apple's, especially as in both cases the up time was ~20 days.

          1. werdsmith Silver badge

            Re: Apple could spend

            I've not experienced either of those (car connection, GPS) or the iTunes wipe thing.

            But I've seen plenty of other little bugs. The most common on is starting an app only to see it exist after 100 ms. The usual fix is reboot, but sometime only a delete and reload will fix it.

            1. cambsukguy

              Re: Apple could spend

              Add to that, on a latest gen iPod:

              1. Being unable to see a particular BT device advertising after a 'forget' despite several other devices happily seeing and/or pairing with it. Not fixed by reboot or factory reset.

              2. A staccato machine-gun A2DP audio problem, fixed by reboot but recurs occasionally.

              3. No separate volume control for a BT connected device. Apparently not a bug, just annoying as hell.

              4. Having to swipe down the entire 'screen' to see the status line at the top. Apparently also not a bug, just useless.

              5. No back button so I can't get out of pop-ups etc. in apps without going to the task switch and dumping the app. Apparently not a bug, hard to believe.

              Glad as hell I don't run one as my daily driver.

            2. paulf
              Unhappy

              Re: Apple could spend

              @werdsmith

              The Car/Bluetooth connection problem has happened twice and GPS problem only once. Clearly some process got screwed up and could only recover with a reboot, and it's probably not something simple as I've not been able to recreate on demand, but it still looks a bit scruffy from a QC point of view. A 20 day up time isn't really a big ask.

              The iPhone media deletion (which isn't the same as the more widely reported "Apple Music Match wipes your computer's iTunes library after scanning your songs" problem) has happened about 6 times now and again cannot be recreated on demand (it's happened under apparently different circumstances each time). Apple support have had a bunch of diagnostic files from me and have gone silent.

              These are just the bigger show stoppers I've remembered. There are others that I just seem to instinctively work around...

        2. JLV
          Trollface

          get with the program, please!

          >rectify the problem over the internet, rather than ensuring it's not happening to begin with

          It seems Apple has been secretly drinking the Kool-Aid from El Reg's fail-fast, fail-often, DevOps articles.

          And I used to think those 2 didn't get along.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            I doubt this is a problem with 9.3.2 specifically

            There seem to be scattered reports of problems with just about every update - there's no way they could have issues with each one. I think it is more likely a bug in the update process that causes it not to complete properly or something along those lines. People who have a problem are going to take to the forums and start a thread, and even if only 50 people have a problem and post about it, The Reg is going to write an article about it and make it seem like some huge problem affecting millions.

            One thing I've always done because of my past as a sysadmin is to insure the update always starts from a clean state - I close all apps, shut down my phone, restart it, then update. Sure, it should work without doing that, and maybe that doesn't do anything. But I'll continue to do it anyway, call it superstition if you like, but I recall issues with patching OSes back in the day were far less if you did a clean reboot before you patch. So I always do that now, Linux, Windows, iOS doesn't matter. Can't hurt and I'm going to be rebooting anyway so what's the difference if I reboot twice?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: I doubt this is a problem with 9.3.2 specifically

              One thing I've always done because of my past as a sysadmin is to insure the update always starts from a clean state - I close all apps, shut down my phone, restart it, then update. Sure, it should work without doing that, and maybe that doesn't do anything. But I'll continue to do it anyway, call it superstition if you like, but I recall issues with patching OSes back in the day were far less if you did a clean reboot before you patch. So I always do that now, Linux, Windows, iOS doesn't matter. Can't hurt and I'm going to be rebooting anyway so what's the difference if I reboot twice?

              I'm with you on that - those are damn good habits to cultivate and keep. That, right there, is the added value of using older people - we learned all of that through bitter experience..

      2. DerekCurrie
        Terminator

        Re: Apple could spend

        "Quality at Apple went to shit around the time Jobs died."

        No actually. Apple has had occasional problems on a variety of levels throughout their existence, before, during and after Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO. This is just more of the occasional same. I hate it when Apple pull these blunders. But then again, we're still in The Dark Age of Computing and I learned long, long ago to expect such things from the computer community in general. Right now, Android is the horror OS of the world thanks to FragmAndroid. But Apple has never been immune, nor any other computer hardware or software company. It's status quo fumbling and bumbling. I heartily recommend giving Apple a swift kick over this one as it does tend to wake them up and get them back on track, the same as any other company.

      3. This post has been deleted by its author

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Apple could spend

        For related reasons the MBP is still on 10.8 Mountain Lion, although I'm probably going to have to suck it up soon and update to El Capitan.

        For iOS I'm in my usual 48h wait time for any OS updates and it appears it was already worth it, but I'd recommend you also wait with OSX 10.11.4 as there are reports about random crashes that have as yet not been addressed and I now had a few as well (once every 3..4 days or so - it simply freezes).

        I originally thought it to be the last vestige of Adobe on my machine, the *cough* *barf* Adobe Air needed by BBC iPlayer but it seems to be something else. I'm not sure why Apple is attempting that sort of Windows compatibility, but I would recommend you wait for a bit. It's disappointing - I would agree with people's concern about Apple QC right now.

        1. paulf
          Thumb Up

          Re: Apple could spend

          @AC

          "For iOS I'm in my usual 48h wait time for any OS updates and it appears it was already worth it"

          I used to update pretty quickly but that all changed with iOS 8. Now, for n>7, I usually skip the n.x.0 version and wait for n.x.1 (n.x.2 for x=0) and then usually wait a few days after release. In case anyone gets upset I do the same wait on Win 7 updates.

          "I'd recommend you also wait with OSX 10.11.4 as there are reports about random crashes that have as yet not been addressed and I now had a few as well (once every 3..4 days or so - it simply freezes)."

          Thanks for the heads up on this. I had planned to wait until near the release of 10.12 in the hope it meant 10.11 was tending towards stability. Looks like I'll have to wait a bit longer and I note 10.11.5 is now being seeded to Beta testers.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Apple could spend

            "I'd recommend you also wait with OSX 10.11.4 as there are reports about random crashes that have as yet not been addressed and I now had a few as well (once every 3..4 days or so - it simply freezes)."

            Thanks for the heads up on this. I had planned to wait until near the release of 10.12 in the hope it meant 10.11 was tending towards stability. Looks like I'll have to wait a bit longer and I note 10.11.5 is now being seeded to Beta testers.

            Update on 10.11.5: so far, so good. None of those weird crashes so far so I guess they've fixed whatever it was.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      it's not a general problem

      I was on the external beta seeding. There were reports of various devices having problems during several of the five or six, I lost count, externally tested versions of 9.3.2. In virtually every case the problem was fixable, though not easily. Most people had to do a complete restore and to connect using USB to do it. It seemed to affect assorted devices including various iPhones and iPads, and was not restricted to iPads or to a specific model of iPad. At the start of the test period I had an iPad Air. It was not affected. At the end of the test period I had an iPad Air 2. It was not affected.

      It's a known problem. It was supposed to have been fixed. Actually, it was supposed to have been fixed quite some time back. It does not, given the current state of Apple software, surprise me in the least that it was not, in fact, fixed. I personally never update any Apple device without a backup of the previous version, just in case I have to roll things back. And, yes, being on the external beta program means that there have been times when I've had to roll things back.

      Posting AC for fairly obvious reasons.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: it's not a general problem

        I personally never update any Apple device without a backup of the previous version, just in case I have to roll things back.

        I have never updated any device or system on any platform any other way, be it Windows, Linux, OSX or iOS. However, I have no experience with vanilla Android updates so I'll have to look up how it's done on that platform. I don't use it at present, but I still want to know (I like to keep current on all platforms - I'm not OS-religious :) ).

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Apple could spend

      #fragmentation

      Funny how viral fud comes back to bite them. Apple have been looking pretty foolish in many ways recently, even more foolish that the idiots that buy their overpriced and under featured designer trash.

    5. Naselus

      Re: Apple could spend

      They don't need to though. Apple stuff 'just works', remember?

  2. wolfetone Silver badge

    Strange, for a product that costs upwards of £400 for a basic model you'd expect it to handle a software update. And that the money you invest in the company by buying their products would result in quality software innovation and production that would further enhance the life of the user, not make it more difficult.

    But that's none of my business.

    1. Brenda McViking
      Gimp

      What are you on about? I thought everyone knew that if you didn't buy your apple shiny in the last 7 days then it is no longer supported. The "bricking" is a feature, not a bug. It allows you to use old devices as an aesthetically pleasing antique paperweight. Or perhaps a tray/coaster for your single-farm-arabica soya-milk Lattes.

      I mean what are you, poor?

      1. wolfetone Silver badge

        I wouldn't say I'm poor, just financially challenged.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        >What are you on about? I thought everyone knew that if you didn't buy your apple shiny in the last 7 days then it is no longer supported.

        Apple kit isn't designed to last the 6 years required by UK law - so it's actually good news. I'm only on my first free MacBook Pro, but I know others on their third. Bricked iPad by factory update is a free new (or reconditioned) later model.....

        I guess Apple are praying TTIP kicks in before wider consumer awareness - though the last year has seen ever more prominent explanation of the 6 year warranty on the UK Apple Store - in an effort to mitigate the impending PPI style run on missold AppleCare.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Apple kit isn't designed to last the 6 years required by UK law

          Where do you get 6 years from, could you post a link? AFAIK warranty was one year, which was made into two years by EU law ("what has Europe ever done for us, apart from etc. etc." - see Life of Brian by Monty Python)?

          I personally don't keep kit for more than 2..4 years anyway.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re Six Years

            The minimum of two years is the result of an EU directive, which no country in the EU may ignore,

            however individual countries can make the period longer. In England its six years as defined in the Sale of Goods act, and five in Scotland AKAIK.

            I am sure a learned person will comment.

            1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

              Re: Re Six Years

              In England its six years as defined in the Sale of Goods act

              It's been replaced last year (Oct 2015) by the Consumer Rights Act (click on the link for quite a good guide to its implications), but as far as I know there has never been talk about an explicit 6 year term but a more vague "reasonable expected duration" for something to work (I think, don't have the time to look it up right now).

              That is one of the things the new Consumer Rights Act addresses with a tiered rights model that now also includes digital content, delivery periods and even services - worth a read as price reduction penalties can reach up to 100%.

              What is significant is that this Act also incorporates Unfair Contract Terms aspects such as hidden charges and imbalance of rights. This could get quite interesting for subscription based services that don't deliver...

              1. Roland6 Silver badge

                Re: Re Six Years

                What is also significant is that this Act also incorporates service contracts; so if you build/repair consumer's PC's for example your work will also be subject to the act.

                The Consumer Goods Act will also have ramifications on the deployment of IoT into people's homes.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            >Where do you get 6 years from, could you post a link?

            http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/

            1. Roland6 Silver badge

              Six years in the UK and two years in the EU directive refers to the "Claim period" not the warranty period.

              I think the Which article linked to by Fred Flintstone provides clarification:

              "Six months or more

              After the first six months the burden is on you to prove that the product was faulty at the time of delivery.

              ...

              You have six years to take a claim to the small claims court for faulty goods in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and five years in Scotland.

              This doesn't mean that a product has to last six years - just that you have this length of time in which to make a claim if a retailer refuses to repair or replace a faulty product. "

              Similarly, the two year EU figure refers to an absolute time limit for making a claim based on a contract. Because the UK has a 6 year limitation, adopting the EU directive would reduce your rights...

              So basically you are left with the reseller's and/or manufacturer's warranty if your product fails after six months..

  3. ratfox
    Trollface

    Apple doesn't have a bug bounty program?

    Must be because their programs don't have bugs!

    …Even with the icon, I feel I'm overdoing it here. Meh.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doesn't really matter

    My iPad 2 has, after consecutive updates, become quite unusable. I just use it for the odd browsing or reviewing a document these days, but even that is like pouring molasses through a straw. The delays have become unsufferable.

    The hardware is still fine, and the screen quality more than acceptable, but it only makes a fine paperweight these days.

    1. Spiracle
      Unhappy

      Re: Doesn't really matter

      Yep, mine now sits tethered to an amp providing music streaming, at which it's just about usable. Anything much else, loading another app or even swiping the home screen, is painful.

      I really don't know which of its background tasks are important enough to sabotage basic UI functions.

    2. gotes

      Re: Doesn't really matter

      I'm still running iOS 7.1 on my iPad 3.

      It still does pretty much everything I need it to do, though a number of apps refuse to install. The main problem is not being able to update Safari.

    3. Adam 52 Silver badge

      Re: Doesn't really matter

      I have the same with an Android phone, a Windows laptop, a Samsung "smart" DVD/PVR and a Ubuntu desktop. Whatever it is IT kit just seems to slow and die over time.

      1. EddieD

        Re: Doesn't really matter

        http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/state-of-decay/184405140

        An old Verity Stobbs article (I'm sure it's older than 2002 as well). It uses Windows as it's exemplar, but is appropriate to all OS's in my experience.

      2. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

        Re: Doesn't really matter

        Whatever it is IT kit just seems to slow and die over time.

        Ah, so I'm not the only one to experience electronic kettle fur. It's weird, though, I can't quite work out if it's just my perception (getting used to the speed) or genuine..

    4. AlanM

      Re: Doesn't really matter

      I've had the same issue with my iPad 2 - Apple's answer was a £265 repair - which is more or less a new iPad. When I said how would you feel if you filled your 4 year old car with a new improved petrol and the engine failed and the dealer then told you to buy a new engine? I didn't get a reply oddly enough.

      I'm not a happy bunny I have to say.

    5. Mark Exclamation

      Re: Doesn't really matter

      Still running 6.1.3 on my iPad 2, and 7.1.1 on my iPhone 4S. The 4S struggles a bit, so no further updates for it or it will become unusable, and the iPad 2 runs like new, so no further updates for it or it will become unusable.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    iPad 1

    My father still uses his iPad 1, mainly for Facebook browsing. He understands that it is obsolete and when it dies, it will not be replaced with another App£e device, but with something with more options for hardware (memory) updates.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: iPad 1

      What are the more hardware (memory) update options your father seeks?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It just (doesn't) work.

    https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2066/5807458526_dc54025065_z.jpg

  7. Jay 2

    Given that Apple own the entire hardware/software stack (therefore with a fairly finite number of combinations), I do find it rather strange that they keep running into these sorts of problems with upgrades. It's almost as if they don't do enough testing...

    More often than not I hold off upgrading my iThingies for at least a week to let the more faithful (and less experienced/cynical) do an extra level of testing/bug-finding. Mind you even then Apple can be less than forthcoming about acknowledging problems let alone deciding to do anything about them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What is odd is that this has been through multiple beta's with i would guess over a million devs playing with it for the last few months and yet still there is an immediate issue on public release. Not to mention all the internal dev, test and release processes that these updates must go through.

      Despite all that, this has happened with just about every iOS update in the last year. Same process, months of testing and yet immediate issues on release.

      Its confusing but something is certainly going wrong because it keeps happening.

      1. Stuart Castle Silver badge

        Be fair on Apple. Any modern OS is a complex beast and even with the most extensive, well run, beta test possible, there *will* be bugs found later that were not caught during the beta.

        Look at Windows. Microsoft routinely send out Windows betas to tens of millions of users all over the world, yet every release of Windows since they've been running Windows Update has had bug fixes released within days of the full release of that version of Windows.

        It's not that Apple, or Microsoft or any of the Linux maintainers are doing anything wrong as such, it's just the nature of a modern OS.

        I've experienced betas from both the dev side (admittedly small, internal projects) and the consumer side (Windows, OSX, iOS and various other large and small scale projects), and there always problems found after release that are not found during the test. It is an unfortunate side effect of the complexity of most modern OSes and other systems.

        1. Tabor

          be fair ?

          I agree on the complexity of the OS. But as previously mentioned : they control both hardware and software. I'd have to read up on the issues reported, but unless all of the bricks were jailbroken or otherwise manipulated I have a hard time believing that this was tested thoroughly. Which is odd after the fiasco of 9.3.0...

          I'll sit this one out.

        2. Roland6 Silver badge

          Be fair on Apple. Any modern OS is a complex beast ...

          Yes an OS may be complex, however the problems being encountered are in the updater/installer and possibly the bootloader not the running OS...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    C'mon guys, cut Apple some slack.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why? I don't even have an Apple device but due to my job I have had to deal with the last few rounds of lazily tested updates

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        C'mon guys, cut Apple some slack

        As an AC, I wasn't allowed to select the 'apply liberal sarcasm to this post' icon.

  9. Hud Dunlap
    Unhappy

    Other weirdness in the upgrade

    When I try to upgrade my 5s it tells me it needs 700MB free in order to upgrade and that I need to adjust my music settings. I have 4.1 GB free so I don't see the problem. I think I will wait a couple of days before I try again.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Other weirdness in the upgrade

      My 5S is refusing to update GarageBand (1.1GB) because of lack of free space, but it did this iOS update (88.1MB) no problem.

      When I heard it was bricking iPads, I immediately ran the iOS update on my iPad2 hoping I would have an excuse to replace it. Unfortunately the update worked.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Other weirdness in the upgrade

      I think Apple wants you to adjust your music settings to switch on Apple Music and subscribe to it.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's not a bug, it's a feature designed to allow people to have an excuse for their partners as to why they need a new shiny.

    It's not bricked its just in "Upgrade Cycle Management Mode" and all data is saved to iCloud ready for your new shiny.

    I thought everyone knew this?

  11. Tessier-Ashpool
    Coffee/keyboard

    The Register has sought comment from Apple

    That made me giggle.

  12. VinceH
    Trollface

    "The patches (HT206568) also address a low-risk vulnerability that allowed attackers to bypass lock screens"

    The update is working, then. The lock screen can't be bypassed if the device is bricked*.

    * Trollnote: I'm conveniently ignoring that according to the article the vulnerability is on iPhone 6 devices, but it's iPads that are being bricked.)

  13. Duffaboy
    Coat

    Why be so keen to update

    Time and time again we see that the customer is the Beta tester for O/S updates, I sit back and hang fire till I feel the need to do so.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Could it be that the angle used between the device and the phalanges could be misaligned causing it not to work and a realignment could indeed fix the problem?

  15. Xamol

    If it were Microsoft

    There's some reasonable criticism of Apple for releasing a patch that bricks some of it's devices but I can't help thinking that if it had been an MS patch bricking a Surface, the reaction here would be orders of magnitude more outraged.

    This isn't the first time Apple patches have caused this kind of problem. Surely there's only so long that users good will towards them can insulate them from the kind of backlash that MS would be receiving...

    1. Youngdog

      @ Xamol Re: If it were Microsoft

      There's also some unreasonable criticism up there as well - and if MS did brick a similar number of devices the vitriol would be fully justified as it would hit a far higher proportion of users given there are about 10 times as many ipads out there.

      1. Xamol

        Re: @ Xamol If it were Microsoft

        @Youngdog - There's the built in goodwill coming out.

        I never said anything about numbers of bricked devices and your construction of an inequitable comparison in favour of Apple just proves my point. Why do you create a scenario where MS bricks a higher percentage of devices?

        I would expect the level of vitriol levelled at MS to be higher even if MS bricked a smaller percentage of of devices than Apple. That's just my opinion, others will make up their own minds.

        If Apple keeps on behaving as they are, surely they can't expect the good will to last forever. Bricked devices is just one example... Can you imagine if MS came out and simply stated that their devices are only expected to have a life of 3-4 years? There was almost no reaction when Apple did just that.

    2. Duffaboy
      Trollface

      Re: If it were Microsoft

      The reason for the lack of backlash is that these boards are full of Fanbois

  16. Chris Jasper

    Great..........

    ............since I work for a place that exhorts its Apple user base to update their devices the second an update comes out without any testing whatsoever then expects us in IT to fix it.

    I'm going home............

  17. RFC822

    It's a lie

    The story must be a lie, because everybody knows that Apple products just work...

  18. BurnT'offering

    Updated

    Works fine.

    Anecdotal evidence aside, doesn't every update of every OS these days brick at least a few devices? An opportunity for recycling a pre-written story template with blank spaces for device and OS names, and version number. Not that El Reg would sink so low, of course

    1. TVU Silver badge

      Re: Updated

      "Anecdotal evidence aside, doesn't every update of every OS these days brick at least a few devices?"

      Erm, no and we should never routinely expect any update from any OS provider to brick a device. In my case, I use Linux Mint and it just keeps on getting more refined and better and better. You are welcome to join us.

      1. BurnT'offering

        Re: Updated

        I'm not saying that Linux is any more or less brick-prone, but to imply that never happens with Linux ...

        https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557

        And, good luck installing Mint on an iPad.

        1. TVU Silver badge

          Re: Updated

          Bugs should be expected in any operating system, including Linux and BSD OSes, but bricking ought only to be expected in operating systems that are at the alpha stage of development and certainly not from a supposedly mature and very widely used operating system.

    2. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Updated

      Anecdotal evidence aside, doesn't every update of every OS these days brick at least a few devices?

      Err no! But that is probably what the marketing exec's at Apple, Microsoft etc. would want us to believe. And from your comment, it would seem they have been successful in resetting your expectations...

  19. Eclectic Man Silver badge

    To be fair ...

    ... it can be difficult to fix one bug without introducing 'minor' issues like making a device totally unusable.

    At a customer site once, I discovered that saving a Word file that contained a DOS command* as ASCII text, with a '.BAT' extension meant the OS treated the file as an executable and did just that. Access to DOS commands was forbidden to normal users. The supplier's 'solution' was simple - stop the users saving files.

    It did sort of work, but the users, and the customer did not fully appreciate the Dilbertesque elegance of the solution.

    (* If you don't know what a DOS command is, you haven't lived. OK seriously, create a Word file with jus the single line of text

    dir | files.txt

    Save it as text file but with a file extension of .bat

    Double click on the '.bat' file and then open the file named "files.txt".

    Now, try it again with the line

    command.com

    But ++only++ if you have permission.)

  20. Marc 25

    The more things change, the more they stay the same

    After 25 years in this business some things in life appear certain....Death, Taxes and bugs in software.

    I would say cut Apple some slack...but hey this is The Register and vultures clearly hold grudges...even after 15+ years!

  21. DerekCurrie
    Go

    Apple's General Response Document...

    Get help with iOS update and restore errors

    Learn how to solve specific iOS update and restore errors.

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204770

    "If you see one of the errors below, you might have a hardware issue:

    ...56...

    Here's what to check:

    1. Make sure that you have the latest version of iTunes.

    2. Check for issues with third-party security software.

    3. Make sure that your USB cable, computer, and network are reliable. Then try twice more to restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod.

    4. If you still see the error message, you can check for outdated or modified software or contact Apple support.

  22. pete_witty

    i have an old ipad 2 which i havent updated in years and it still works

  23. Tim036

    I voted on this buy moving from ios 7 to Android

    For me it was international symbols which meant nothing to me ....

    If you accidentally swipe from the bottom up a screen comes up with a load of comprehensible ikons. I had accidentally touched the 'do not disturb ikon

    That caused all incoming calls to go to voicemail.. After several weeks I lost patience with it and put my sim card in a phone that would ring when someone phoned me !

    So if you have a iphone 4 do not upgrade the ios to 7 ! IMHO unless you value the hugely improved compass ! *LOL*

  24. Tim036

    I voted on this buy moving from ios 7 to Android

    For me it was international symbols which meant nothing to me ....

    If you accidentally swipe from the bottom up a screen comes up with a load of comprehensible ikons. I had accidentally touched the 'do not disturb ikon

    That caused all incoming calls to go to voicemail.. After several weeks I lost patience with it and put my sim card in a phone that would ring when someone phoned me !

    On trying to restore a previous backup using iTunes the updated latest version of Itunes no long recognised I'd just plugged by phone into the computer. that followed upgrading my ios to 7 which blew my contact list away...

    So if you have a iphone 4 do not upgrade the ios to 7 ! IMHO unless you value the hugely improved compass ! *LOL*

  25. Nameless Faceless Computer User

    ...discontinues all updates until the word "update" and "brick" does not appear in the same sentence.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Once an Apple believer, now I wish someone would throw a computer at them.

    Updated an Ipod to 9.3,2, wasted 2hrs trying to figure out how to play my long list of podcasts before determining it was just unable to handle all the podcasts I subscribed to, even though it did fine before the update. Then it took more than 4hrs to wipe it and prepare it so I could get rid of it.

    The delay was caused by the OS turning on Location software, adding a password (no I didn't forget it and even if I did I have an algorithm to recover), regularly locking up, backing up and then not letting me delete the back up I didn't want and they still have, and the fact that I don't have that many free hours I want to spent on fighting with software. If I did have that much time I would rather use it to learn new software that I like and does what I want, like the PLC program I was taken away from to fight with Apple.

    And to think I thought they were the company to fight big brother, now I wonder why I ever thought that, oh well that was a long time ago, in a land that no longer exists.

  27. This post has been deleted by its author

  28. tempemeaty
    FAIL

    "It just works"...

    ...is just dead.

    Even OSX El Capitan is a train wreck. I wish I never installed that steaming pile of...

    I honestly think Apple can't do software anymore.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like