iOS 5 Over-the-Air Update Video, Documents on iCloud, and Other Notes - MacRumors
Skip to Content

iOS 5 Over-the-Air Update Video, Documents on iCloud, and Other Notes


InsanelyGreatMac posts the above video showing the new iOS 5 Beta 4 over the air (OTA) updating in action. As we noted the OTA update also saves bandwidth as it only sends changes rather than the entire OS image.

@MuscleNerd reports that OTA update won't work on Jailbroken devices.

• We reported that iPhones must have 50% charge or be plugged into a power source to download the OTA update, but @johnheimkes reports this requirement is not enforced on the iPad which allowed the update to occur with only 12% charge.

badge
• Settings app displays a badge when an over the air update is available.

doc
• Apple has added a "Documents and Data" toggle for iCloud which allows you to turn on/off the ability for apps to save data and documents to the iCloud. There is also a way to chose whether these updates occur over 3G or only over Wi-Fi. This allows Apps to save their own data and user data to the iCloud so that it is available across devices, and backed up into the cloud.
• The OTA update downloads over Wi-Fi or 3G connections.

Popular Stories

iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Next Month With These 12 New Features

Sunday August 9, 2026 1:45 pm PDT by
It is now August, and that means the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are just a month away. The devices are expected to look similar to the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, but there will still be many year-over-year changes, with rumored features including a smaller Dynamic Island, 5G via satellite, and more. Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and a...
iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Next Month With These 12 New Features

Thursday August 6, 2026 7:03 am PDT by
It is now August, and that means the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are just a month away. The devices are expected to look similar to the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, but there will still be many year-over-year changes, with rumored features including a smaller Dynamic Island, 5G via satellite, and more. Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and a...
iOS 27 Feature Cool

Everything New in iOS 27 Beta 5

Monday August 10, 2026 3:02 pm PDT by
We're a little over a month away from the launch of iOS 27, and Apple is continuing to make changes. The fifth beta of iOS 27 changes the look of some app icons and adjusts Liquid Glass, plus it adds some smaller features that make the iPhone just a little nicer to use. App Icons There are updated Liquid Glass icons for Safari, Siri, Settings, Remote, App Store, and Preview. Some of the...

Top Rated Comments

197 months ago
Feels like a slap in the face for jailbreakers...
That really sucks.

I don't think Apple cares about jail breakers.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
197 months ago
The over the air updates are very slick and a marked improvement for sure..Too bad Apple blocked OTA updates for those jailbroken...haha.

Why would jailbreakers want OTA updates? Apple is doing them a favor by not corrupting their firmware.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
197 months ago
Feels like a slap in the face for jailbreakers...
That really sucks.

So now we should expect Apple to go out of there way to make things work for jail breakers? Maybe we should expect them to apply a delta update to something when they have no way of verifying what is actually there...
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mdriftmeyer Avatar
197 months ago
I see a lot of I/O error by the host in this video.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Rocketman Avatar
197 months ago
I think it was about a year ago that the US carriers said OTA Apple updates would not count against bandwidth. I would be curious if there is a way to see if that is true in practice on these tests.

It makes business sense to do that. You don't want to discourage OS and security updates for any reason by any user.

Rocketman
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Aaargh! Avatar
197 months ago
Feels like a slap in the face for jailbreakers...
That really sucks.

Allowing a delta update on a jailbroken device would be far too dangerous. Remember that a delta update only contains the changes between the previous version and the new version, that won't work reliably if the old version is not exactly the same as the one that was used to create the delta. Once you jailbreak your OS is modified; applying a delta to something else than what it was created against will give an undefined result and probably just brick the device.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)