Following the release of iOS 13.6.1 on August 12, Apple has stopped signing iOS 13.6, which means downgrading to that version of iOS is no longer possible.
/article-new/2020/08/iOS-13.6.1-on-iPhone-Feature.jpg?lossy)
iOS 13.6 was a major update that introduced Car Keys support Apple News audio, and other features.
Apple routinely stops signing older versions of software updates after new releases come out in order to encourage customers to keep their operating systems up to date.
iOS 13.6.1, a bug fix issue that addressed problems with data storage, thermal management, and exposure notifications, is the only current publicly available version of iOS that can be installed on iPhones and iPads. Apple has also seeded betas of upcoming iOS and iPadOS 14 updates to developers and public beta testers, which can be downloaded instead.
Top Rated Comments
Power management is a common area noted in the news, but I've also had an iPad Pro that just kept draining battery even when turned off via power switch shutdown, so that when a fully charged 100% device got turned back on, it'd be at 70% after a day, 40% after two, then 0%, without so much as a single charge. Not plugged into power, not touched or used. It was fine in iOS 13.4, then bad in iOS 13.5. Then later versions not playing from car speakers when connected to CarPlay on certain vehicles, requiring multiple unplugs and replugs. So many little bugs here and there that compromise the user experience, that pop up in one version of iOS, not present before. All together, the experience doesn't feel like "it just works."
So often, this kind of problem happens because the OS is so deep, and little feature adds and changes in the code can cause unintentional problems elsewhere. If it's a non-automated-testbed problem that doesn't cross the Apple QA folk's workflow or other employees' use case -- for example, employees never turning off their devices -- then it just gets released unnoticed.
Human error is understandable, but with no fallback to a previous iOS, it just hurts users that live outside the "typical" user/QA workflow.
(To make matters worse, Apple constantly tells developers to support two versions back when building & submitting an app to the App Store. It's so hypocritical when they won't even support two versions of iOS at the same time, pulling the plug so quickly on signing a previous version. It's just such an extreme reaction to security compromises and this whole "get on the latest" mindset.)
This is the ONE single thing that Apple should have been sued over but not so far. It cost me over 25 games that worked and then didn't because Apple forced me to upgrade.
At the end of the day though, I doubt anything will change and Apple will keep their harsh stance against any user attempting to use older version software by scaring them off or forcing the upgrade when applicable.