Apple has released iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, the newest operating system updates designed for the iPhone and iPad. As with all of Apple’s software updates, iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 can be downloaded for free. iOS 14 is available on the iPhone 6s and later, while iPadOS 14 is available on the iPad Air 2 and later.
The link contains all the information you’d ever want – including the most prominent new features. As always, Apple manages to release their latest operating system update for quite a few older devices as well – the iPhone 6s is 5 years old, so this adds another year to its useful life span for people who don’t always need, want, or can afford the latest and greatest.
So, if it were not for this update, people would just throw away working devices?
Yes.
Or new security holes are found but never patched, so the old devices become an increasing liability for users until they get discarded.
It depends… You can still have an old version with security patches available.
Anyway I agree, that a device without patches coming should not be considered 100% “working”
People drive old cars without all the fancy three letter abbreviations.
People use old refrigerators, which could do much much better on electricity consumption.
People live in not-so-fancy neighborhoods where crime is a real issue.
People use old phones, regardless of expensive fruit seller deciding to release an “update” to make them slower or not.
People do lots of thinks…
People make really bad analogies between apples and oranges.
Security patches have nothing to do with whether or not a device works. There are tons of people who aren’t using phones with 0-day patches and they’re just fine. They may not be 100% “safe” but 99.98% “safe” is plenty good for most people. If using an “old” phone gets 1 out of every 1,000,000 people in trouble, I’d say those are great odds and you don’t need to panic-buy a $1000 phone/security blanket.
A device’s end of life is definitely influenced by the last official update, albeit in Apple’s case it’s probably an extension five years later, This is from a software perspective. Hardware wise I fear they are not as durable as they used to be. I finally replaced a 2006 Macbook in 2017 and it needs a new keyboard already. Known issue arising from trying too hard to be thin.
A lot of people seem to forget there are a few things to consider where security is concerned – 1) The technical existence of a threat, 2) the real world chances of successfully being able to exploit that threat, and 3) what the attacker is actually capable of after successfully exploiting the threat. Most of the time you only hear the alarms going off about #1 with little or no attention given to #2 or #3. Not surprising, that would be counter-productive to the goal of scaring you into buying a new really expensive phone. A lot of threats are discovered in lab testing where the conditions are strictly controlled, and where the level of risk drops tremendously once you’re in the real world. And then, even if the threat is exploited, what the attacker gains access to is often not more than what apps and/or the OS is already doing behind your back anyways.
Did I say security is unimportant? UMM, NO. But, I am saying people should be entitled to perspective when being served a main course of FUD. How much of a liability is it if you phone is vulnerable to a threat you can really only exploit in a lab, or that when exploited, doesn’t really give the attacker access to anything new that apps and the OS aren’t already giving up?
And a lot of people seem to forget these devices operate within very large public telephony networks.
Security updates are not just about the end user, but the telco operators as well.
> conditions are strictly controlled, and where the level of risk drops tremendously once you’re in the real world. And then, even if the threat is exploited, what the attacker gains access to is often not more..
Same can be said for medical devices – i.e. an insulin pump that can be “hacked” if the attacker manages to be in your BT range for 2 days capturing every single packet sent to the pump, in order to crack the encryption or nonce sequencing. A gun or paying someone on Unfriendly Solution is an easier way to kill a person. (I got Unfriendly Solution from Dan Brown’s Origin book, but apparently it actually exists)
So the FDA (and the companies) go into hissy fits and up the security and make their devices even more closed in less interoperable with anything else. The result is it ticks off people like WeAreNotWaiting and the diabetes closed-loop community.
And, in the case of iOS, jailbreakers who want to make interface tweaks, people who want to try to hack new Watch faces, etc. Has anyone in the JB community reverse-engineered whatever the FaceKit [guessing at the name] internal class is?
Being calm and rational doesn’t get people publicity and make their careers. It also doesn’t get people to buy whatever the person is selling.
A couple of the my complaints about the infosec community.
Reading the CVEs gives a much better idea about the severity of the problem.
On the other hand, security holes add up, and it’s better to fix it then let it linger. CVEs are only for known vulnerabilities which have been reported, and it’s possible they could be chained with a 0-day to make something pretty terrible.
Too much security paladins nowadays, I support your position.
Apple supports their older devices with security patches. I have an iPhone 4c for oversees visitors and it keeps getting updates.
The issue, however, is that technologies like Homekit do stop working and apps that require updates – like Sonos – stop getting updates so you do have to replace it eventually. I got an SE for this reason.
Let’s see… forced contact tracing… Aside from the implied benefits… Bye Bye Privacy .
It’s opt in and off by default! The horror, the horror.
Besides the LEOs already know where you are. Your cell service provider is more then happy to hand over any data they have.
Why is everyone is ignoring Scribbles? This is what I’ve been waiting for.
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/25/ipados-14-apple-pencil-scribble/
Ignoring all the fanboy rubbish, I wouldn’t update just yet.
Our company has a fleet of Salespeople very unhappy this morning, mostly driving a single brand of vehicle primarily used by Salespeople who are habitually attracted to any new or bling, which iOS 14 fits nicely.
They almost universally updated yesterday, and today they are almost universally operating without any in car functionality which the iOS 14 update broke. There seems to be a bug, the iPhone and vehicles show no connection errors, but no audio is delivered from the phone to the vehicle, not by BT or USB.
Callers and Siri can hear commands from the driver but with the phone connected to the vehicle no audio is returned to the driver. They can of course disconnect from the vehicle and use the phone standalone. They come to me looking for help, I’ve had to put them onto our Telco’s specialists who are working with Apple, this is the last thing they need, life is hard enough already under COVID without some half-arsed update rolling out.
Friend of mine reported that iOS 14 breaks banking apps, at least the ones here in the Philippines.
“so this adds another year to its useful life span”
I’m not so sure about this. My iPad Air 2 (which I was totally happy with) I had to replace recently because the new mandatory OS update reserved so much space for “System” I was going crazy having to delete software all the time to clear up space.
My iPad Air 2’s predecessor, the iPad Mini, went from being totally fine to slow and unusable after updating to iOS 7.
To be fair, I’d had them both for a long time so I felt like I should upgrade. The point I’m trying to make is this it was the Updates themselves that rendered them unusable in both cases – not extended the life of them as Thom claims.