4 ms·

For most users, the phone works and they don't care. For everyone in my family, iOS updates are just an annoyance.

by junkscience2017 9y ago

jasode 9y ago
Yes, I think user apathy has to be a big part of it. I have a 2012 iPhone5 with iOS 6.1.3 still on it. I never upgraded it. When iOS 7 came out, all the news reports said it killed the battery. Same with iOS 8, 9, and finally iOS X. Yes, I assume that eventually, iOS point release 7.x.x fixed the battery issue but I don't care to keep visiting news websites to figure out which exact version is finally "safe" to upgrade. I don't want to be a slave to the housekeeping of my phone. Others say the news reports are alarmist -- all one has to do after a new iOS release is to dig into the settings and disable all the new features/polling/etc that eats up the battery. But it's the same situation -- I don't want to put the effort into learning "what's new" that I have to disable. On the other hand, I'll quickly upgrade major releases of MS Visual Studio from VS2015 to VS2017, or upgrade Webstorm from 2016 to 2017. I was puzzled over my contradictory approaches to updating software. I think I figured it out: my phone feels like an "appliance" to me instead of a computer and I don't want to mess it up. Another reason is that Apple won't let me pick an exact version to upgrade. I can't pick iOS 7.1.2 -- I'm forced to upgrade to the buggy iOS X or nothing at all. As a result, I have willingly performed an "IE6" legacy lobotomy on my iPhone. (As trivia, I also notice that iPhone5s on ebay that still have iOS 6 sell for a slightly higher premium.)
- scoot 9y ago
  It doesn't help that "upgrading" an iOS device is a one-way ticket. Religiously updating the original iPad effectively bricked it (not literally, but to all intents and purposes) years ahead of its natural lifetime, due to one particular major release that killed performance, reliability and battery life in one fell swoop. If there no going back, why would you risk going forward?
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    Security fixes, new features, etc.?
    - recursive 9y ago
      If you risk losing the old features, that probably doesn't sound too attractive to most people.
  - Yizahi 9y ago
    My iPad 2 is still actively in use on iOS7 (it was better on iOS6) and I was using iPhone 4S with iOS6 until the end of last year. Many other people reported bad degradation on iOS8/9.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > (As trivia, I also notice that iPhone5s on ebay that still have iOS 6 sell for a slightly higher premium.) This is probably because it has a better jailbreak scene around it than newer versions of iOS. Also, just as an FYI, the latest version of iOS is 11, and they're not numbered using roman numerals.
  - porfirium 9y ago
    The latest version of iOS for the iPhone 5 is certainly 10. 11 dropped support for 32-bit phones, and the iPhone 5, along with the 5c, were the last 32-bit iPhones.
- mikeytown2 9y ago
  Anecdotally my iPhone6 16gb became way more usable with iOS 11. I went from always running out of room to now having a lot of space. I use https://photos.google.com/ https://photos.google.com/ all the time so I rarely have more than 200mb of media on my phone. For me the OS footprint shrunk quite a bit and as a result the phone became a lot more usable.
- jandrese 9y ago
  I wouldn't always believe those "the update made my phone slow" stories you see whenever there is a new OS. Many seem to be pre-written by the haters and always posted regardless of what the truth is.
scarface74 9y ago
Because anecdotal evidence of "everyone in your family" is more relevant than the numbers that Apple post that usually within a year, an overwhelming number of iOS users are on the latest version.
enraged_camel 9y ago
People in your family don't care about security?
- junkscience2017 9y ago
  Honestly, no. Do you take your car in for service the moment your car dash light signals for an oil change? If you aren't in tech, you aren't going to see a pressing need. I won't let my wife log in to our brokerage because she insists on using dictionary words as passwords. My parents tape their passwords to their laptops. Heartbleed is way down the list for them. The biggest security threat is still phishing, to which we all remain mostly vulnerable.
- b3lvedere 9y ago
  They care about security, but most have no clue what is happening, why it's happening and what they should do about it when normal channels fail to help them.
- ionised 9y ago
  Have you spoken to the average user of phones and tablets? They don't even understand what security means in context of their uses of these devices a lot of the time.

For most users, the phone works and they don't care. For everyone in my family, iOS updates are just an annoyance.

Yes, I think user apathy has to be a big part of it. I have a 2012 iPhone5 with iOS 6.1.3 still on it. I never upgraded it. When iOS 7 came out, all the news reports said it killed the battery. Same with iOS 8, 9, and finally iOS X. Yes, I assume that eventually, iOS point release 7.x.x fixed the battery issue but I don't care to keep visiting news websites to figure out which exact version is finally "safe" to upgrade. I don't want to be a slave to the housekeeping of my phone. Others say the news reports are alarmist -- all one has to do after a new iOS release is to dig into the settings and disable all the new features/polling/etc that eats up the battery. But it's the same situation -- I don't want to put the effort into learning "what's new" that I have to disable. On the other hand, I'll quickly upgrade major releases of MS Visual Studio from VS2015 to VS2017, or upgrade Webstorm from 2016 to 2017. I was puzzled over my contradictory approaches to updating software. I think I figured it out: my phone feels like an "appliance" to me instead of a computer and I don't want to mess it up. Another reason is that Apple won't let me pick an exact version to upgrade. I can't pick iOS 7.1.2 -- I'm forced to upgrade to the buggy iOS X or nothing at all. As a result, I have willingly performed an "IE6" legacy lobotomy on my iPhone. (As trivia, I also notice that iPhone5s on ebay that still have iOS 6 sell for a slightly higher premium.)

scoot 9y ago
It doesn't help that "upgrading" an iOS device is a one-way ticket. Religiously updating the original iPad effectively bricked it (not literally, but to all intents and purposes) years ahead of its natural lifetime, due to one particular major release that killed performance, reliability and battery life in one fell swoop. If there no going back, why would you risk going forward?
- saagarjha 9y ago
  Security fixes, new features, etc.?
  - recursive 9y ago
    If you risk losing the old features, that probably doesn't sound too attractive to most people.
- Yizahi 9y ago
  My iPad 2 is still actively in use on iOS7 (it was better on iOS6) and I was using iPhone 4S with iOS6 until the end of last year. Many other people reported bad degradation on iOS8/9.
saagarjha 9y ago
> (As trivia, I also notice that iPhone5s on ebay that still have iOS 6 sell for a slightly higher premium.) This is probably because it has a better jailbreak scene around it than newer versions of iOS. Also, just as an FYI, the latest version of iOS is 11, and they're not numbered using roman numerals.
- porfirium 9y ago
  The latest version of iOS for the iPhone 5 is certainly 10. 11 dropped support for 32-bit phones, and the iPhone 5, along with the 5c, were the last 32-bit iPhones.
mikeytown2 9y ago
Anecdotally my iPhone6 16gb became way more usable with iOS 11. I went from always running out of room to now having a lot of space. I use https://photos.google.com/ https://photos.google.com/ all the time so I rarely have more than 200mb of media on my phone. For me the OS footprint shrunk quite a bit and as a result the phone became a lot more usable.
jandrese 9y ago
I wouldn't always believe those "the update made my phone slow" stories you see whenever there is a new OS. Many seem to be pre-written by the haters and always posted regardless of what the truth is.

scarface74 9y ago

Because anecdotal evidence of "everyone in your family" is more relevant than the numbers that Apple post that usually within a year, an overwhelming number of iOS users are on the latest version.

enraged_camel 9y ago

People in your family don't care about security?

junkscience2017 9y ago
Honestly, no. Do you take your car in for service the moment your car dash light signals for an oil change? If you aren't in tech, you aren't going to see a pressing need. I won't let my wife log in to our brokerage because she insists on using dictionary words as passwords. My parents tape their passwords to their laptops. Heartbleed is way down the list for them. The biggest security threat is still phishing, to which we all remain mostly vulnerable.
b3lvedere 9y ago
They care about security, but most have no clue what is happening, why it's happening and what they should do about it when normal channels fail to help them.
ionised 9y ago
Have you spoken to the average user of phones and tablets? They don't even understand what security means in context of their uses of these devices a lot of the time.