If you’ve been anxiously awaiting the iOS 9 update, today’s the day you can download the final version on your iPhone and iPad. Here’s a complete guide on what’s in iOS 9, how to download it, and a list of iPhone and iPad users who shouldn’t download the update.
Before we get into how to download it, we’ve got a pretty big disclaimer for the newbies out there: Software updates are often unstable. If you download iOS 9 on the first day or on an older device, you may experience random crashes, weird reactions from apps, battery drain, and other issues. That said, iOS updates aren’t typically too crazy, so you should be fine. Just know that there is a risk of performance issues with new software.
If things get too hairy, you can always downgrade back to iOS 8.4 (we’ll tell you how — Apple’s got a nice guide setup, too). Now — on to the good stuff.
How to download the iOS 9
First, check to see if your device is compatible with iOS 9. It should work with the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5C, iPhone 5S, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad 2 or later, iPad Mini or later, and fifth-generation iPod Touch. Of course, we don’t recommend using the beta on older devices, because the performance will likely suffer dramatically. Those on an iPhone 5S and above, or an iPad Air or above should be good to go.
Don’t download iOS 9 on the following devices:
iPhone 5
iPhone 5C
iPhone 4S
iPad Mini (first generation)
Before you download the update, you’ll want to back up everything that’s on your phone, so you don’t risk losing all your apps, photos, and so on. To do so, you can either backup your phone over the air to iCloud with the iPhone itself, or you can plug it into your computer and backup to iTunes directly. You should check out Apple’s instructions here, which explain how to archive a backup, so that your device will go back to the old version of the software if you choose to downgrade your device. Apple’s instruction require you to use iTunes instead of iCloud, though. Here’s a quick break down of the steps:
Open iTunes and make sure it’s the latest version.
Plug in your device and let it sync.
Click on Summary, and then click Backup now.
When the backup is done, go to iTunes > Preferences > Devices.
Find your backup and Control-click the backup. Select Archive.
Once all your data is safe, you simply head to Settings > General > Software update to see if it’s available to download. Then, Apple will send the update to download over the air. It’s much smaller this year at 1.3GB, so you should have room to download iOS 9 on your iPhone or iPad. Initially, some users had problems downloading the software, but it seems that iOS 9 downloads now work smoothly.
Apple will likely update iOS 9 periodically with big fixes and so on.
No comments:
Post a Comment