Get Ready for iOS 12 by Backing Up, Cleaning Up, and Updating Apps

Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2018/09/10/get-ready-for-ios-12-by-backing-up-cleaning-up-and-updating-apps/

iOS 12 is coming soon, and “Take Control of iOS 12” author Josh Centers has some tips on how to prepare your devices so the update goes smoothly. You’ll want to clear space, make sure your apps are updated, and make two backups before updating.

I had many issues with my iPhone 7 with ios 11. Battery drain was the main issue! An Apple Store agent encouraged me to try the ios 12 Beta. I have run Beta software in the past so I made a backup of my phone in iTunes on my computer. iOS 12 was considerably better with battery use! There were several updates to beta and then they announce the end of the beta. I tried to go back to 11 rather than go from the beta to the actual 12. That is when things took a bad turn. Backup would not restore! I had to do a clean install and get all my phone apps again. Most were easy to obtain but a few were not. Eventually I obtained those too! Others are no longer available. In the end this was a good thing. A lot of apps I rarely or never used were among those no longer available. It is unlikely they would have worked in 12 anyway. This process cleaned up a lot and left a lot of free space on my phone. I am ready for the upgrade to 12 as a result. The downside? The battery drain of iOS 11 has returned. However, 12 will be available soon and that issue will be resolved again. Suggestions: Make more than one backup of your phone in iTunes if you have access to more than one computer. There is no such thing as “too many backups”! Make a list of the apps you have on your phone just in case you have to re-install them. During that process it might be wise to delete those you have never or even just rarely used. Then make more backups without them so that they are not restored in the future from an older backup. You do not want to have to delete them all again especially if you have many apps.

You should be able to view your list of purchased apps in the App Store app. In iOS 12, open the App Store app, tap Updates, tap your avatar icon at the top right of the screen, and then tap Purchased. You can even see which apps aren’t on this particular device.

It sounds like downgrading to iOS 11 is a really bad idea for anyone using the iOS 12 beta. I wouldn’t have thought to do that, and based on your experience, I’d strongly discourage anyone from trying it. Just wait a few more days for the final release of iOS 12.

Indeed it was a bad idea. I used the method you describe to find the apps in “Purchased” but many were greyed out! On the positive side, I now have a cleaned up phone ready for 12.

I’m a little confused about a couple of things.

I haven’t read anything on the rumor sites indicating the end of beta testing, but since the release date will almost certainly be known on Sep 12, it wouldn’t necessarily surprise me if it had ended.

What caused you believe it would be best to update from iOS 11 rather than from beta 12? It’s not unheard of for the last beta to actually be the release version and even if not there should never be any issues upgrading from a beta.

-Al-

Prompt for another beta update appeared more than once for iOS 12.0 and when attempted nothing happened. That seemed wrong. As well the beta version number was past 12.0 Those 2 things appeared to indicate the beta was done or worse, flawed. I am not suggesting anyone should do what I did. Ironically, though it was time consuming, my phone is “cleansed” of much that I did not use or need.

Yes, that was a very well publicized in a number of publications, including TidBITS

<https://tidbits.com/2018/08/31/how-to-prevent-incessant-ios-12-beta-prompts/>

but that was fixed in the update released on or about Aug 30. Some details are at

<https://www.imore.com/yes-ios-12-beta-spamming-everyone-update-notifications-right-now>.

But there does appear to be at least one flaw in the last beta if you believe it has already been hacked: “iOS 12 beta 12 pwned. (Kernel Memory R/W) with @jndok and @f_roncari - WE DID IT”

<https://twitter.com/simone_ferrini/status/1038148350829371392 >.

No word yet on whether this is enough to delay release or not.

-Al-

I didn’t know it was possible to downgrade the OS on an iOS device (not that I want to). How is it done?

I bailed out before that “fix”. Running ok in 11 except for the battery drain issue. Awaiting 12 which will fix that. I thought 12 ran smoother and faster than 11. Perhaps 12 will be released Sept. 12 along with the other announcements?

Yes, probably. That would certainly be the normal timeline that I’m sure Apple was working toward. The only thing I have heard of that might require a delay was the hack video posted this weekend. If Apple was made aware of how it was done and they feel it is serious enough to require a delay, then I would still expect them to announce a release date on Wednesday.

The rules are a bit different during the beta test period and for a short time after a version release, users can revert to a previous version in case there are unexpected stability issues. After that, previous iOS installers are disabled.

Thank you for the article. I haven’t been able to back up for two months while in the UK and France with my X on T-Mobile. In one BnB they had an AirPort. I assume most of the time it was a security issue. I hope to revisit this next week when we return.

Generally iOS is not released on the date of the iPhone announcement, but is released to final version about a week later basically just before the new phones are shipped. Last year, for example, iOS 11 was released on Sept 19, exactly a week after the iPhone announcement event. It remains in beta for that last week.

I conclude that Apple is not into numerology as I suspected.

Thank you Al. That was my guess, but it is nice to have it confirmed.

You can avoid all the wasted time fooling around with your iPhone by not upgrading at all. Once you have the phone set up the way you like to use it, then chances are there is nothing in the upgrade that is worth the trouble. To paraphrase a popular slogan. “Just Don’t Do It.”

Not upgrading is dangerous because there are very real security issues that Apple fixes only in the current version of iOS. You don’t have to upgrade immediately, but it’s actively difficult to avoid upgrading eventually, especially because iOS itself pushes the upgrade at some point.

Usually the security issues occur with the upgrades.

I would have to challenge that conclusion. Most that are discovered after an upgrade are found to have been vulnerabilities in previous versions and Apple almost never patches previous iOS software.

Bugs, on the other hand, often are found in new releases.

-Al-

Al is right here. Upgrades address security issues that are found in previous versions of iOS. This is part of why Apple doesn’t allow iOS devices to install older versions of iOS. Most of us don’t have to deal with the repercussions of security vulnerabilities, but there are people whose lives are at risk based on the data on their iPhones, so Apple takes this very seriously. For instance: