Downgrading from iOS 10.3.1 Is Now Impossible

Apple this week began seeding the first beta of iOS 10.3.2 to developers. And while the intermittent software update, in itself, isn’t expected to bring much in the way of features to iPhone and iPad users, Apple has nevertheless made it clear that with the public release of iOS 10.3.2, users running iOS 10.3.1 will no longer be able to downgrade to iOS 10.3 or 10.2.1.

That’s because Apple has officially stopped signing for iOS 10.3 and iOS 10.2.1, which in other words means that users who were hoping for the possibility of downgrading from either of the two, will no longer be able to.

It’s important to note that this move on Apple’s part, to stop signing for earlier versions of iOS, isn’t particularly out of the ordinary. In fact, whenever the company releases a major iOS update, such as iOS 10.3, or even iOS 9.3 from last year, within just a few weeks of the public release Apple typically begins the same process of cutting off support for previous versions. That’s because, in part, due to the sheer amount of security patches and stability enhancements that iOS 10.3 brought to the table, it would be unadvisable for users to downgrade to a previous, more vulnerable version of iOS, anyway.

On the positive side of the coin, iOS 10.3 ushered in a myriad of beneficial features and security enhancements over iOS 10.2.1, including a trove of bug fixes, security improvements, valuable CarPlay updates, Apple’s new ‘Find my AirPods’ feature, and the introduction of Apple File Management System (APFS), which has completely changed the way that our iOS devices will store, manage, and process files and app data moving forward. Several users have also reported that iOS 10.3 has freed up a considerable amount of storage space on their device, depending on its capacity, which may be a byproduct of APFS, in itself.

APFS, which effectively replaces Apple’s decades-old Hierarchal File System (HFS+), is exclusively optimized to take advantage of more modern installments of Flash/SSD storage, and focuses heavily on the encryption and security of iOS files and app data. Though the changes ushered in by AFPS, for the most part, have taken place behind-the-scenes, the new system nevertheless replaces Apple’s outdated HFS+ system, which itself was created back in 1998 to work best with the spin-and-needle-based HDD hard drives of old.

To learn more about APFS, and why you should conduct an iCloud or iTunes backup prior to upgrading to iOS 10.3 if you haven’t already, be sure to check out our previous coverage of Cupertino’s new file management system.