Surprise iOS 10.3.1 Update Fixes 32-Bit iPhone 5 and 5c Issues

Apple rolled out a surprise version of iOS 10.3.1 on Monday that primarily fixes an over-the-air update issue plaguing certain iPhone models.

The update’s release, rolled out just a week after iOS 10.3, is unusual primarily because Cupertino did not seed any beta versions for it — registered developer or public beta alike. It’s mostly an incremental update, and is relatively small, clocking in at around 30 megabytes.

As for what’s included in the update, its main bug fix seems to patch an unknown issue in iOS 10.3 that was causing problems for the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5c. Shortly after iOS 10.3 was released, Apple pulled the update’s availability on those two phones — which, interestingly, both run on 32-bit processors, suggesting that it could have been a hardware problem. Whatever the cause, it seems to have been fixed, since iOS 10.3.1 is currently available for both the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5c, according to Forbes.

In addition to that fix, iOS 10.3.1 carries a number of important security updates, including a fix for a vulnerability that would let an attacker “execute arbitrary code on a device’s Wi-Fi chip.” The flaw was apparently reported by Gal Beniamini, a security researcher at Google’s Project Zero, according to Apple’s security update release notes.

Worth noting is that today’s update bridges the gap between iOS 10.3 and iOS 10.3.2. Also notable is that iOS 10.3.1 may be Apple’s last mobile operating system update before it begins to phase out 32-bit applications. According to user reports, the iOS 10.3.2 beta is already nixing support for 32-bit applications.

iOS 10.3.1 is currently available as an over-the-air-update for devices running iOS 10.3.