Apple released iOS 7.1.2 and Mavericks 10.9.4 a few hours ago. Once again, at least the iOS update appears to be untried and untested. There is also an update for Apple TV, 6.2, although I did not see anything new or different in the brief look I had after the update.
Those attempting to update iOS using iTunes might be out of luck as the update might get stuck after a while. The OTA update seems to work fine on a few devices that I tried.
A work-around for the iTunes update getting stuck is to soft-reboot the device by holding down the power+home keys for about 5 seconds. The device will shut down and then you can push the power button to power it on again. Although the device would say it was updated after the reset, it would be hard to figure out if the update actually happened as it should have.
The Apple discussion thread here, has more of such people where the update failed.
The memory hogging related issues with Mavericks remain as they were and despite the huge number of people on Apples’ discussion forums with this issue, nothing has changed in that respect. The file cache keeps hogging up memory on any file i/o and will slow down the system to a crawl. Of course, the old bugs of email rendering, address book and calendar syncing across devices remain as they were. The spotlight and finder bugs related to the Time Capsule also remain as does the sharing and window placements across fast user switches.
For a comparison, install Mountain Lion on the same system and watch the performance. ML beats Mavericks hollow on all counts. Personally, I have seen no difference in the developer preview for Yosemite from Mavericks so far. All the older bugs remain intact. I guess we can assume that OS X will keep getting worse compared to earlier versions. Older bugs will not get fixed and newer ones will keep getting added. So much for free updates…
For now, unless you are using SSDs for the base OS X system, the only solution seems to be to add more physical RAM and use a memory cleaning utility to be on the safe side.
Now for the good news for iOS jailbreakers…iOS 7.1.2 is still jailbreakable by Pangu.
Actually, there is a brighter side other than the jailbreak…at least iOS device owners have some sort of current updates…unlike the vast majority of Android device owners who will probably never see any updates unless they purchased the top end devices of a few known brands.
I know…I am still waiting for a KitKat update for my Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini (i9192, still under warranty) even after the next generation Android preview is already around. If that was not enough, Samsung just announced 4 low-end devices with KitKat and still no sign of any update for the S4 Mini (i9192) which is sold in the Asian region.
Nitin Chandra's Blog 