Apple iOS 8.3 – Dangerous for some!

Can of Bugs!

Having just restored my iPhone 4s which had gone dead today after the iOS 8.3 update yesterday, I guess I have to take back my words from the previous post. I had mentioned that iOS 8.3 does not seem to be any worse than 8.2 and it should be okay to update. You might want to hold off the update since there are quite a few reports on the net which makes iOS 8.3 seem to be one of the buggiest releases ever.

My iPhone 4s went into a reboot & switch off loop while sending an email. The only way to fix it was to restore it using iTunes. A caveat here is that the phone had to be put in recovery mode for it to stop rebooting long enough for iTunes to recognise the device. For those who might have the same issue, just keep the home button on the phone pressed while plugging the USB cable into your system (Mac/PC). You might have to retry this a few times before the phone lands up in recovery mode and stops rebooting & switching off.

Do not attempt to update as that will generally fail. A full restore will work more often than not. I would also not recommend restoring from a backup, after recovery, since that might lead to the same loop all over again.

Think I should mention that iOS 8.3 also drains the battery on all my iPhones pretty fast and while updating with iOS 8.3, the phones heated up quite a bit.

I guess it’s time to carry around a back up phone if you use an iPhone and keep updating to the latest firmware from Apple…Just make sure it takes the same size SIM.

Watch out for the Apple watch…it might tell you the date & time of a different planet 🙂

Apple releases new bugs in iOS 8.3, OS X 10.10.3 and iTunes 12.1.2 :)

Well…It has become routine now. New untested releases from Apple again. Anyway, we can safely assume that there will be new bugs and some old ones that will remain. The list of bugs “fixed” will continue to have some variations with every update besides “improving security, safety…” etc.

Bugs can fly!

iOS 8.3 breaks touch id for some according to quite a few blogs on the net. So, you might want to gather more information on this one before updating iOS to see which devices are affected by this bug.

For me, OS X seems to have some display related issues where windows will not redraw on my iMac even though the application is running and visible.

The brain-dead Photos app found only 20 photos on my phone where there was actually a whole lot more. This was on a freshly created user account after upgrading to 10.10.3. Out of the 20 photos, it could not import 2 with a message saying there was some issue with the metadata. Well…It goes even further, only 2 photos out of the imported 18 were complete, the rest were incomplete images with half of the image missing. The scenario did not change after upgrading iOS to 8.3. From a usable iPhoto, we now have a bare-bones, brain-dead Photos app!

Given the somewhat longer list of bug fixes in all the released software, it shows what all bugs have been around for years and are included in every update as being “fixed”.

Although I have yet to figure out any improvements, I do see new bugs besides some of the older ones still hanging around. Still to use the new iTunes update…Let’s see what new bugs are in store there.

With the tasteless (bitter for some) Lollipop from Google and Windows all-over-the-place, Apple has no real need or urgency to improve or fix anything, excepting on paper.

BTW, the iPhone 5c is available for the same price as the iPhone 4s officially. Head over to Amazon India for the current pricing and availability. With some coupons or offers, it can be even cheaper and falls into the same price range as a mid-to-low range Android device.

Overall, I would say it’s okay to update since the updates do not seem to be any worse than the previous ones…So far!

WWDC 2014 – iOS 8, OS X 10.10 – Apple opens up iOS a bit more!

Well…Not a very exciting event from Apple, but, there are some points that could stretch Apple’s lead in the mobile and desktop market to some extent.

1. Apple has opened out more APIs on the iOS side allowing app functionality, officially, that was previously available only on jailbroken devices. Given the wide developer base, we could see some exciting apps coming up in the near future. iOS 8 Enterprise features have also been enhanced and could spur wider enterprise adoption.
2. The introduction of a new programming language, Swift, which could accelerate the development on iOS and OS X platforms far more than ever before.
3. The integration and extension of the functionality of the 10+ year old Nokia PC Suite into Yosemite is a welcome addition. Most people using iOS devices would probably understand that this could be quite useful on occasion. This page has details.

A word of caution for early adopters. Do not attempt to try iOS 8 just as yet on your primary phone. Most of the current applications will not work as expected and a vast majority would simply crash, including the stock apps. Yosemite, although usable, is quite laggy and slow, which is to be expected from a developer preview. The same applies to Xcode 6 beta.