Apple is no longer signing iOS 14.3 preventing users from installing it

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iPhone XR held in hand alongside river
iPhone XR held in hand alongside river (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • You can no longer downgrade to iOS 14.4.

Apple released iOS 14.4 last week and has now stopped signing iOS 14.3, preventing users from downgrading to the older release.

Apple tends to stop signing older versions of iOS when it wants to ensure users are running a specific version or newer, often due to bug or security fixes. I'd expect it to only be a matter of time before iOS 14.4 is no longer being signed once iOS 14.5 is released to the public. That update is now in the hands of developers.

As for iOS 14.4, it brought with it improvements to the Camera app as well as a raft of new bug fixes and improvements. Anyone restoring an iPhone from here on out will have to install iOS 14.4 following Apple's move, although the whole thing will start all over again once iOS 14.5 is released.

There's no telling exactly when we can expect iOS 14.5 to be made available to the public, but with the first beta release only having just been made available to developers it isn't likely to be for a number of weeks yet.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.