Apple is no longer signing iOS 15.0.2 leaving iOS 15.1 the only option

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Iphone 12 Pro Ios 15 Work Focus
Iphone 12 Pro Ios 15 Work Focus (Image credit: Christine Romero-Chan / iMore)

What you need to know

  • Apple has stopped signing iOS 15.0.2, preventing people from installing it.
  • People can no longer downgrade from iOS 15.1 even if they want to.

Apple has stopped signing iOS 15.0.2, leaving iOS 15.1 as the only available version of iOS for modern devices.

The move also means that people can no longer downgrade from iOS 15.1 to a previous release. That iOS 15.0.2 update landed almost a month ago and brought with it a slew of bug fixes relating to the Find My app as well as a CarPlay fix for an issue that saw music apps misbehave.

Apple released iOS 15.1 a week ago and that was the update that brought support for SharePlay as well as Apple's ProRes video recording support on iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Apple often stops signing older versions of iOS for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's due to bugs and security fixes and Apple wanting to ensure everyone has them installed, while sometimes it just wants to make sure a minimum feature set is met so developers can target new features with their apps. That could be the case here, with iOS 15.1 required for SharePlay support.

Anyone who remains on iOS 15.0.2 needsn't worry — your iPhone will continue to work just fine. I'd always suggest updating however if only to make sure you have the latest bug fixes installed. A bug-free iPhone is always the best iPhone, after all!

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.