What you need to know
- Apple recently stopped giving iOS 14 users the chance to install security updates without updating to iOS 15.
- Apple has told Ars Technica that it never planned to offer iOS 14 security updates forever.
- Updating to iOS 15 is the only option now available.
Apple recently stopped offering iOS 14 security updates along with the option to ignore iOS 15 and now Apple says that the plan was never to do so forever.
It was a surprise to many that sticking with iOS 14 and still receiving security updates was an option at all, but Apple says that it was only ever supposed to be a temporary deal while it got to grips with the bugs that iOS 15 was suffering from.
Apple told Ars that it always intended the iOS 14 security update option to be temporary. Essentially, people could have a short grace period while Apple worked out the worst of the new operating system's early bugs, but you would always eventually have to upgrade to stay patched.
Notably, Apple's iOS 15 features pace still mentions that it offers a choice "between to software update versions" with people potentially given the choice to "continue on iOS 14 and still get important security updates." That text will presumably change or be removed at some point, however.
I'm still very much of the opinion that an updated iPhone is the best iPhone for a variety of reasons, but I can get behind Apple offering an option when a big new update — like iOS 15 — needs time to settle down. People shouldn't have to jump into the new software release on day one. In fact, it's something most would argue is a bad idea and giving people security updates while they wait for bug fixes is probably the right thing to do.
