Apple is no longer signing iOS 13.5.1 – it's iOS 13.6 or later for you!

iPhone update (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

Apple released iOS 13.6 last week.
It's now stopped signing iOS 13.5.1.
That means nobody can downgrade anymore.

Apple has stopped signing iOS 13.5.1, a week after it made iOS 13.6 available to the public following its beta program. Anyone who wanted to downgrade from iOS 13.6 to iOS 13.5.1 is now out of luck.

Apple tends to stop signing older versions of iOS to avoid people downgrading for several reasons. It often wants to ensure that people are using the latest version of iOS wherever possible, but jailbreaking is also a key factor. People often downgrade to allow them to jailbreak their iPhone – and keeping people from doing that is one way to prevent jailbreakers from doing their thing.

Apple's iOS 13.6 release brought with it support for keyless locking, unlocking, and starting some BMW cars as well as the new Apple News+ Audio feature. It isn't a bad update to be stuck on, that's for sure.

So long as you aren't planning to jailbreak, of course.

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.