Apple has recently begun sending out an email encouraging those who opted to stick with an older version of iOS to upgrade to iOS 8. The email details all of the major features of iOS 8 along with instructions on how to install the update both via your iDevice or iTunes.
This email is probably in response to slower overall adoption rates of iOS 8 as compared to iOS 7. Part of the problem was that iOS 8's initial releases were plagued by problematic bugs, so users were more likely to wait until the first dot release to upgrade. Another issue stemmed from the fact that the over-the-air update required a massive amount of free space to install; space that many people weren't willing to free up. To address that second point, this email makes the iTunes upgrade path a clear alternative for those who may not otherwise know about it.
Reader comments
Apple sends out email encouraging upgrade to iOS 8
Seems like a good idea on Apple's part
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Ironic that Apple should be the one advertising the use of a PC/Mac to upgrade to iOS8 after all the "Post-PC Era" talk from Cupertino. And by keeping 16gb as an option for the iPhone 6 I expect this to get worse on the next iOS update.
I used to be a big fan of 16 gig, but not anymore I moved up to 64 gig, you have to 16 gig isn't enough why Apple kept that is questionable?
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Great, if you want your Wifi disabled...running 8.1 here. At least I have Apple Pay, that's sort of wireless. haha
Then make it more stable. This is by far the worst iOS I have ever used.
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I'm sorry to hear all these problems but it works great on my iPhone 6 plus.
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Exactly. iOS 8 is the buggiest iOS they've rolled out. They need to handle that before expecting such.
Really! Wow, because IOS 8.1 is nice. Its also extremely fast and smooth. Its even fast on my Dad's iPhone 5.
I'm using iOS 8.1 (iPhone 6 128gb) as well and it runs just fine in the speed department but there are bugs that Apple needs to work out, minor issues for me, also issues with wifi. Bugginess is not like Apple, that's why I am not pleased. Apple usually is attentive to detail with their iOS.
Been having wifi problems on my 64gb 6 and iPad mini 2 on 8.1, my 5s seems ok... It doesn't have cell service anymore so I only use it as an iPod/backup when on wifi without my mini.
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It seems like they got it right with 8.1
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desperate times I guess
No thanks. I jumped the ship on iTouch 5, and while its about as smooth as iOS 7.1.2, iOS 9 will the death of it. IOS 7.1.2 works perfectly on my iPad air and since its jail broken, no need to upgrade. Does everything fine.
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I still feel that iOS as a whole isn't there yet with OTA updates. One shouldn't have to resort to the cop-out restore-from-iTunes-whenever-something-goes-wrong method, ever. I've got a Mac with iTunes so it's fine, but what about all those iPhone users that have never once connected their iPhones to an iTunes Mac/Win computer. Users like my 70yr old mom - she loves her iPhone 5 but has always struggled with regular computers, so she never uses one. There are also those users of iTunes incompatible operating systems like Ubuntu or FreeBSD. What option do they have if their iPhone clusterfudges itself from an OTA?
With the iDevices selling better than ever in countries like China and the wealthier parts of Southeast Asia , I'd wager a LOT of people from a lot of these countries are using their handsets without ever having synced to iTunes, and they have all the right to, imho. Apple really need to look at the OTA update situation an ensure than anyone can upgrade without ever having resort to iTunes to fix issues, imho. Only then can they truly claim to be Post-PC.
Agreed. Apple should look into including at least 8Gb of "extra" buffer storage, hidden from the user, to be used on OTA updates, and limit iOS upgrades to this space.
The reason the adoption rate is slower this time around is because lot of people burnt their fingers last year while upgrading to iOS 7 .. Earlier models of both iPad and iPhone became really slow and the stutters and lags were everywhere. Especially iPhone 4/4S users and iPad 1,2 users were extremely unhappy.. a slow device was far annoying for a visual refresh and a few other functionalities ... And even on my latest iPhone 6 Plus iOS 8 still seems buggy. iOS 8.x might never see the high adoption rate as iOS 7 especially in older models as with every new iOS iterations the OS is getting far heavier and resource hungry.
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Yes you are right. Plus iOS 7 got GPU hungry which made every iPhone up to 4S and every iPad up to 3 to run really slow. Since iOS 8 is an expansion of iOS 7 that holds for this too. Apple tries to keep adoption rates high but they forget that they are trying to apply an software improvement to a hardware up to 4 years old...
I'm still running 7.0.6 because of space. I have a 32gb 4s. I can't upgrade my apps so I'm considering deleting some stuff and upgrading but from looking at the comments it seems that there are still some bugs to be worked out.
I haven't had any of the issues people are talking about. When iOS 8 released I installed it asap on my 5s and had no issues. Even when I upgraded to the 6 still no issues. I think iOS 8 is basically 7 with improvements. Maybe I got lucky.....