Apple stops signing iOS 13.3, preventing its installation on devices ahead of new jailbreak

iPhone automatic update option (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

Apple has stopped signing iOS 13.3.
That means it can no longer be installed.
A new iOS 13.3 jailbreak is around the corner.

Apple yesterday stopped signing iOS 13.3, preventing anyone from installing it on their devices. The same goes for iPadOS 13.3, too. As a result, the oldest version of iOS and iPadOS that can be installed is 13.3.1.

That update has plenty of improvements including fixes for Mail annoyances. And Apple routinely stops signing older versions of iOS once new and improved versions are available. But this time it's likely Apple's motive is at least partly related to the jailbreak community.

The popular unc0ver jailbreak is almost ready with a version that will support iOS 13.3. That means that people may want to downgrade to that release in order to jailbreak, and that's exactly what those in the jailbreak community have been doing. But they can't do it anymore because, you guessed it. It's no longer being signed.

None of this will really matter to anyone who isn't interested in jailbreaking. And iOS 13.4 is now in beta testing, so it probably isn't going to be too long before it's made available to the public. If you did intend to jailbreak and are running iOS or iPadOS 13.3.1, you're out of luck. At least for now.

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.