Saturday, 28th October, 2023 Auckland, New Zealand.
Post by: David Lim, @davidlim
Apple's iOS 17 launched last month, but many people are waiting to upgrade. That's despite iOS 17's long list of brilliant features including NameDrop, Live Voicemail and enhanced private browsing.
People cite multiple reasons for delaying updating to iOS 17, including compatibility issues, possible bugs and fear. At the same time, I get it, everyone is different—as are their needs from their device. Users of iPhones include techies, non-techies, kids, business people and politicians and each will have their own red lines for updating or not upgrading to iOS 17.
But in the end, information helps people make the choice whether to upgrade their iPhone to iOS 17. That's why I've tried to consider all of this in a list, with three reasons you should update and two reasons why you shouldn't.
NameDrop takes the same idea as AirDrop but for exchanging contact details privately and securely.
Meanwhile, Link Tracking Protection is a fantastic new way of stopping apps and websites from tracking you. "In iOS 17, the Safari browser has been enhanced to remove tracking data from web addresses, preventing the unique identification of your device and hindering web tracking," says Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at ESET. "As a result, websites and advertisers face increased difficulty monitoring your online activity across different sites."
iOS 17 Is Always Going To Be More Secure Than iOS 16
When Apple launches its big yearly iOS upgrade—in this case iOS 17—it keeps updating the previous iteration with important security fixes. While this is great, as it protects iPhones from being targeted by malicious hackers, it can give people a false sense of security.
The important thing here is the small print: Apple provides some security fixes to iOS 16 users for a period of time, but not all of them. Apple issued iOS 17.0.3 to fix some already exploited flaws almost a week before updating iOS 16.
Security-only updates for older iOS versions "provide more of a *false* sense of security than *actual* security," security analyst Josh Long wrote on Twitter. "Apple cherry-picks which vulnerabilities it patches for older OS versions; older iOS versions remain vulnerable in spite of having all available Apple updates for that model installed."
If you see yourself as an at-risk user—we're talking journalists, dissidents, political figures and businesses in certain industries—another reason iOS 17 is more secure is enhanced Lockdown Mode. While Lockdown Mode does make your iPhone very basic as it shuts down a lot of features, it also protects your phone from spyware. Apple said that many of the recent iPhone spyware attacks would have been unsuccessful if users had enabled Lockdown Mode.
Lockdown Mode, whether you choose to implement it or not, is a feature "well worth having"—especially in the interim period between a "zero day" security flaw and its fix, says Moore.
Apple Is Moving Quickly To Squash Any iPhone Bugs
While a big reason not to update to iOS 17 is an increased risk of bugs—which is understandable as it's very early days at the time of writing—Apple is moving quickly to squash these.
You might have noticed there have been a lot of iOS 17 updates since the software launched last month. That's because Apple is constantly fixing bugs and security problems on the fly and getting the updates out as soon as possible.
Take, for example, the overheating issue affecting iPhone 15s. While this was a big problem that didn't look good for Apple, the iPhone maker moved quickly to fix it.
Currently, some people are complaining of Wi-Fi issues, with the problem mainly affecting iOS 17 on iPhone 15s. It's likely Apple will look to address this soon, and I'll update my article when there is a fix.
Reasons Not to Update To iOS 17:
Compatibility Issues
Some businesses or individuals will need to use apps or services that aren't compatible with iOS 17. Others will need more time to test iOS 17 to ensure things work on Apple's latest software. These are both valid reasons not to update to iOS 17 straight away.
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