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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

The more people who do not have the latest version not only means a larger target area for unpatched bugs, but also means that developers only have the target the latest version of IOS.

The one app that I use that only targets iOS 12 with it's latest version is OverCast. Why bother targeting older OS's when every device that can run iOS 11 can also run iOS 12?

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I am not asking for them to support every release they ever did until the end of Apple's existence. I think it is safe to assume that even the "latest" release has some bugs. I am simply asking why downgrading to an older version (even though every technical bit is in place for this to be possible) is not allowed by Apple. It's not as if your average grandpa was going to do this, but what I cannot fathom is the reason they ACTIVELY go against this. The only explanation I can come up with is planned obsolescence, but am happy to hear any other idea anyone might have about this.

The argument for this I come up with is rather that they want to maintain the security of their platform - protecting things like their App Store DRM as much as possible.

By disallowing downgrades you can't get back to a version with older exploitable bugs.

Seeing that you can still download “the last compatible version” of apps with a first generation iPad running iOS 5, I seriously doubt that’s the reason.

Unless you believe they use s separate DRM scheme to download apps on iOS 5 than iOS 12.

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