iOS 7 “activation required” error on iPhone and iPad
graphitas.co.uk
graphitas.co.uk
> Apple seem to have pushed out an update that forces users to update to the current version of iOS 7
Previous betas have had expiration dates hard-coded into them. So the "update" that Apple "seem to have pushed out" is probably "the future".
EDIT: It seems like this is the first time an iOS beta has expired for some developers. Get a GM release and (command|shift) click [1] on "check for updates" in iTunes [2]. This is basically how you do non-OTA updates between different beta versions.
EDIT 2: The blog post has been updated and "Apple seem to have pushed out an update" no longer appears in the body text. I wonder why... [3]
[1] Some modifier key is the right one. I don't remember which.
[2] http://www.jailbreaksquad.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Bro...
I'm sure I'm not alone in having seen people this summer running iOS 7 betas on their personal phones, even people with no software development experience who probably couldn't tell you what Xcode is. It's not in Apple's interest for this to be happening, as it leaves a bad taste in people's mouth when things like this inevitably happen.
Restricting access clearly doesn't work. Everyone who knows the beta exists knows someone who can hook them up. There's got to be something else, some other way Apple can make these betas less appealing to the casual user, without lessening the betas' usefulness for people actually trying to test things.
Hint: there is more than one type of iPhone.
When beta is so frequently a good thing, who wouldn't want to get the latest iOS and tell all their friends about how awesome it is?
Just some thoughts, but I'm feeling deja vu while writing this post - I suspect the topic has been beaten to death in the past.
edit: indeed it has, here is a discussion from when iOS5 was released: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2649222
I backed it up and within 20 minutes it had been disabled.
Interestingly, it put it in a state in which it was unable to ring for incoming calls.
I wish Apple would not report that your iOS version is "up to date" in iTunes if you are running a time-bombed beta build. Even if they don't want to support a direct upgrade path from beta to GM, they could indicate in their software that your software is not up to date.
Not everyone can afford dedicated dev devices--even though that is in their terms of use.
iOS betas have always expired, going back years, and this has always been documented in the release notes. It's also made clear in the release notes that you can't upgrade via iTunes to the public release from a beta - you have to manually download the IPSW and update it yourself.
This is one of many reasons why people who have no business installing beta software should NEVER install beta software on their devices.
So just download a "production" iOS 7 IPSW and "update" to it.
That's what I did to update when the iOS 7 GM came out, and I've used it in the past when I unintentionally let an iOS 6 beta expire.
[1] http://www.jailbreaksquad.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Bro...
A quick jump onto developer.apple.com to download the latest IPSW and my iPad is working again.
1) all sources indicate everywhere that the software is "up to date". I realize that as a developer I should be keeping better tabs on things but I usually trust things not to just lie to me. It's pretty opaque.
2) The error you get when the beta expires makes no mention of the fact that the beta expired. Without judicious twitter searches and a quick look on hacker news, I didn't know what the source of the error was and assumed something was wrong w/ apple's activation or that someone had compromised my account in some way.
As the responsible DD for tonight this put me in a tough spot where the drunkies I was responsible for were unable to contact their driver.
This was a ridiculous way to handle this. I had even tried to manually update to the public release manually via iTunes last week and since it said "Up to Date" I thought it had worked.. but apparently not.
First, download the latest iOS7 version (I used an ipsw from this website: http://www.iphonehacks.com/2013/09/update-ios-7-beta-ios-7-p...)
Open up iTunes and go to your iPhone, and press alt/option + the "Check for Update" button.
This will open up a window that will allow you to browse to your ipsw download. Choose the iOS7 ipsw you downloaded for your phone, and choose it. After 20 minutes, your iPhone will update, and you'll be ready to go -- no restore required.
It is a beta software. Historically, iOS betas do expire.
You aren't being treated like a criminal on parole. You're being treated like a software developer who understands how to handle pre-release software.
Having said that, yes, Apple should have handled this more smoothly. However, it was documented in the developer documentation.
If you have a 4S: http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/8936924/iPhone_4S_iOS_7.0_(11...
Heck this even happened to me and it was my own fault. I knew that I needed to update to the public release of iOS7. This reminds of the kids who were buying developer accounts just to get the iOS7 betas, and walking into the apple store when their phone takes a dive.
Finally, a developer or a person who reads the TOS know that shit happens, and when it does, usually they know the instructions to recover from this.
You sound like the type of developer that would read the manual before asking for help.
I've worked in at a lot of software companies where they spent a lot of time being concerned about small groups of customers that were using old builds, how we would keep their setup working, etc. It always impresses me how Apple moves forward in spite of who may be left behind and I assume that this is a conscious choice they constantly have to revisit. The counter example would be Microsoft that still supported DOS for more than a decade after they moved on from it.
I don't know any engineers who like maintaining legacy systems, so it seems to be a perk of working with Apple and I also think that this lack of concern for legacy is allowing Apple to move forward faster. At my last job every time a new project was requested by management I would ask, "What old project will we remove then? Because maintenance takes time." I pretty much never got an answer on that. It takes discipline to stay lean and to non-engineers legacy costs can be invisible a lot of times.
One area where I see progress accelerating is XCode. You basically need to be running latest XCode to publish apps to the App Store, so people always run latest. On the other hand, I've got Visual Studio all the way back to 2003 on hand because clients don't want to take the time to upgrade. It drives me nuts.
There's something satisfying about progress and something very depressing to me when I sit down to make changes to a project using Visual Studio 2003 .NET. Anyone know what I mean?
I'm a developer that's been using the beta - it seems to have only affected those that haven't upgraded.
0. Go to iCloud and disable find my phone for your device 1. Download the GM final OS7 build 2. Restart in recovery mode: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1808#sthash.qByAjn0z.dpuf 3. Do NOT click ok when prompted to restore your phone 4. Click the secret command/alt combination with the restore button. 5. Select the downloaded OS7 file. your phone will fix itself
Real asshole move of Apple to suddenly brick your phone then provide no instruction for how to do this instead of... you know just allowing the phone to automatically update or activate. Hope that you didn't have anything better to do with your life for the last hour.
Also, in case anyone else is reading this, I was also getting mysterious "Unknown Errors" from iTunes when trying the restore, it was because I hadn't updated iTunes to the very very latestest.
I am just speculating, but perhaps iOS 7 GM and later cannot be circumvented but the beta versions could be. This might be intentional - after all, it's beta code. The circumvention might be a plan B.