Apple today stopped signing iOS 12.5, which is available for older iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad models. This comes after the company released iOS 12.5.1 for these devices last week with bug fixes for the COVID-19 exposure notification feature.
Although iOS 12 was released over two years ago, Apple still offers security updates for devices such as the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6 as they can’t run iOS 13 or iOS 14. Recently, the company introduced iOS 12.5, which brought the COVID-19 exposure notification system to older iPhones.
iOS 12.5.1 came a month later on January 11, 2021, with bug fixes and more security improvements. Now the company has stopped signing the previous iOS 12 update, which means that users can no longer downgrade from iOS 12.5.1 to iOS 12.5.
Reverting to older iOS builds is common for those with jailbroken devices. Restoring an iPhone or iPad to a previous version of iOS can sometimes be helpful for users who experience significant bugs after upgrading to the latest version of iOS.
If you have experienced any serious issues with iOS 12.5.1, unfortunately you’ll now have to wait until a future update is available rather than downgrading to iOS 12.5.
More 9to5Mac coverage of exposure notifications:
- How to manage COVID-19 exposure notifications on iPhone
- Which U.S. states are using Apple’s Exposure Notification API for COVID-19 contact tracing?
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