What’s the deal with iOS security updates, anyway?
Not everybody can afford the newest and greatest Apple product. Luckily, Apple continues to support nearly-decade-old devices like the iPhone 6S, with iOS 15.8 still powering those devices with official Apple support, with the latest update from October the 25th, which addressed some security vulnerabilities.
In reality, however, Apple seems to only be addressing some security issues in its older supported devices.
Yeah they support older versions of iOS on a strictly “if they feel like fixing it” basis. Luckily Apple has some of the longest support cycles in the industry so you’ll be on the latest iOS for a long time before you need to get a new phone.
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OP What’s your point?
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Read it, I posted this so people know that their device being supported doesn’t necessarily mean they will get all security updates backported, and this is the 2nd time you edited one of my post’s title because you felt like it.
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This is the same as Android. There is only one fully supported and patched version, which is the latest release.
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Apple says it still support iOS 17 as shown here iOS version history - Wikipedia
Apple doesn’t really have defined support terms like Google, you just have to look at what devices are on the latest version of iOS and consider those supported. They do occasionally back port some fixes to older versions but you really want to be on the latest iOS for full security fixes.
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I just added the date because first line in articles says iOS 15.8 is still supported which isn’t the case anymore.
Also, I read it but I don’t really understand the title. Basically they are saying Apple isn’t really fixing old devices?
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Then I wonder how Wikipedia has such a clear distincdistinction. Are there some docs regarding this?
I wouldn’t use Wikipedia as a source here. According to their documentation
Rapid Security Responses are delivered only for the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
So you’re not getting the same full security updates you’d be getting on the latest version. You won’t find anywhere that Apple claims to fully support older version of iOS or macOS so you have to conclude that if you want full proper support you need the latest version.
Google used to do feature updates and then a longer security update window for Pixels but they’ve since stopped doing that, likely there will still be security updates sometimes for pixels outside the support window but they shouldn’t be relied on for full patches. Same with iOS.
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