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by archildress 3695 days ago
It's no wonder that Apple is becoming increasingly pushy about updates on iOS. I've noticed in the last few months that the new pop-up options are to either "remind me later" (and it absolutely will) or "update now."

I think a huge part of it is trying to stay ahead of this security curve.

Exploits are going to continue to be found in older versions of iOS (and every other piece of software, for that matter). It's kind of disheartening to think that if the authorities just hold your phone long enough, they'll eventually have an exploit to unlock it with.

2 comments

It is interesting when Microsoft did the same with Windows most my peers were pretty outraged. Imagine clicking remind me later in the morning, start a long running process when you are just about to go to have lunch and coming back to Windows installing updates after a restart.

I don't think Apple gains anything substantial from pushing security fixes, however eroding user control could be in their interest.

There's one key difference: iOS doesn't automatically reboot itself at seemingly random times. If you choose "install later," it will make sure you aren't on the phone when it starts the process.

That Windows loves to do it with no warning _while you are actively using the computer_ is what makes it annoying.

Actually I think Windows has always had a little popup in the bottom right which lets you cancel within about five minutes. But sure, you might happen to step away momentarily during that time.

Thankfully browsers and editors now save and restore their last state, so an automatic reboot doesn't enrage me like it did in the WinXP days.

While that modal does exist, Windows for some reason does not give it always-on-top status, so if you have anything fullscreen running you'll never see it. There also seems to be a limit to the number of times you're allowed to delay a reboot, though I'm not entirely sure on that.
On Windows Server 2012, if there are pending updates as soon as you RDP in it will start a 15 minute countdown with no option to cancel (at least no obvious one I could find). That's ridiculous.
Agreed. I've lost work before due to this behavior. Granted, I should be more diligent with saving my work.
Um, there is a bit of a difference between how you use Windows and how you use iOS.

Notably, there is no real notion of long running process in iOS.

I am only concerned about the day than a NSL makes them push an update that backdoors or weakens security under the guise of something else.

would Apple be able to resist it? how would it become known they tried?