It has taken at least seven betas for Apple to iron out the reported bugs with iOS 9.3 before it was released. It is therefore very surprising that the problem related to activation of older devices was missed. Had it been a problem that impacted a specific Apple device, things would have been different.
How could the problem impact so many different Apple device models and yet go unnoticed during the testing?
9to5Mac reports Apple has already started to push a new build of iOS 9.3 (13E236 vs 13E233) to older devices, far ahead of its “next few days” timescale. While vast majority of the new devices have not had the activation issue, the users with iPhone 5S and earlier and iPad Air and earlier models have been dramatically impacted. Lets not forget that this is a sizeable user base of Apple iPhone and iPad users.
If Apple’s strategy via the new iPhone SE was to target these users with a new upgrade path, this activation error issue has surely left a bitter test in the mouth of multiple users. Some of these users are bound to think twice before updating their device to iPhone SE.
OTHER iOS 9.3 ISSUES BEING REPORTED
Unfortunately, the problems haven’t stopped at this specific activation error alone. Folks that were able to successfully upgrade to iOS 9.3 have been reporting a large number of other problems. Admittedly, some of these could be user-training issues, but a vast majority of the challenges that users are facing are related to some of the basic functionality such as:
- Since I downloaded iOS 9.3, I can’t attach photos to my text messages from the text message app. Anyone else having this problem or know of a resolution?
- iOS 9.3 EXTREMELY slow on wifi with a 64GB iPhone 6s!!! TAKE ME BACK TO 9.2!!!
- After the update I am now having issues making phone calls. It constantly cuts in and out to the point that it’s impossible to talk on the phone. I can only text people to communicate. Anyone else having issues making phone calls?! FRUSTRATING!
- On my ipad pro, after updating it to ios 9.3 , calendar app is not syncyng with icloud. I tried turning calendar off and on in the setings, but it erased all events on the ipad, it won’t sync them again after turning calendar on. I tried forced power off and on, turned wifi on off and on, connected my ipad to laptop and tried syncing using itunes, none of that helped
- Installed iOS 9.3 and it’s killed Google Maps (is greyed out, with ‘waiting’ underneath) – I wasn’t updating Google Maps.
It really takes a special ability to make sure that the new update can work successfully when it comes to a billion users around the globe.
On the brighter side, Apple has owned up to the problems of activation issue related to the older device and is communicating with the user community. Attached is the document from Apple that shows how to deal with the issue.
We really hope that Apple is reviewing the other non- activation related issues with iOS 9.3 that the users are experienceing and has a clear path to address them in the coming days. We strongly recommend that users with older devices hold off on updating to iOS 9.3, till these issues are stabilized.
