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How to block iOS OS updates

Posted: Mon May 21, 2018 9:46 am
by FlyingPenguin
I don't have an iPhone BUT I do have an iPod touch. It's still on iOS 9 and I'm happy with that. It's not a phone, I don't browse with it. All I use it for is playing music, audiobooks and podcasts.

I know people who jailbreak their phones also want to avoid iOS update downloads.

While you can refuse an OS update, and delete it from your iPod or phone, there is no built-in ability to prevent the huge download from occurring. Then it repeatedly nags you until you manually delete the big iOS update file. If you accidentally hit Yes instead of Not Now, you may end up with an update you don't want.

There's a hack that completely blocks the download. It's a profile file you install that changes your update channel to the AppleTV beta channel. Yeah AppleTV - that's on purpose. You see this tricks your phone or iPod into thinking it should look at the AppleTV update server instead of the iOS update server. When it does, it doesn't find any compatible updates (never will) and decides you are up to date irregardless of the version you're running.

Go here in Safari on your iPhone or iPod: https://github.com/bao3/NOOTA

Click on the "BlockiOS_Update.mobileconfig" file download or just click the link in the readme.

Allow it to install the binary file that puts you on the AppleTV beta update branch.

Your device will reboot, and when it restarts you can go to Settings > General > Software Update and if it worked, it should tell you your OS is up to date. Worked like a charm for me.

If you ever want to undo this, and start accepting iOS updates again, just go to Settings > General > Profiles > tvOS 11 Beta Software Profile, and hit Delete Profile.

This doesn't affect iOS app updates.

Explained in detail here:
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2017/12/11 ... s-updates/