January 7 update below. This post was first published on January 4, 2024.
The next big software update for the iPhone is due in the coming weeks. Or it was. But the latest beta version released to developers has now been removed from the Developer Center after causing some iPhones to get caught in a boot loop. Here’s what we know.
Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max, waiting for iOS 17.3.
David Phelan
On Wednesday, January 3, Apple released the second developer beta of iOS 17.3. Since this is a release that includes a widely anticipated key upgrade, that’s good news.
Less good is the fact that some users who installed it complained that their phones were suddenly bricked, stuck in boot loops in which the phone is essentially useless—unless you try this fix.
When there are complaints, it’s hard to know how widespread they are, but they were obviously enough for Apple to take action. After only three hours or so, Apple suddenly removed iOS 17.3 and iPadOS 17.3 so that there’s currently no way to install or download them. Well, that was quick. And the speed may well be unprecedented.
The removal was sudden, but makes sense that it was. Now, nobody can download it and install it to brick their iPhone. The second beta of the parallel software for iPad, iPadOS 17.3, has also been withdrawn.
The public beta version, which might have been expected to land a day or so after the dev beta, has not appeared. This is not surprising and there’s so far been no comment from Apple on when it might reappear, so it’s obviously working on putting things right. Here’s what Apple has said in its updated release notes: “Important: iOS & iPadOS 17.3 Beta 2 has been withdrawn temporarily due to an issue that prevented a small number of devices from starting up. If your device is in this state, you can recover it by entering Recovery Mode and restoring a previous version of iOS or iPadOS.”
As always, Apple has guided users not to put beta software on critical devices, and that advice has proved crucial here.
Another element has emerged, which may go some way to explaining why it hasn’t affected every user. According to Guilherme Rambo on Mastodon, it seems the problem was more likely to happen if the iPhone had Back Tap activated. That’s the clever system where you can set the iPhone to react in certain ways when someone effects a double-tap or triple-tap on the back of a compatible iPhone.
These issues may delay the general release of iOS 17.3, currently expected later in January or early February.
January 7 update. There’s still no new version of iOS 17.3 developer beta 2. You can be sure Apple has been working at releasing it as soon as it can, so maybe it will be soon, followed by the public beta.
But it calls into question the date for the general release, which I now suspect could in the last week of January rather than sooner in the month, or even slip into early February.
And the release has been courting a lot of controversy. Most recently, YouTuber Brandon Butch said, “I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen a more botched release from Apple.”
He pointed out the details you’ve seen above, that the issues stem from having Back Tap activated, but also commented that some people with Back Tap turned off before installing the beta still got caught in the boot loop. Butch also said that while the boot loop issue was known about in the first hour, it took three hours before Apple pulled it. Personally, I think that’s a pretty fair turnaround: Apple needed to check the issue thoroughly before taking such drastic action: imagine if it was literally a dozen or so developers who had come across this issue and they’d pulled the release in a knee-jerk response. And Butch says he installed the update on three devices and none was affected. Apple says it is affecting a “small number of devices”.
Butch was surprised that the new version wasn’t released yet, and points out that this coming week could be when we see the next version and it could be re-numbered as iOS 17.3 beta 3. I think this is most likely: when Apple pulled a Rapid Security Response update last year, it was replaced with a new version which had an updated number attached.
More as we have it.
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