Problems For iPad : Apple ios 13.5 is the most important ios update in years and my upgrade guide strongly recommends you install it. But it is not bug free.
Alongside growing reports of high battery drain, apple customer support has confirmed to users that ipados can cause boot loops on the ipad pro and media playback of the hugely popular mp4/mpeg-4 container format is broken for both ipad and iphone owners.
06/02 update: as expected, apple has now released ios 13.5.1. Unfortunately, it does not address either of the problems listed above with users confirming to me that their devices still have broken mp4 playback and, in the case of ipados 13.5.1, that ipads reset and updated still suffer from bootloops after the update. So what is in ios 13.5.1? It contains an urgent fix for the major unc0ver jailbreak. This was clearly a fast tracked release since it contains no other patches and, while jailbreak fans were thrilled, the vulnerability unc0ver exploits carries the risk of being exploited for less positive gains. My ios 13.5.1 upgrade guide will go live tonight, once i have enough feedback regarding any new problems it may introduce. So, for now, watch this space.
06/03 update: it’s not just you. Apple services again hit the buffers last night with the company confirming an icloud outage took down ios, ipados and macos services. Consequently users began receiving error messages, such as “the application you have selected does not exist”. Web apps and apple pay were particularly impacted. Apple’s system status indicator now states that all problems have been resolved, though the company’s @applesupport twitter account has continued to assist users as some lingering issues remain. Expect these to be resolved server-side without the need for an ios, ipados or macos software updates.
Breaking down the former, appleinsider states that the 10.5-inch ipad pro is most commonly affected with reboots occurring “between 30 seconds and 45 seconds after logging in”. Full factory resets and even putting devices into dfu mode have not fixed the problem for many. Interestingly, there are also isolated reports of this impacting iphones, while the issue seems to span both ipados / ios 13.4.1 and 13.5 for impacted users.
It is a similar story with mp4 playback with the problem spanning both 13.4.1 and 13.5 and impacted users have lost access to their video libraries (1,2,3,4,5 etc) with native apps and third party apps like nplayer and infuse. While apple switched default video recording to hevc in ios 11, support for this remains mixed so switching it to mp4 (still the most popular container format in the world) is a popular option.
“i reported this to apple and the only suggestion they gave me that i hadn’t already tried was to delete and reinstall the tv app. But that did not help. Good luck to all of us!” Reported one impacted user yesterday. As it stands, there is no timeline for a fix for either issue but apple looks set to prioritize an ipados / ios 13.5.1 release following the discovery of a zero-day vulnerability which enables users to jailbreak their iphones. This vulnerability also impacts every version of ios since ios 11.
Despite this, i would still recommend users upgrade to ipados / ios 13.5. The faults here can also impact previous ios versions, while the new release patches a serious apple mail bug which affects every ipad and iphone ever made. Moreover, its coronavirus-specific upgrades might just save your life.
This news was originally posted on forbes.com