Why I Never Upgrade My iPhone's iOS

Apple's iOs 9.3, it would seem, has some problems. There have been some news stories today about how Apple's new operating system was causing some apps to crash, hang, and generally experience performance issues after the upgrade -- and this isn't the first problem reported. Reports at 9to5Mac and AppleInsider point to Apple Forum discussions on the subject: it doesn't seem to be the biggest deal in the world, and it there only appears to be a few apps that cause the issue. Still, it's clearly been a pain for some people. Now, I have an iPhone, but this news doesn't faze me in the slightest. Why? Because I haven't upgraded to iOS 9.3, and I don't plan to.

There's been a little red circle with a "1" in it above the settings icon for just about as long as I can remember. That's because I never upgrade my iOS, no matter how many little helpful reminders my phone offers me. Honestly, it's mostly because it's a pain: it takes a moment, I usually only remember when I want my phone for something else, iTunes always gets worse, etc. Not a huge pain, mind you, just a slight one. But after a few years of hanging on to whatever iOS my phone came with, everything has been totally fine. I've never experienced performance issues, never missed some strange new feature that I didnt know I needed anyway, never had any problem at all with the basic operation of my phone. My apps all look fine, and I'm not interested in switching little things around.

On top of that, the crashes reported today are not the first set of problems I've seen reported immediately after an iOS upgrade. It's just how it goes with any software: no matter how much you test it, there's bound to be some issues that happen when you increase the sample size by a couple factors of 10. My girlfriend once nearly bricked her Macbook upgrading her OS -- as you might have guessed, I tend to delay upgrading that thing too.

There are often security reasons to upgrade, naturally. But there seem to be so very many ways that people could access my information if they felt inclined to do so, and I'd rather just try to be careful with what I put out there and monitor my bank accounts than assume a software update has handled my problems for me. There are those that might call me ignorant, or uninterested in getting the most I can out of my phone. They would be correct.

In the past, I've sometimes needed to upgrade for one app or another -- usually iTunes, or another native Apple app that had a feature requiring updated software. In that case, I go ahead and upgrade -- it's not like this is some deeply held philosophical belief. But issues like the one reported today help illustrate my reasoning for only upgrading the thing when I get a new phone. Things are working fine, and they might not if I change it. Why not just roll with it?