By Jason Snell

September 13, 2016 11:31 AM PT

PSA: Be careful when considering an install of iOS 10

Note: This story has not been updated for several years.

There are lots of reports out there of iOS devices being kicked into reset mode by a failed over-the-air iOS 10 update.

These sorts of reports happen every time there’s a major iOS update, and it’s very difficult to gauge the magnitude of the problem when you’re looking at tweets and forum posts. That said, it seems like there are more reports this time than there usually are.

In the meantime:

• Don’t update to iOS 10 unless you can afford your device to be down for a few hours in the case of a failure – do it at home at the end of the day

• Don’t update without doing a backup, either via iCloud or iTunes

• Be sure to update iTunes to the newest version first so you can install iOS 10, rather than iOS 9.

• If your device does tell you to plug it in because the update failed, let iTunes download an update and then click Update rather than forcing a restore — I’ve heard a bunch of people say that the over-the-wire update from iTunes brought their device back without a lengthy restore.

That’s about all I know right now. Be careful out there—even in the best of circumstances, some people’s devices won’t make it smoothly through a major system update.

Update: Apple released a statement saying this was an issue that affected a small number of users early on, and has since been fixed. That’s good news… though of course, if you’re reading this, you’re probably in that small number of users who downloaded the update first thing, when the issue was occurring!

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