How
To Install iOS 6 On iPhone, iPad, iPod touch The Right Way
iOS
6 was first announced a couple months back at Apple’s Worldwide Developers
Conference, otherwise known as WWDC ’12, and with the iPhone 5 showcased last
week in a well documented Yerba Buena-based affair, Apple also revealed the
latest iteration of its famous mobile ecosystem
would be landing on 19th. True to its word, the company has made the final
version of iOS 6 available to download for the masses today.
You
might be eager to dive in and get to grips with the exciting new features like
Maps, Passbook, and the Facebook integration, among many other changes, but
it’s important to ensure you carry out the upgrade correctly to avoid any data
loss and such.
Sure, the steps are simple enough
but if, for example, you’re jailbroken, you’ll especially need to heed the
following pointers to ensure you can revert to your jailbroken iOS iteration in
future. There’s nothing worse than being stuck, unable to downgrade or
jailbreak, and waiting for weeks or even months for a jailbreak to appear. It
takes the developers quite a while to discover vulnerabilities in Apple’s
firmware, and with every new major release, that task becomes a little more
difficult.
With the above in mind, we’ve
compiled a peace-of-mind tutorial to ensure your upgrade to iOS 6 is as smooth
as it should be.
Note:
- If you rely on unlock, do not update to iOS 6 yet.
- There is no untethered jailbreak available for iOS 6. The only jailbreak iOS 6 available is of tethered variety, and that too is only limited to iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPod touch.
Step 1: First and foremost, backup
your device. You can do so via iTunes, or by using iCloud. It matters little
which one you pick, so long as your data and settings are securely backed-up.
Step 2: If you’re jailbroken on iOS
5.1.1, you’ll need to save your SHSH blobs before Apple stops signing that
firmware. This can be done using the latest version of Redsn0w under
"Extras" or by using programs like TinyUmbrella.
Step 3: Download and install iTunes
10.7 from here. This is required by the final version of iOS 6.
Step 4: If you’re not jailbroken,
then installing via OTA (over-the-air) is most certainly your best bet, and you
can achieve this by heading to Settings > General > Software Update. If
you are jailbroken, then installing via iTunes is your best bet.
Step 5: To perform a fresh install
if you’re not jailbroken, download iOS 6, and in iTunes, ensure you hold down
the left SHIFT key on your PC or OPTION key on Mac, which will enable you to
browse to the firmware file
