Updating your iOS

Ashleigh Allsopp looks at whether it’s worth upgrading your operating system, as well as what iOS 8.1 has to offer

Should you update your iPhone or iPad to the new iOS 8 software? What are the pros and cons of upgrading? In our iOS 8 upgrading article we’ve got all the information you need to know, and detailed advice on whether it makes sense for you to update your Apple device to iOS 8. Plus, find out what’s new in Apple’s iOS 8.1 update.

We also discuss the various models of iPad and iPhone that are rated as iOS 8-compatible, and explain whether they are likely to struggle to run iOS 8 and suffer speed reductions.

The basics

iOS is the operating system software that runs on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch devices. It’s the underlying framework that organises, launches and runs other apps, and can perform a number of features of its own. iOS 8 is the latest update to iOS.

If you’ve got an iPhone 4s (or later), an iPad 2 (or later), either of the iPad mini models, or a fifth-gen iPod touch, your device is officially rated as iOS 8-compatible, and you can update the iOS 8 for free.

But should you update to iOS 8?

Know your versions

We discuss iOS 8 as a single entity for most of this article, but a number of smaller point upgrades will be released throughout its (probably year-long) lifetime. Don’t expect any big differences between these – mostly these will incorporate security updates, fixes and minor tweaks. When you update your device to iOS 8, you will automatically get the most recent version that is available.

Here are the updates that have been released so far, and what you need to know about them:

iOS 8.0.1: The first update to iOS 8 lasted just an hour before being pulled, for the alarming reason that it caused iPhones to lose the ability to connect to their cellular network, and affected Touch ID as well. This was swiftly replaced by...

iOS 8.0.2: Fixed the major problems in 8.0.1.

What’s new in the iOS 8.1?

Apple has made its first major update to iOS 8, iOS 8.1. It has lots of changes, but most notably the return of the Camera Roll that was dumped in iOS 8 much to the annoyance of users, and also the introduction of Apple Pay, which uses the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus’s NFC chip. The update is just 128MB if you’ve already got iOS 8 installed, and it’s free, of course. Here’s the full list of iOS 8.1 features and fixes:

Apple Pay support for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus

(US only) Photos includes new features, improvements and

fixes Adds iCloud Photo Library as beta service Adds Camera Roll album in Photos app and My Photo Stream album when iCloud Photo Library is not enabled Provides alerts when running low on space before

capturing Time Lapse videos Messages includes new features, improvements

and fixes Adds the ability for iPhone users to send and receive SMS and MMS text messages from their iPad and Mac

Resolves an issue where search would sometimes

not display results Fixes a bug that caused read messages to not be

marked as read Fixes issues with group messaging Resolves issues with Wi-Fi performance that could

occur when connected to some base stations Fixes an issue that could prevent connections to

Bluetooth hands-free devices Fixes bugs that could cause screen rotation to stop Adds an option to select between 2G, 3G or LTE

networks for cellular data Fixes an issue in Safari where videos would

sometimes not play Adds AirDrop support for Passbook passes Adds an option to enable Dictation in Settings for

Keyboards, separate from Siri Enables HealthKit apps to access data in the

background Accessibility improvements and fixes

Fixes an issue that prevented Guided Access

from working properly Fixes a bug where VoiceOver would not work

with third-party keyboards Improves stability and audio quality when using

MFi Hearing Aids with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Improves reliability when using handwriting, Bluetooth keyboards and Braille displays with VoiceOver Fixes an issue with VoiceOver where tone dialing would get stuck on a tone until dialing another number

Expect further minor tweaks for the next 12 months, but it’s unlikely that any of them will change your decision about updating.

The pros of upgrading

The obvious benefits of iOS 8 are the new features, of which there are many. For more information on these see our in-depth review on page 36.

The cons of upgrading

Well, obviously you might not be able to update. The iPhone 4 and older, the original iPad, and 4th-gen and older iPod touches simply can’t update.

And you might find it tricky to update even with a newer model. iOS 8 has been demanding that you have around 5GB of free space on your

device before you can update, and that might mean deleting a lot of music, photos, apps and so on to make room. That’s put a lot of people off. But when you update iOS it needs the space for the duration of the update process - unpacking compressed files and things like that - but won’t need anywhere near as much space afterwards. So you may be able to reload some of the stuff you deleted.

Besides, if space is a problem, you can upgrade to iOS on your Mac or PC – in iTunes – use the space there and then sync your device to the Mac or PC using a cable. So space shouldn’t be a reason not to upgrade.

Visually, iOS 8 is virtually identical to iOS 7, so there shouldn’t be much to annoy you about the new system. But you might not like the changes to the Photos app, for instance – some people are finding it confusing that there’s no longer a folder called Camera Roll. We don’t think you should let this put you off – you’ll quickly get used to the new organisational structure.

But here are some more serious reasons you might not want to upgrade to iOS 8. It’s pretty much an irreversible process. Some apps (particularly older ones) might not work

properly with iOS 8 yet – or ever. If you’re running an iPhone 4s or an iPad 2 – and, according to some reports, even the iPad 3 – you could find that your device gets noticeably slower when you update to iOS 8. Older devices, of course, also don’t get the full

range of features.

How to upgrade

It’s actually very easy. You should get a notification informing you that a new version of iOS is available for you to download; all you need to do is confirm that you’re happy to do this. You’ll need to download it, and then install it; the whole process is likely to take a couple of hours, but this all depends, as we say, on the amount of server traffic and how well Apple is coping with it.

If you don’t get a notification you can look in the Settings app and see if there’s an update waiting for you. Click on the Settings app icon (the silver cogs) and scroll down to the General category. Then tap on the Software Update option (the second one down), which incidentally will have a little grey ‘1’ if there’s an update for you.

iOS will think for a moment and then present you with the update, including the amount of storage space required (you may need to clear some space before downloading) and a link to a ‘Learn more’ article that tells you about the changes. Simply

confirm you wish to upgrade and follow the steps. Upgrading to iOS 8 is free.

How much storage space will iOS 8 take up?

iOS 8 is 1.1GB and requires a massive 5.8GB of storage to be free before it can install. This is because it downloads a compressed file, unpackages it and then installs it. You need the space for the unpacking and the update. It also needs enough space for iOS 8 itself.

Luckily you can download the software via iTunes, and connect your iPhone to your Mac to install it on your iPhone without needing to delete apps, photos and more.

As for how much space the update uses – we had a 16GB iPhone with just 1.3GB available. The iPhone’s capacity was shown as 14.91GB before and after the update. Once our software was up to date and we had 917MB of space left over sot he update didn’t use up 1.1GB more than iOS 7 did, it was around an additional 300MB.