Prevent iOS updates: you need to know
Updates to iPhone and iPad make sense in principle, they often close security gaps. You can prevent iOS updates if you do not want the associated functions on your device. We'll show you how to stop Apple updates.
Prevent iOS updates on iPhone and iPad
You cannot turn off updates on iPhone and iPad, but you can turn them off visually and prevent them from downloading automatically:
- Notes: The information about an update appears as soon as it has been downloaded automatically. If you delete the downloaded update, the information disappears. To do this, open Settings and tap "General"> "Storage & iCloud usage" and tap "Manage storage". Select the upcoming update here and delete it.
- Download: You can also prevent the automatic download of updates. To do this, tap on "iTunes & App Store" in the settings and deactivate the automatic download of updates.
Corporate devices: Delay iOS update
Updates often include functions that are undesirable on company devices or the company apps do not work with the new software and must first be updated. With iOS 11.3 it is now possible to delay updates:
- For devices in supervised mode, you can delay updates up to 90 days in the update options. They will only be displayed on the employee devices after the specified number of days and can only be installed after that.
- If you don't want to or can't update to iOS 11.3, or you want to permanently prevent updates, read the following two paragraphs.
Corporate devices: redirect update server for iOS updates
It can be important for companies to prevent updates on their employees' devices, for example to keep the corporate app working. You have an easy way to do this:
- If you have access to the developer portal (developer.apple.com), you can download configuration profiles to test on beta versions for iOS, macOS and tvOS. Download the configuration profile for tvOS and distribute it to the company devices via MDM or e-mail. The iPhones and iPads are now looking for updates on the tvOS server - without success.
Corporate devices: Block update servers for iOS updates
Play it safe if you completely block the update server. With administrator rights, you can redirect access to the update server (mesu.apple.com) to localhost (127.0.0.1:8080).
- Access is either via an IKEv2 VPN or via a Global Proxy Proxy.PAC auto configuration.
- Via Proxy.PAC you configure the redirection with the following function: "function FindProxyForURL (url, host) If (host ==" mesu.apple.com ") return" PROXY 127.0.0.1:8080";else return "DIRECT"; } "
On the next page we will show you how to undo an iOS update.