On June 13, Apple made the first beta of iOS 10 available to developers. These betas should only be installed by these developers to prepare their software so that everything is ready for when iOS 10 is officially released, but we must recognize It is hard to resist and there are many of us who end up installing the new version. But, what happens if it is not what we expected or we notice failures that make life impossible for us? Well, in this case, the best thing is revert to iOS 9.
Downgrading is always a simple process, but it is understandable that some users do not know how to do it. In fact, downgrading an unofficial version is still easier than doing it between official versions, since if we want to download from a version that is signed to a previous one that is still signed, we will have to download the .ipsw file of the version above and install it manually with iTunes. In any case, we go on to detail the steps to follow to return to iOS 9 from iOS 10.
How to go back to iOS 9 from iOS 10 beta
- The first thing we will have to do, as always, is to make a backup of all our important data. Eye: when downgrading from a higher version in which the first number changes, we will not be able to recover a full backup, so it is worth making manual copies of photos, videos, music, etc., and save them on our computer to recover all the data later. The iCloud data, such as contacts, reminders, etc., should be able to be recovered, and I say "should" because there can always be some incompatibility due to new functions added in the latest version.
- The next step is to turn off the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad: press the sleep button and slide the slider to turn it off.
- We connect the Lightning cable to the device.
- With iTunes open on our Mac or PC, we press the start button of the iOS device and, without releasing it, we connect the other end (the USB) to the computer. We will not have to release the start button until we see the iTunes logo on the screen of our device.
- We will see two images like the following. We have to click on "Restore" and then on "Restore and update."
- Once we click on "Restore and update", the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad will begin to download the latest version that is signed, which at the time of writing this post is iOS 9.3.2. We may already have that version downloaded, in which case the extraction, installation, and verification process would begin instantly. If there are no problems, now we can only wait.
- Finally, although the installation would already be completed, there would be one step left: recovering the data that we would have saved in step 1.
As I have discussed above, backups from a higher system cannot be recovered to a previous system, i.e. copies of iOS 10 are not valid for iOS 9, those of iOS 9 are not valid for iOS 8 and so on, at least that's how it has been until now, especially when downgrading from a beta. This is so because, for example, in iOS 9 we can have much more complex notes than in iOS 8 and even from iOS 9.3 we can lock them with password / Touch ID. In any case, it would not be a good idea to recover a backup copy of an operating system in beta, especially when it comes to a first beta.
I would also like to comment on one thing: if after performing step 4 we regret it and want to continue using iOS 10, what do we do? Well, it will only be necessary force a reboot to exit recovery mode: we press and hold the start and sleep buttons until we see the apple, without releasing before because, in this way, we would only be turning off the device, which would not help us because when we turn it on it would return to recovery mode.
Have you already got revert to iOS 9 from iOS 10? Feel free to leave your experience in the comments.
