Update to iOS 16.0.1 on your new iPhone 14 before you do anything else

AppleInsider

The version of iOS 16 that comes preinstalled on the new iPhone 14 range includes a bug that affects activation, and shows up as problems with Messages and FaceTime.

iOS 16 public beta 3 is available

It's not what you would want to rush to do first on your new iPhone 14 Pro, but it is what you should do immediately.

And it's what you may be forced to do. It's possible that just switching on the iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Pro will get you a prompt to update.

If you do not get the prompt, or if you've already skipped it in the setup process, then you must update manually:

1. Open Settings


2. Choose General


3. Tap on Software Update


4. Follow the prompts to install iOS 16.0.1

The good news is that this is a very small update, it's a matter of megabytes instead of gigabytes. So it won't take long to do.

Note that the update is for the iPhone 14 range only, and will not show up in Software Update for older models.

It's unfortunate, and it's not very common that Apple will push out an iOS update for the day of release of new iPhones. But mass production of literally millions of devices takes time, so it's always been possible that the phones would come without the very latest update.

What the update fixes

You can just do the update and forget about it, but Apple has released what may be a partial list of what iOS 16.0.1 fixes.

It says that without the update, you may find:

• You can't receive FaceTime calls or Messages


• A Message sent to another iOS device could show up green instead of blue


• Messages conversations are shown in two separate threads instead of one


• Messages may be shown to come from your email address instead of phone number

There may be assorted other issues, though they are not confirmed by Apple. Mint claims that the iOS 16.0.1 update also fixes a problem with photos appearing soft under certain circumstances, on the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Read on AppleInsider

Skeptical

How utterly sad is this?  

Stabitha_Christie

Skeptical said:

How utterly sad is this?  

If not sad is 0 and Dumbo being locked in a different cage than his mother is a 10 I’d rate this a solid 0.5 on the sad scale. 

bageljoey

Skeptical said:

How utterly sad is this?  

It would be sad if they didn’t have the update ready to go when people got their phones.  

Or worse, if they didn’t have the needed update ready and tried to downplay the issues. 

But having the fix ready to go on day 1?  That’s barely even annoying…

jedwards87

Skeptical said:

How utterly sad is this?  

It happens. Definitely not sad. Don't be such a drama queen.

crowley

A bug that prevents activation is a significant fuck up.

rob53

crowley said:

A bug that prevents activation is a significant fuck up.

True but I read the Apple post and it only talks about Messages (why still using iMessage??) and FaceTime activation, not the activation of the entire phone.

"iMessage and FaceTime might not complete activation on iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro."

This would be a pain but everything else appears to be working.

dewme

This is definitely an embarrassment to the dev and test teams because they failed to catch these bugs prior to release. I’m sure they all feel very badly about it and will learn from their mistakes and make the necessary changes so this specific issue doesn’t happen again. 

A productive life is all about learning. Being involved in a high profile and very demanding software development organization offers up boundless learning opportunities for everyone involved, especially devs and testers. 

Fortunately, the team was able to preposition a mitigation prior to the first wave of products landing in customers hands. This demonstrates a level of agility in the team’s ability to respond quickly, which is undoubtedly a capability they learned based on past experiences. 

It’s a painful bruise, but not a catastrophe. 

Stabitha_Christie

dewme said:

This is definitely an embarrassment to the dev and test teams because they failed to catch these bugs prior to release.

They did catch it prior to the phone's release. That is how they have the update ready on the day the phone is being arriving to the public. 

rob53

Stabitha_Christie said:

dewme said:

This is definitely an embarrassment to the dev and test teams because they failed to catch these bugs prior to release.

They did catch it prior to the phone's release. That is how they have the update ready on the day the phone is being arriving to the public. 

True and it isn't the first time it's happened. Products are manufactured in bulk to be ready for the millions who buy them on day 1. This isn't done in one day, I bet the iPhones have been sitting ready for delivery for at least a few weeks and software is constantly updated. This is a non-issue and will be taken care of during startup. I'm actually surprised it was only a few little items they needed to fix.

ps10405

Skeptical said:

How utterly sad is this?  

Laughs in iOS13

dewme

Stabitha_Christie said:

dewme said:

This is definitely an embarrassment to the dev and test teams because they failed to catch these bugs prior to release.

They did catch it prior to the phone's release. That is how they have the update ready on the day the phone is being arriving to the public. 

Prior to the release of the software. 

The dev and test teams had release or functionally-equivalent to release versions of the iPhones long before they completed iOS 16.0 and signed off on it being ready for release. 

The fact that they had a small window of time to slip out a patched version 16.0.1 before the iPhones already imaged with version 16.0 landed in customers hands is pure luck. They were playing Russian roulette with 5 bullets loaded and got lucky. 

netrox

As a software engineer, I can tell you that it's not a simple feat to deal with millions of code lines and there are so many bugs that we did not notice during tests and only show up during real world usage. That happens. All the time. 
 

Stabitha_Christie

dewme said:

Stabitha_Christie said:

dewme said:

This is definitely an embarrassment to the dev and test teams because they failed to catch these bugs prior to release.

They did catch it prior to the phone's release. That is how they have the update ready on the day the phone is being arriving to the public. 

Prior to the release of the software. 

The dev and test teams had release or functionally-equivalent to release versions of the iPhones long before they completed iOS 16.0 and signed off on it being ready for release. 

The fact that they had a small window of time to slip out a patched version 16.0.1 before the iPhones already imaged with version 16.0 landed in customers hands is pure luck. They were playing Russian roulette with 5 bullets loaded and got lucky. 

It is difficult to understand what your issue is. iOS 16 didn't cause this issue on existing phones. It is specific to iPhone 14(Pro). They caught the issue and have a fix ready prior to phones getting to customers. That was your complaint, that they didn't  catch the issue prior to customers getting the product.  They did catch it and they have a fix ready. You now  want to seem to find issue with the  fact that that they found it  and have a fix. 

retrogusto

Are others having issues with the new TvOS? Since I updated my tv HD, AirPlay glitches sometimes when I start using it for music to my stereo (intermittent audio), the screen goes black for a few seconds and freezes when I use the “Menu” button in various (maybe all) streaming apps, and the beginning of YouTube videos and ads shows a black screen with intermittent audio for the first few seconds, with the audio returning before the video. I did a quick Google search but haven’t seen anything. I’m wondering if it’s losing the HDMI connection for a split second, which might result in this kind of problem, but the device connected to it has a display which would normally tell me if it’s disconnected, but isn’t showing that. 

Skeptical

Apple apologists can spin this any way you want but this is a bug that should have been caught in the beta phase. 

dewme

Stabitha_Christie said:

dewme said:

Stabitha_Christie said:

dewme said:

This is definitely an embarrassment to the dev and test teams because they failed to catch these bugs prior to release.

They did catch it prior to the phone's release. That is how they have the update ready on the day the phone is being arriving to the public. 

Prior to the release of the software. 

The dev and test teams had release or functionally-equivalent to release versions of the iPhones long before they completed iOS 16.0 and signed off on it being ready for release. 

The fact that they had a small window of time to slip out a patched version 16.0.1 before the iPhones already imaged with version 16.0 landed in customers hands is pure luck. They were playing Russian roulette with 5 bullets loaded and got lucky. 

It is difficult to understand what your issue is. iOS 16 didn't cause this issue on existing phones. It is specific to iPhone 14(Pro). They caught the issue and have a fix ready prior to phones getting to customers. That was your complaint, that they didn't  catch the issue prior to customers getting the product.  They did catch it and they have a fix ready. You now  want to seem to find issue with the  fact that that they found it  and have a fix. 

Nope. 

The test team had access to all of the iPhone versions they needed to test their software on long before they signed off on the release being ready to burn into all of the phones that would be shipped for iPhone 14 release day. 

The features that were broken, like Messages and FaceTime, are core features that have been in the software for years and have undergone numerous test cycles and probably millions of regression test cycles. Unfortunately their test regimen did not consider the software failure mechanism that led to breaking these features. 

When they finally caught the bug the affected products were already on their way to customers. They were able to quickly roll out a patch to mitigate the consequences of the bug. 

No software is perfect because no software developer is perfect and no software tester is perfect. They make mistakes and learn from them and fix the root cause and move on to the next issue. 

All I’m saying is that Apple got very lucky here. I’m not condemning them in any way. But there’s no denying that the pattern of slipping in a quick bug fix while a product release is still in flight is not something that any product manager would ever want to have to explain to senior management. It’s a really big deal, but fortunately, and as pointed out in the AppleInsider article, something that Apple rarely does. 

There is simply no way to sugar coat it, but at least Apple has handled the mitigation as well as can be expected under the circumstances. 

Stabitha_Christie

dewme said:

Stabitha_Christie said:

dewme said:

Stabitha_Christie said:

dewme said:

This is definitely an embarrassment to the dev and test teams because they failed to catch these bugs prior to release.

They did catch it prior to the phone's release. That is how they have the update ready on the day the phone is being arriving to the public. 

Prior to the release of the software. 

The dev and test teams had release or functionally-equivalent to release versions of the iPhones long before they completed iOS 16.0 and signed off on it being ready for release. 

The fact that they had a small window of time to slip out a patched version 16.0.1 before the iPhones already imaged with version 16.0 landed in customers hands is pure luck. They were playing Russian roulette with 5 bullets loaded and got lucky. 

It is difficult to understand what your issue is. iOS 16 didn't cause this issue on existing phones. It is specific to iPhone 14(Pro). They caught the issue and have a fix ready prior to phones getting to customers. That was your complaint, that they didn't  catch the issue prior to customers getting the product.  They did catch it and they have a fix ready. You now  want to seem to find issue with the  fact that that they found it  and have a fix. 

Nope. 

The test team had access to all of the iPhone versions they needed to test their software on long before they signed off on the release being ready to burn into all of the phones that would be shipped for iPhone 14 release day. 

The features that were broken, like Messages and FaceTime, are core features that have been in the software for years and have undergone numerous test cycles and probably millions of regression test cycles. Unfortunately their test regimen did not consider the software failure mechanism that led to breaking these features. 

When they finally caught the bug the affected products were already on their way to customers. They were able to quickly roll out a patch to mitigate the consequences of the bug. 

No software is perfect because no software developer is perfect and no software tester is perfect. They make mistakes and learn from them and fix the root cause and move on to the next issue. 

All I’m saying is that Apple got very lucky here. I’m not condemning them in any way. But there’s no denying that the pattern of slipping in a quick bug fix while a product release is still in flight is not something that any product manager would ever want to have to explain to senior management. It’s a really big deal, but fortunately, and as pointed out in the AppleInsider article, something that Apple rarely does. 

There is simply no way to sugar coat it, but at least Apple has handled the mitigation as well as can be expected under the circumstances. 

Yeah, I'm still lost on what your complaint is other than things didn't go the way you think they should have. To each their own. 

Mac4mac

retrogusto said:

Are others having issues with the new TvOS? Since I updated my tv HD, AirPlay glitches sometimes when I start using it for music to my stereo (intermittent audio), the screen goes black for a few seconds and freezes when I use the “Menu” button in various (maybe all) streaming apps, and the beginning of YouTube videos and ads shows a black screen with intermittent audio for the first few seconds, with the audio returning before the video. I did a quick Google search but haven’t seen anything. I’m wondering if it’s losing the HDMI connection for a split second, which might result in this kind of problem, but the device connected to it has a display which would normally tell me if it’s disconnected, but isn’t showing that. 

Yes. I have a similar issue when playing video using the YouTube app. I get audio and totally black video. The first few times I had to check to see if the TV switched off. The video never recovers. I have to stop playing the video, sometimes I need to exit the app, and relaunch the video and it will work. I have also seen the same behaviour from the Plex app too. My

Apple TV is the 4K version. They can be fussy little boxes sometimes, and need a reboot on a somewhat regular basis…… but I do love them and have had every model since version 1 which I still have. 

coolfactor

Skeptical said:

Apple apologists can spin this any way you want but this is a bug that should have been caught in the beta phase. 

Maybe. But which beta program? Internal or public? How many phones were being *activated* while running iOS 16.0? Most public beta testers just upgrade to the beta release, not reset their phones and run through the the activation again. So the chances of catching this bug is slim.

And chances are pretty good that they knew about this weeks ago, after phones were already packaged and ready to sell, and only announced it the day before phones were available.

So, as you can see, not as simple as it seems.

Michael5514

Actually I did a walk in and did the activation of IOS 16 of my iPhone 14 Pro and had no issues,  I immediately after activation and before leaving the cell phone store did the update to IIOS 16.0.1and had no issues with my activation and update. The eSIM activated and everything worked smoothly.