Downgrading iOS Firmware Will Not Be Possible After iOS 5

The folks over at OSXDaily are reporting that, according to the jailbreak experts at the iPhone Dev Team, iOS 5 will effectively prevent you from downgrading to lower versions of iOS.

The change is said to be the result of certain subtle changes in the boot sequence of the latest iOS 5 beta, and will only affect restores from iOS 5 forward. Interestingly, they also note that Apple will be able to turn this restriction on and off at will. They also suggest that it may be possible to find a way around this latest restriction.

Note: This change is NOT live yet, so users of iOS 5 beta 2 can still downgrade to iOS 4.3.3 if they so desire, using the instructions we provided earlier.

The iPhone Dev Team hasn’t released much information about this restriction.

J. Glenn Künzler

Glenn is Managing Editor at MacTrast, and has been using a Mac since he bought his first MacBook Pro in 2006. He lives in a small town in Utah, enjoys bacon more than you can possibly imagine, and is severely addicted to pie.