At about 12 AM today (Sunday), I as well as many other iOS 9 Public Beta users received a system notification stating that a new version of the iOS 9 Beta was available. The message reads: “A new iOS update is now available. Please update from the iOS 9 beta.” The grammar itself is even a little bit odd, especially in the last sentence, unless it’s stating that the official iOS 9 is out now (which I don’t believe it’s coming out for about 1-2 more weeks). Let us know down below in the comments or on Twitter @iTouchAppReview if you’ve received a similar notification. Let’s get to the bottom of this!
Update: If I had to guess, it’s probably an accidental “push notification”/system notification thanks to some intern at Apple. (Just kidding, but it does appear to be some sort of accidental notification). We will keep you updated if/when we find out any more information! Follow us on Twitter @iTouchAppReview for news/updates as we receive it.
Update 2: Some users are suggesting that perhaps this is a developer update and is not available for an OTA update and must be had from the developer site. This could be true (we haven’t verified it), but it wouldn’t make sense for Apple to push out an update like that to all public beta users. So, still, we’re not sure.
Update 3 [9/6/15, 11:45 AM EST]: Still, no official word from Apple on what went wrong/happened. As stated in comments below, if Apple allows this beta to expire before users are presented with an upgrade, it could spell disaster for many iPhones running iOS 9 Beta. At this point, we highly recommend that you back up your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad that’s running iOS 9 Beta. If there is an expiration issue within the next few days, at least you’ll have a recent backup. We’ll be here if we hear more. Drop a comment below telling us your experience so we can see who this is affecting the most.
Update 4 [9/6/15, 4:30 PM EST]: We’ll have to assume this was just a major glitch in Apple’s system. They’ve not announced anything publicly to help users understand what this message was about. We do expect to see an iOS 9 Beta update very soon, though. In fact, with this glitch, it allows us to become even more certain that iOS 9 (full version) will be released on September 9, 2015 at or right after the Apple event.
When Tim trolls you with iOS 9 Beta notifications… 😒 pic.twitter.com/rsJZyTDOuw
— iTouchAppReviewers (@iTouchAppReview) September 6, 2015
Got the notification tonight also. Scary, because similar notifications have been used in the past to alert beta users of impending expiration.
A beta expiring can be a nightmare. You can end up stuck with a bricked device – you can’t access the device to turn off FMi because it’s expired, but you can’t update it because FMi is on… There are ways to escape from this, but you will lose all data not backed up in the process. This situation could prove even worse – if Apple lets this beta expire without pushing a new one, all the beta devices are effectively bricked until a new release, along with all of the data on them – since you can’t restore a backup from a newer iOS version to an older one. (And let’s not even get into those who have upgraded their watches to watchOS2 beta…)
One can only hope Apple will address this ASAP, but given that iOS 7.0.1 left many users without a phone for more than a couple of days….
Corrections: “FMi = Find my iPhone”, iOS 7.0.1 = iOS 8.0.1.
Very good point. If Apple were to mess up like that… yikes. Backing up our phones now, we suggest everyone do the same!
yes. I too received it? wording seemed strange. When I checked said everything was up to date.
Both my wife and I are on the iOS 9 beta on our iPhone 6’s and had the notification this morning. Nothing showing in software updates.
I saw this as well. I am a Dev and there was now update on the Dev site.
Yes I received an update notification on my iPhone & iPad. I had just updated my MacBook prior to seeing the others. MacBook appeared to be a real update. I didn’t know what to think of it and thought it was just a glitch
Received this notification at 12:22am EST. Public Beta, no updates available, like everyone else.
Same here. OTA claims I’m up to date and nothing new in my Apple dev portal. I may turn off find my phone, just in case we have an unexpected beta expiration…
That’s a pretty good idea, or at least back up the phone. If the beta expires and “bricks” phones, we’ll put an article up to help people un-brick their phones. But for now, turning off Find My Friends could be a good idea for those who are worried, but we’d recommend mainly just making sure everything is backed up for now.