14 DAY TRIAL // Apple rolled out iOS 9.3 on Monday after its public unveiling of the iPhone SE, but it appears that the software update bricks some old iPads that are unable to get past the activation screen.
Although Apple hasn’t yet confirmed the issues and the update is still available for download on older iPads, reports online suggest that a number of devices are being impacted by a bug that breaks down the activation system with no workaround available.
The problem has already been confirmed by users on iPad 1, 2, and 3, but it’s not yet clear how widespread it is. Activation doesn’t work over Wi-Fi and iTunes, although there are users who actually managed to restore via iTunes.
AI writes that activation completed successfully for some users who downloaded iOS 9.3 with iTunes and a Mac computer, but in other cases, the same trick fails to make any difference.
Apple Genius bar has no solution
Posts on Apple’s discussion forums also confirmed that unlinking the iPad from iCloud hasn’t fixed the problem, with a number of users claiming that activation failed even 24 hours after the release of iOS 9.3.
It’s worth noting that activation indeed fails at certain times when a software update is rolled out due to the high number of attempts experienced by Apple’s servers, but since the issue was experienced even 24 hours after the release, it’s pretty clear that it has nothing to do with the servers.
“Just to add that it isn't confined to iPad 2, my old original iPad is affected and effectively useless, though after trying a restart and inadvertently taking a screen shot of the 'Hello' screen, iPhoto did recognise it. Tried restarts when linked and not linked to iTunes. No go at all. Apple should pull this update quickly,” one user explained, while others said that the Apple Genius bar still couldn’t fix the problem.
For the moment, everyone’s waiting for a workaround from Apple, so those with an iPad broken down by the iOS 9.3 update have no other option than to hope Cupertino addresses this as quickly as possible.
Update: Apple has pulled the iOS 9.3 update for older iPhones and iPads. Check out all models impacted by the activation bug here.