14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this month, Apple revealed in a support document that “Due to a lawsuit by VirnetX, Apple will be changing the behavior of VPN On Demand for iOS devices using iOS 6.1 and later.”
On April 5, Apple issued a thorough explanation regarding this change, noting that iOS 6.1 devices with VPN On Demand set as Always “will behave as if they were configured with the ‘Establish if needed’ option.”
The devices would thus establish a VPN On Demand connection “only if it is unable to resolve the DNS name of the host it is trying to reach,” Apple said, adding that “This change will be distributed in an update later this month.
Apple could be dropping iOS 6.1.4 with said changes as early as today, and there’s still about a week left of April.
However, according to a new update from Apple, the changes will not apply to devices that are already in customers’ hands.
Apple has replaced the big block of text in KB article TS4550 with the following message:
“This is an update to an article describing potential changes to the behavior of VPN On Demand due to a lawsuit by VirnetX.”
The Cupertino giant continues, saying, “Apple no longer plans to change the behavior of the VPN On Demand feature of iOS 6.1 for devices that have already been shipped.”
Apple makes it crystal clear that the ‘Always’ option will remain untouched on devices that are already in use.
Apple has yet to seed any iOS 6.1.4 betas to developers, but it is reasonable to assume that this software update will contain only this mandatory change due to the outcome of Apple’s lawsuit with VirnetX.
It is also worth noting that VirnetX has filed a new lawsuit against Apple’s archrival, Microsoft Corporation, citing willful infringement of its patents.