iPhone 5 Owners Should Update the Software by November 3 to Avoid GPS Issues

by Noah Harris

Even though updating an operating system on your mobile devices is always important, iPhone 5 owners now necessarily need to make an update by November 3 or otherwise some of the key features and functions will no longer be available. These functions include the App Store, iCloud, email, and web browsing.

This may happen because of the GPS time rollover issue. It first started in April and could affect those features requiring the correct date and time. The issue hit other manufacturers’ products that were using GPS, too. However, back in July, the Cupertino company released an update fixing that GPS bug for older software versions such as iOS 10.3.4 and iOS 9.3.6. That was made to keep the accurate location functionality on older iPads and iPhones as the GPS network goes through a time rollover transition. There was no impact on Apple’s affected devices then, but that’s just until before midnight UTC on November 3.

The devices that will be impacted are iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad mini, iPad with Retina Display, iPhone 4s, and iPhone 5. Not updating these devices will make GPS features unavailable.

Not updating the iPhone 5 is even trickier as in this case you will need to back up and restore using your PC or a MAC for an update because iCloud backup won’t work.

The problem will not affect neither iPod touch series with Wi-Fi nor newer iOS models.

However, the good news is that only a few people will face that issue as only 9% of users have software version older than iOS 12.