Why can't I restore the same version IOS that's on my phone?

Lawrence Finch wrote:

The idea of reinstalling the current version by downloading the version you want and shift clicking will not work, and NEVER HAS.

A subtle point, but that is not what the OP is trying to do. The version currently on their iOS device is already on their computer from the last iOS update that they (legitimately) performed, and if you Shift-click to Restore you're presented with a dialog box to navigate to where your .ipsw files are saved. It is correct that you cannot select a prior iOS version than what is currently installed on your device, but I know from personal experience that there was a time when you could reload the same iOS version which is on your device, even if it was not the latest version.

I have not done this since the iOS 3 era, but this was definitely possible in the past (no jailbreak or blobs required). My 2G Touch while on iOS 3.0.x was acting up and I wanted to wipe it and start over, but did not want to update to the then-current iOS 3.1 since that version (and every version since) broke live updating of smart playlists on the iOS device if the smart playlist was based on another playlist. I held off updating for a very long time, well into iOS 4 releases, and was able to periodically restore my Touch to 3.0.x using the Shift-Restore method.

I'll trust the Level 6 and 8 guys in here that this does not work today (and probably not for some time)but the Shift-Restore method definitely did work at one time. If you think about it, what other purpose would there have been for a dialog box to navigate to your .ipsw file? It was precisely to let you select what you had already downloaded and what was not current (otherwise you'd just click Restore, as most people do).

klipe wrote:

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does anyone else have an ipad2 running ios7? is yours laggy as heck now too? bet you wish you could go back to 6 until they iron out the bugs eh?

Actually, I do have an iPad 2 (wifi 32GB) and it works just fine running iOS 7.0.2. It takes some getting used to the differences from iOS 6, but I can't say that I see any major lags like you seem to be implying are happening to all iPad 2 owners. At first, I half way wanted to go back to iOS 6 but that was because there was so much that was new. After about a week, it all felt "normal" to me again, and it is working just fine for me. I don't see any lags, and I use my iPad almost daily.

rockmyplimsoul wrote:

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I'll trust the Level 6 and 8 guys in here that this does not work today (and probably not for some time)but the Shift-Restore method definitely did work at one time. If you think about it, what other purpose would there have been for a dialog box to navigate to your .ipsw file? It was precisely to let you select what you had already downloaded and what was not current (otherwise you'd just click Restore, as most people do).

I believe that iOS 3 was the last version that the method worked for. Also about the time that iOS 4 was released is when Apple stopped signing the older iOS versions and begain only signing the current version. Prior to that, I believe that Apple kept signed versions of every iOS version available on their servers. This last change is what prevents you from loading the non-current iOS version even though you may already have a non-current version still running on your device. I remember this because I had friends who had to jump through some hoops to re-load iOS 3.1.3 on their iPhone 3G phones because iOS 4.0 was just too much and made the iPhone 3G too slow to use. I believe the reason for this change from Apple was that the most common methods users were using to load older iOS versions onto their devices were making the devices unstable and suseptible to attacks. This left Apple looking like their devices in general were unstable and unsafe, and to prevent that from happening, Apple just stopped allowing hardware that supported the current iOS version from loading anything older via the restore options. As for the reason the feature is still in iTunes for this I can think of a couple possibilities. First off, the paid Apple iOS Developers need a way to load their beta iOS releases onto their devices, and this is one of the ways for them to do that. This is also a way for them to restore back to the current production released iOS version until the beta is closed and the iOS version is released. Another possible reason to allow this method of restore is so that you don't have to re-download the 1GB file from the Apple server to restore your iPhone. You select the specific file for the current iOS release and it loads, then checks the signatures with Apple to make sure it hasn't been tampered with, and when that passes it loads onto your device. Both of these are valid reasons for the IPSW file selection option to still exist even though it can only load the current iOS version onto your device (for most users).

For the record, I have an iPhone 4 with iOS 7.0.2 and I don't see any lags, and I don't have any appy that refuse to run on it. I also have an iPad 2 which is also running iOS 7.0.2 and it is the same way. I will admit that when iOS 7.0 was first released, I had one or two apps that didn't work properly on iOS 7, but most of those were solved by the developers relasing bug fix versions shortly after iPS 7.0 was released.

It was implemented to let you Restore without having to download another version of the same .ipsw file.

deggie wrote:

It was implemented to let you Restore without having to download another version of the same .ipsw file.

I don't think so, iTunes has never done that ... it has always been smart enough to know that what you have downloaded already is current. Even to this day, when you restore an iOS device it won't re-download the iOS package if what you have is current.

rockmyplimsoul wrote:

deggie wrote:

It was implemented to let you Restore without having to download another version of the same .ipsw file.

I don't think so, iTunes has never done that ... it has always been smart enough to know that what you have downloaded already is current. Even to this day, when you restore an iOS device it won't re-download the iOS package if what you have is current.

deggie is correct. Suppose your company has 100 iPhones. While iTunes is smart enough not to redownload a .ipsw file when you restore YOUR iPhone, it cannot do that when you download the ipsw file once to your corporate file server, then update all of your 100 phones from the single copy on the file server. iTunes doesn't even know where the file server is.

The capability is built into iTunes; it is also used if you have a shared music library on a file server; shift-launch allows several iTunes instances to access the same library.

klipe wrote:

apple has (until only just recently) always allowed you to reinstall same ios version as used on device using the shift+restore.

Then you will have to explain why I got "error 3194 - This device is not eligible for the requested build" when I tried to do this to restore the original version of iOS to my 4S after I had upgraded to iOS 5.