iOS 8 update download takes forever

Looks to be an Apple problem. My other downloads on this computer are fine. My speedtest.net is 20mbps. And yet my iOS download has cancelled multiple times and my current try says: "Downloaded 49.2 MB of 2.01 GB - 51 hours remaining". A few days ago I figured it was a load issue and Apple would spin up some new nodes. Maybe someone at Apple should check the load balancer and run some tests to make sure that all of the delivery servers are responding correctly? I figured they'd have systems that automatically monitor that, but if so that's broken too.

Problem is not internet connection speed .... problem is Apple download server. I have fast broadband connection. Tried downloading iOS 8 to my iPad. After 14 hours downloading (including all night) Apple gave me message Download has failed. This happened THREE times. Someone said go to Starbuck. This morning I did. Download started and after 45 minutes and couple coffee, remaining estimated time showed 18 hours. I closed my iPad and cussed Apple. I can download large programs, windows 8 updates, and watch video online in a flash but no way possible to download from Apple servers. Friend, its APPLE SERVERS and not our internet connection. Do not assume just because you downloaded within 30 minutes that the remaining 30 million Apple users can do the same. Guess I will wait about 30 days to try again. In the meantime, perhaps Apple software engineers can figure out a way to speed up their servers. Oh by the way, I connected my iPad to my computer and logged into iTunes. ITunes detected my iPad and gave message the iOS 8 upgrade was available. Clicked on DOWNLOAD ONLY and 14 hours later, time remaining was 32 hours. Think I will connect two wires to a manual spin wheel and see if I can connect to Apple servers. They may surprise me.

I have fast broadband connection at home. After three tries to download (17 hrs remaining, 28 hrs remaining 19 hrs remaining) I stopped trying. Last night I connected ipad to my computer and clicked on iTunes. iTunes detected my ipad and told me iOS 8 upgrade available. I clicked on DOWNLOAD ONLY and 14 hours later remaining time was 19 hours. This morning, as you suggested, I went to Starbuck. Sit down with my coffee and got connected. Started download. 45 minutes and $9.63 later, remaining time was 16 hours. I closed my iPad and cussed Apple. Friend, its not my internet connection, its APPLE SERVERS .... simple fact.

The results of a nslookup of swdownload.apple.com in a terminal window are below. The Google IP result provides speedy downloads for me and the Verizon IP result is sooooooooo slow.

Google DNS:

Name: p01-swdownload.apple.com.akadns.net

Address: 17.164.1.10

Verizon DNS:

Name: p01-swdownload.apple.com.akadns.net

Address: 17.146.232.9

I've seen this before. Make sure iTunes & the Mac are running the latest versions then restart the Mac. If the issue persists use a different internet source or update directly from the iPad.

Cheers

Many thanks. Your pausing and restarting trick works like a charm. I was trying to download IOS update 8.4, and the download time started at 60 hours before settling in a minute or two later at 2 hours. That seemed way slow, so I ran a speed test. Sure enough, my internet connection and speeds were fine. I was hitting a blazing 110 mbps on wifi, which told me that the slow update download was something on Apple's end. I've encountered slow downloads during other IOS updates, so I decided to look into the problem and found your suggestion. I paused and started again. 6 hours. Paused and started again. 8 hours. Paused and started again. 20 minutes. There we go. But that still seemed a bit slow. Pause and start. 7 hours. Again. 5 hours. Again. 4 minutes. BAM. Less than 4 minutes later the update had downloaded completely. This will save a lot of time and frustration in the future. It's strange that the download connections can vary so much, and it's a shame so many people spend many unnecessary hours downloading updates. Apple should fix that. At any rate, thanks again for the tip.

You da man wgogo... after reading through all the back and forth you posted a very solid solution that works. Csound needs to go find a happy place because he seems like he has a real chip on his shoulder.

[FIX] ISSUE SOLVED!

I face same issue. It take 33 Hours to download. Crazy?? when pause the download. It will re-download from zero.

Issue solved after I untick Simultaneous Download and retry download. It done 15 min download. Hope this will help you guys too. Thanks!

Go to Network in System Preferences, click on your wifi connection, then Advanced. You'll see this screen. Add the two DNS addresses.

what speed is your Wifi it must be very slow

do you know someone with Fiber broard band

it should take 30mins

.bsydd uk

No one is suggesting that 'everybody' should, but you should. If only to rule out a problem with your network connection.

It took 40 minutes on my iPhone and about 35 minutes on my iPad (to download) installation took about an hour on both.

I downloaded on the 17th.

Took 10 minutes to download on both iPhone 5s and iPad 4, doing OTA.

Yup, it now shows it'll take 5 minutes. I just had to restart it like 10 times. Thanks for a real solution!!!!