Q: Apple's fixes for "slide to update" iOS 9 bug - waste of time!

As I'm also affected by the infamous "slide to update bug" that apparently occurs when upgrading from iOS 7 directly to iOS 9 I have just come to the conclusion that none - yes, absolutely none, zero, nada, zilch - of Apple's troubleshooting suggestions work at all. The only way out, also according to my local Apple Store, is to nuke the phone, i.e. doing a factory restore by DFU mode.

My current, not too uncommon situation is a fried iPhone 4S after the automatically downloaded OTA update has been installed. Being stuck forever at the dreaded, unresponsive "slide to update" screen. However, iTunes does recognize the phone as my iPhone and even shows the data usage bar correctly. So it's safe to assume that there actually is a fully functioning iOS under the frozen, unresponsive surface.

Apple's official fix now recommends to restore the affected iDevice through iTunes. Trying to do so inevitably ends with an error message that "Find my iThing" has to be turned off in the iCloud settings of, guess what, the fried device.This applies for both restore options (factory restore or restore from backup). Ironically enough I had "Find my iPhone" turned off before. OK doesn't work, fail #1.

I have a fairly recent backup, so I didn't bother to make one. But just for the sake of convenience I thought I could try out Apple's suggestion to create a backup of the frozen phone. Uh oh, bad luck too; either sync/backup hangs in an endless loop, essentially freezing iTunes too or an error message pops up that the device couldn't be backed up because "it isn't configured yet". Where exactly was it where the whole process screwed up completely? Oh, configuration; fail # 2.

That whole fix looks to me like some hastily slapped together theoretical advice just to show "yes, we are doing something about it".

So I tried another option, going beyond Apple's useless suggestions, and put the phone in restore mode using power and home button (cable and iTunes logos on the device screen when mode has become active) while being connected to iTunes. iTunes prompted me with a message that there is a problem with my iPhone and it needs to be updated or restored. "Update" would keep my current data and settings, so I chose that option. As iTunes downloads an entirely new iOS installation file (1.47 GB - so that explains the long download times at the current high demand) I thought that might help a bit but in vain. Tried the update multiple times with different options (SIM removed, ignoring WiFi setup, connected and unconnected to iTunes computer) as the installation file isn't immediately deleted; all to no avail. Phone is always stuck at the second "slide to update" screen.

All remaining options are destructive and will essentially wipe my phone completely, be it "restore" through the restore mode or the DFU setup, as my local Apple folks said. And I'm not overly optimistic whether the last iOS 7.1.1 backup can be used to restore the iOS-updated phone afterwards, there are already reports from people who factory restored their phones and the problem just resurfaced when trying to configure the restored iOS 7-backup. But currently there seems to be no other solution than to wipe the phone other than putting the frozen thing aside and waiting for Apple to bring a fixed iOS 9.0.1 that configures properly on pre-iOS 8 devices when updating from iOS 7.

Fortunately (and intentionally) I don't keep much personal data on my phone, such as thousands of photos, mails or text messages, notes and password information unless it's backed up elsewhere because apart from failing software updates there are other possibilities to irretrievably lose all this information such as an accident or theft.

But I think my current iPhone 4S and the iPad 3 (iOS 9 contrary to all previous iOS 8 installations running like a charm, BTW) are going to be my last iOS devices. I'm getting enough of that paranoid "walled garden" philosophy essentially locking up your data and information. If there was a possibility to easily transfer app data from an iPhone to the computer using a file browser like OS X Finder or Windows Explorer I bet I'd be able to retrieve all important files as the iPhone under the frozen surface seems to be fully functional. And I have always asked myself what that whole configuration bullcrap after an iOS update is about anyways. Why doesn't the stupid thing just pick the previous configuration settings? It's a just a software update that should run as smooth and unnoticed as possible. I'd think most users would be pleased if it just updated and only asked for configuration changes if new features/apps required them.