Is iOS 10 compatible with iTunes 12.2.2?

Thank you to everyone who sent me information. Last night I was able to download an app called Wifi Photo. It enabled me to wirelessly transfer all my photos from my phone to my computer, which is what I was most afraid of losing. I am now considering downgrading to 9.3.5, and I have been able to download the IPS W to my computer, but I'm concerned about losing the data on my phone. Any details about exactly what I will lose? Do I lose all my contacts and phone numbers? Thanks again for your reply

Jennifer M, If you have already backed up your iPhone in iTunes or the cloud before you updated to iOS 10 then you can recover everything backed up but otherwise you will lose everything. You also need iTunes to still be syncing with your phone, if iTunes cannot connect to your iPhone ever since you upgraded to iOS 10 then even with the correct ipsw file then I'm afraid you will run into a Firmware problem & won't be able to downgrade.

If you have a Mac & back up your email/contacts etc to the cloud then when you do downgrade then once you sign in with your apple ID then those should be automatically downloaded to your iPhone anyway so you may lose anything not recently backed up from your Mac but otherwise you shouldn't have any problems if you have a Mac.

I'd like to ask Stefan71 what version of iTunes he used to successfully downgrade to iOS9 ... because i'm reading a lot regarding the method but not a lot regarding success in downgrading ....

My Mac mini is running Mac OS X 10.7.5 with iTunes 12.2.2.25 too. It worked easily, by putting the device in DFU mode. The only annoying thing, iOS sometimes remembers You, to download iOS 10 or is it downloading in the background, when Your device is connected by wi-fi.

Thanks stephan71, I have the same Mac OS X version & the same iTunes version as you but I always get an error " ... firmware file is not compatible". Can you give me the exact name of your ipsw file? Also exactly what steps you took so I can compare with my steps that have so far failed, thanks.

There are 2 iPhone 5 versions, GSM or Global, I used the "iPhone5,2_9.3.5_13G36_Restore.ipsw". I think that has to be the european version. When I restored it the first time, I made the same mistake, that iTunes told me, it is not compatible - I did go forward and tried the ipsw for the other iPhone 5, which finally worked.

Thanks stephan71, you are quite right. For some odd reason, each website I went to with a link to the official ipsw download page only offered the ipsw for iPhone5,1 which failed due to the firmware issue.

I am now back using iOS9.3.5 after discovering not only are there the Global or GSM models but there are actually 4 (or 8, i'm confused still) different ipsw's which are still signed by apple for iOS9.3.5:

iPhone5,1

iPhone5,2

iPhone5,3

iPhone5,4

Once I discovered this I googled the ipsw for the iPhone5,2 & came across the iPhone5,2_9.3.5_13G36_Restore.ipsw which you mention.

I haven't a clue what 5,1-5,2 means but I'm happy to say I'm back syncing with iTunes & the desktop Dropbox app is fetching photos from my iPhone when I connect it to my iMac.

Phew, it's been a long 2 weeks & if I hadn't found it out for myself you would have sorted it out for me with your last post there so thanks anyway!

I'm glad to hear that. 5,2 is the global version, 5,1 is the gsm version. I don't know the other versions.

Update: 5,3 and 5,4 are the ipsw versions for the iPhone 5C (Global/GSM).

Apple's stated minimum requirements for syncing a Mac with an IOS device running iOS 10 is still iTunes 12.5 on a Mac running Mavericks at minimum.

I've also been caught out with the iOS 10 upgrade, running a MBP on 10.7.5. Advice I've had via Apple Chat is to upgrade to Mavericks or higher (I can only go to El Capitan) by purchasing a 3rd party USB OS upgrade. Two things that make me dislike Apple's approach here:

- I can't upgrade to Mavericks or up to El Capitan via the App Store because all OS versions have been removed other than Sierra. Why would this be? (Apple Chat said "to avoid confusion with other OS versions"….)

- I am still able to sync my iPod touch (iOS 5) with the iTunes 12.2 that now rejects my iPhone (iOS10).

Bizarre?

When Apple announced iTunes 12.5.1 the new features included full iOS 10 support. Its reasonable to infer that previous versions of iTunes did not fully support iOS 10. My own experience is only that earlier versions of iTunes will refuse to connect to a device running iOS 10 with an unenlightening error message saying an invalid response was received from the device. A number of web pages appear to report that some people had problems with some versions of iTunes and iOS 10.0 that led to corrupt data on the device that prevented it from starting up. Its possible that an iOS 10 update includes a workaround so that devices running it issue a connect message that iTunes versions prior to 12.5.1 report as invalid in order to prevent data corruption, but that's only speculation.