How can I stop the daily nag messages about upgrading to iOS 9 on iPhone 4S?

[baryon]

Every morning since iOS 9.3 came out, my iPhone 4S running iOS 7 displays this message:



"Temporarily Remove Apps to Install Software Update? Facebook and Skype will be temporarily removed to make storage available for this software update. They will be reinstalled when the update is complete."

I always click Cancel, but the message comes back every morning. How do I stop this? Should there ever be enough space on my iPhone, would iOS 9 get installed without my consent? How do I avoid that?

I do have automatic updates turned on, because I do want my apps to stay up to date. But I want to keep iOS 7.

Until iOS 9.3 came out, I only got this message once every time a new version of iOS came out. I would click Cancel and it would leave me alone for a few months until the next update. Why is it nagging me every day now?

 

[3568358]

Update to it. It 'nags' you every day because iOS 7 is not encrypted and is not secure like iOS 8 and up. It is extremely important to update the operating system to fix vulnerabilities, glitches, and more. You should update not only to make that go away, but because you need to anyways. If you do not update all of your information could possibly be at risk. Updating may help increase battery life, speed of the phone, and much more.

automatic updates will only update iOS applications, not the operating system.

 

[dukebound85]

Update to it. It 'nags' you every day because iOS 7 is not encrypted and is not secure like iOS 8 and up. It is extremely important to update the operating system to fix vulnerabilities, glitches, and more. You should update not only to make that go away, but because you need to anyways. If you do not update all of your information could possibly be at risk. Updating may help increase battery life, speed of the phone, and much more.

automatic updates will only update iOS applications, not the operating system.

This is not a particularly useful response to the OP. IOS 9 is super slow compared to IOS7 on the 4s.

With that said, I caved in and updated (wish I hadn't)

 

[baryon]

Update to it. It 'nags' you every day because iOS 7 is not encrypted and is not secure like iOS 8 and up. It is extremely important to update the operating system to fix vulnerabilities, glitches, and more. You should update not only to make that go away, but because you need to anyways. If you do not update all of your information could possibly be at risk. Updating may help increase battery life, speed of the phone, and much more.

automatic updates will only update iOS applications, not the operating system.

iOS 7 is very stable and fast for me, with no glitches. iOS 9 is slower in every respect on an iPhone 4S. App launch times all take more than a second longer than on iOS 7, scrolling and animations are often choppy and things take ages to happen. There are hardly any new features for the 4S that I would use... I'd rather wait to buy a new iPhone before using iOS 9. Until then, I want to keep my current phone useable (which runs really well on iOS 7 fortunately). A few years ago I've had a perfectly good 2nd gen iPod Touch ruined by iOS 4, don't want to make that mistake again...

 

[3568358]

iOS 7 is very stable and fast for me, with no glitches. iOS 9 is slower in every respect on an iPhone 4S. App launch times all take more than a second longer than on iOS 7, scrolling and animations are often choppy and things take ages to happen. There are hardly any new features for the 4S that I would use... I'd rather wait to buy a new iPhone before using iOS 9. Until then, I want to keep my current phone useable (which runs really well on iOS 7 fortunately). A few years ago I've had a perfectly good 2nd gen iPod Touch ruined by iOS 4, don't want to make that mistake again...

If you can't make the decision to update then buy an iPhone SE Which will have iOS 9 and be fast and secure and such

 

[C DM]

Are you at least running iOS 7.1? If so, you should be able to go to manage storage in settings and see if you can find the downloaded update there and delete it in case that's what's prompting it all.

 

[TRDmanAE86]

What I've had to do avoid the daily nag with my iOS 7.1.2 iPad Air is to to put it on airplane mode (or turn off wifi) while it is charging. I re-enable wifi when I unplug it. ane Mode). When I need to use it again, I unplug my iPad and, flip off Airplane Mode.

When any Apple device (iOS 5 and above) is charging and connected to wifi, that said device will automatically connect to Apple's servers and check to see if a update is ready. That's where the daily nag messages come from.

 

[baryon]

What I've had to do avoid the daily nag with my iOS 7.1.2 iPad Air is to to put it on airplane mode (or turn off wifi) while it is charging. I re-enable wifi when I unplug it. ane Mode). When I need to use it again, I unplug my iPad and, flip off Airplane Mode.

When any Apple device (iOS 5 and above) is charging and connected to wifi, that said device will automatically connect to Apple's servers and check to see if a update is ready. That's where the daily nag messages come from.

Thanks, I didn't know that! It seems to be more aggressive lately (every day vs. every month), but maybe it's just coincidence. I might just turn off all updates and only update my apps manually every once in a while.

 

[TRDmanAE86]

Thanks, I didn't know that! It seems to be more aggressive lately (every day vs. every month), but maybe it's just coincidence. I might just turn off all updates and only update my apps manually every once in a while.

Yeah, I'm not supprised by that. With iOS 8.x and bellow, you could prevent your Apple Device from jumping ship to another device by filling up the storage. With iOS 9, that's no longer possible since you now have the option to remove a few apps temporarly so that a update(If you choose to accept) can take place.
On top of that, I've also noticed that iOS 9 will nag you more than when a iOS 7/8 update was availible. Sometimes with my iPad when I forget to turn off the wifi and plug it into my computer, I'll get the iOS 9 prompt within minutes!


On the bright side, your iPhone won't automatically check for updates while being charged and connected to a cellular connection.

 

[Daria]

Thanks, I didn't know that! It seems to be more aggressive lately (every day vs. every month), but maybe it's just coincidence. I might just turn off all updates and only update my apps manually every once in a while.

To me this solution seems the easiest and least intrusive.

But I'm curious to know why the older & less secure iOS issue doesn't move you to do the update.

 

[baryon]

To me this solution seems the easiest and least intrusive.

But I'm curious to know why the older & less secure iOS issue doesn't move you to do the update.

Because iOS 7 is much faster than iOS 9, on the iPhone 4S. Looking at the statistics, it's about twice as fast. It has almost zero new features for iPhone 4S users. So I lose performance and usability and gain nothing new? That doesn't make me want to upgrade.

It's a 16GB phone, which unfortunately means I can store about 5GB of personal data on it - if someone manages to get access to that, well I hope they enjoy photos of IKEA furniture, mp3 music and movies they could get from anywhere else.

Security is important but there are more important things that come before it. If your car is accident-proof but it won't start, you'll just get another car. If the door to your house is 100% secure but unlocking the door takes 20 minutes, then you'll get a less secure door.

I used to own an iPod Touch and was stupid enough to always update to the latest version of iOS. At some point it got so slow that I could not longer use it. Listening to music was such a hassle, getting on Google Maps was slow and laggy, some things just stopped working, and the whole thing became unusable. There was nothing wrong with the hardware, a perfectly good iPod was killed exclusively by poor software. Then I promised myself to always be very careful to never let this happen again.

The other thing is that if iOS 9 is as bad as I think, then I won't be able to downgrade as iOS 7 is no longer being signed by Apple. Maybe if I could try it first, then I'd give it a chance. But since upgrading is permanent, I'm not taking the risk. I don't want to buy a new phone anytime soon, because what I have now is absolutely perfect for me. It's fast and it has the right features.

 

[Daria]

Thanks for your response, it helps me to understand why you'd turn down the awesome goodness of the SE.

 

[SuperKerem]

Because iOS 7 is much faster than iOS 9, on the iPhone 4S. Looking at the statistics, it's about twice as fast. It has almost zero new features for iPhone 4S users. So I lose performance and usability and gain nothing new? That doesn't make me want to upgrade.

It's a 16GB phone, which unfortunately means I can store about 5GB of personal data on it - if someone manages to get access to that, well I hope they enjoy photos of IKEA furniture, mp3 music and movies they could get from anywhere else.

Security is important but there are more important things that come before it. If your car is accident-proof but it won't start, you'll just get another car. If the door to your house is 100% secure but unlocking the door takes 20 minutes, then you'll get a less secure door.

I used to own an iPod Touch and was stupid enough to always update to the latest version of iOS. At some point it got so slow that I could not longer use it. Listening to music was such a hassle, getting on Google Maps was slow and laggy, some things just stopped working, and the whole thing became unusable. There was nothing wrong with the hardware, a perfectly good iPod was killed exclusively by poor software. Then I promised myself to always be very careful to never let this happen again.

The other thing is that if iOS 9 is as bad as I think, then I won't be able to downgrade as iOS 7 is no longer being signed by Apple. Maybe if I could try it first, then I'd give it a chance. But since upgrading is permanent, I'm not taking the risk. I don't want to buy a new phone anytime soon, because what I have now is absolutely perfect for me. It's fast and it has the right features.

You're right. When I was searching for a 4S to buy as a secondary phone I only considered those running iOS 7.

If you want to disable the annoying update prompts, install the watchOS 3 beta update configuration profile. When you go to check for updates, it will think you're running the latest iOS version (since watchOS updates are obviously incompatible).