Apple iOS 11.4.1 Release Has A Nasty Surprise

iOS 11.4.1 is here and my Upgrade Guide has already explained why it’s an essential update. That said, beneath the surface, Applehas made one crucial change and the nasty surprise is it has already been compromised...

‘Great Secret Features’ and ‘Nasty Surprises’ are my regular columns investigating the best features / biggest problems hidden behind the headlines.

It was omitted from the official release notes, but with iOS 11.4.1 Apple quietly introduced an enhanced version of its ‘USB Restricted Mode’. This was meant to counteract a Grayshift hack which automatically enters passcodes via the Lightning port until the correct code is found and a device is unlocked. But it turns out Apple’s enhancement was half-baked.

What Apple did in iOS 11.4.1 was decrease the time until an iPhone or iPad’s Lightning port is disabled from one week to one hour after the last successful unlock. But security specialist ElcomSoft discovered this time limit will not start if the Lightning port is used at any point within that hour, so all you have to do to stop the one-hour window closing indefinitely is connect any USB accessory.

ElcomSoft even recommends the perfect accessory to do this: Apple’s own Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter which costs $39 and has passthrough power so Grayshift can connect directly to the device at the same time.

Who Is It For?

Like previous iOS 11 releases, iOS 11.4.1 is compatible with the iPhone 5S or later, iPad mini 2 or later and 6th generation iPod touch or later.

If you own a compatible iPhone, iPad or iPod touch you should automatically be prompted to install the new update. If not, you can trigger it manually by navigating to Settings > General > Software Update. Apple iOS 12 beta testers, you will first have to unenroll your device for the update to appel.

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Every iOS update comes in a variety of sizes since different features/fixes apply to different devices, but at circa 200MB iOS 11.4.1 is fairly large for a ‘minor point’ update. Something which hints at a lot more going on under the surface than Apple is revealing in its official release notes (more below).

Note: users upgrading from iOS 10 (or even iOS 9), will find iOS 11.4.1 is several gigabytes in size as it rolls up all previous iOS 11 releases into a single massive update (it will also simply be called ‘iOS 11’).

The Deal Breakers

We’ll get jailbreakers out the way first. Yes, iOS 11.4.1 will break jailbroken iPhones, iPads and iPod touch. The exploit details released in December for iOS 11.2.2 have not translated into faster hacks for new updates. So steer clear for now.

Meanwhile, initial stability reports for iOS 11.4.1 are relatively good. Isolated problems are being reported such as CarPlay syncing, social media login problems (1,2), Spotify glitches, bizarrely premature installations of the iOS 12 Measure app and some heat build-up, but these remain very limited at present.

The downside is several users are reporting the iOS 11.4 performance and battery drain problems have not been addressed in iOS 11.4.1 (1,2,3,4,5) but this is being countered by many more users seeing improvements (check the next section for details).

Overall this is highly promising but, needless to say, I will update this article should the situation change.

So What Do You Get?

Apple’s iOS 11.4.1 release notes provide some (but, interestingly, not all) of the highlights:

“iOS 11.4.1 includes bug fixes and improves the security of your iPhone or iPad. This update: Fixes an issue that prevented some users from viewing the last known location of their AirPods in Find My iPhone. Improves reliability of syncing mail, contacts, and notes with Exchange accounts.”

These changes are self-explanatory, but the big omission is a specific mention for the iOS 11.4 battery drain problems, particularly in standby. That said, current feedback on forums and social media suggests Apple has quietly made positive changes under the hood (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10). And about time too.

Apple has one more surprise in iOS 11.4.1 as well. An enhancement of the ‘USB Restricted Mode in iOS 11.4 now disables the Lightning port if a device has not been unlocked within one hour. This tackles a brute force hacking method (often used by law enforcement agencies) to discover a user’s password with repeated passcode entries. iOS 11.4 previously disabled the Lightning port after one week, so this window has been cut dramatically.

In terms of security, Apple’s official security page lists 15 fixes of which eight are related to potential holes in Safari’s WebKit browser engine. The most significant, however, is a patch for a memory corruption issue in WiFi which left the potential for a hacker to run malicious code.

Apple iOS 11.4.1 Verdict: Install

Once again, Apple appears to be getting its act together at the end of an iOS generation. The final updates for iOS 9 and iOS 10 were rock solid, and now the well-documented troubles of iOS 11 may end on a positive note as well.

There are currently no show stoppers in iOS 11.4.1. The Spotify bug should be fixable by an app update and for those who haven’t had their battery problems fixed, they don’t appear to be getting worse. Meanwhile, many more are reporting significant gains so there’s nothing to lose in upgrading.

If iOS 11.4.1 proves to be the last iOS 11 update, then it’s a very solid one.

The Road Ahead

With Apple finally getting iOS 11 under control, the company can concentrate fully on iOS 12. The numerous problems within iOS 11 are said to have made Apple switch strategy for iOS 12 with a back-to-basics focus on performance and stability and early betas are showing just that.

Apple never acknowledges all the problems users experience in iOS, but it appears to have learnt its lesson with iOS 11 making the future a lot brighter for all iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners.

The silver lining for iPhone and iPad owners is Apple’s new one hour USB Restricted Mode will stop easy access into accidentally lost devices which may well not be noticed by anyone for the first hour they are missing. But it doesn’t help anyone targeted by criminals or law enforcement agencies, even if ElcomSoft notes iOS 11.4 made the hacking process significantly slower.

Interestingly, ElcomSoft says iOS 12 betas contain the same USB loophole so it remains unclear whether Apple is aware of it and whether it plans to issue a fix through either the final version of iOS 12 or an emergency iOS 11.4.2 patch.

The good news is it doesn’t matter which option Apple chooses as it has already promised all devices running iOS 11 will be compatible with iOS 12. And it is this kind of long-term software support which is likely to win over customers when Apple releases its all-new iPhones in September…