With iOS 18: iPhone can restore iPhone 16
Until now, anyone who has broken their iPhone needed a computer to revive it. With iOS 18 – and new devices –, this can now be done directly.
iOS 18 restore function: A Mac is no longer necessary.
(Image: Apple)
If nothing works with an iPhone, there is only one thing that can help: a complete restore. To restore the Apple smartphone to its original state, you previously needed either a Mac (via the Finder) or a Windows PC (with the "Apple Devices" app), which had to be connected to the iPhone using a USB-C/USB-C or Lightning/USB-C cable. With iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max, the process, which hopefully does not have to be carried out frequently, is made easier: in future, an (additional) iPhone or an iPad will be sufficient for restoring.
iPhone, please report
If an iPhone is nearby in recovery mode, this will be detected wirelessly in future. As the Apple blog 9to5Mac has discovered, the four new iPhones come with the RecoveryOS firmware for the first time, which has been available on the Apple Watch since watchOS 8.5 and on Apple TV devices since tvOS 17. These also enable a restore via a nearby iPhone.
With the four new iPhones, this is now also possible wirelessly. Exact details of the technology behind this are not yet available. However, the practical use is simple: any iPhone or iPad that uses iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 can be used for restoring. It is not known whether it will be technically possible to equip older iPhone models with the feature in the future.
Over-the-air recovery has been planned for some time
The prompt that appears on nearby iPhones reads: "An iPhone near you is in recovery mode. You can use your iPhone to help restore it." You can also find out more about the process or start it straight away by clicking the "Next..." button. Apple has reportedly been working for some time on a way to implement recovery using over-the-air (OTA) functionality in order to make the iPhone as independent as possible from computer use.
The first indications of this were already found in the operating system code in 2020. However, it has never been as easy as it now appears to be with the new iPhones. The helping iPhone or iPad downloads the necessary operating system and transfers it to the "bricked" device.
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