After iOS 8's shakey start, Apple blocks the road back to iOS 7

Apple has always been aggressive about keeping everybody on the same OS — and that’s a good thing.

But news today that Apple will no longer support iOS 7 on many mobile devices may sound premature to some.

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Apple will no longer support iOS 7 for users who have upgraded to iOS 8. So if you have doubts about the stability of iOS 8, or have already grown sentimental about iOS 7, well, the door has just shut behind you.

Normally Apple users wouldn’t have much reason to go back, but the shut-down of iOS 7 comes after a truly rocky launch of iOS 8 over the past 10 days.

iOS 8 was released to the public on September 17, but shortly before the launch health app developers were informed that apps using Apple’s HealthKit platform could not be launched in the App Store. HealthKit, they learned, had some last-minute bugs. So developers scrambled to remove HealthKit integration from their apps. Others decided to wait until iOS 8 was stable.

Then, on September 24, Apple released its first update for iOS 8, 8.01, which fixed the HealthKit problems but caused some users to experience difficulty using their iPhone’s Touch ID, while others reported interrupted cell service.

Apple quickly pulled that update and directed users to revert back to iOS 8.0.0. It then released 8.02, which seems to have fixed all the problems, although some users in Australia are still reporting cellular issues.

Apple says iOS 7 will still be supported for devices that can’t run iOS 8, namely Apple 4s and first-generation iPads.