Apple continues to move forward and clean up its services. The Cupertino company has just announced important news regarding its iCloud backup service, which will impact users of older iOS devices. A decision which is part of Apple’s usual strategy aimed at keeping its services up to date and secure.
Apple’s old iCloud backup system soon to be retired
Starting December 18, 2024, Apple will end support for iCloud backups for all devices running iOS 8 or earlier. This major change involves not only the inability to create new backups, but also the outright deletion of existing backups stored on iCloud for these devices.
Apple justifies this decision by a desire to “more closely align” its services with its “published minimum software requirements”. A technical change is also involved: since iOS 9, Apple has used CloudKit for iCloud backups, a more modern and secure technology than the previous system.
Solutions for affected users
Fortunately, Apple offers several solutions for users of very old devices:
- Updating to iOS 9 or later for compatible devices (iPhone 4S or newer, iPad 2 or newer, iPod touch 5th generation or newer)
- Manual backup via a Mac or Windows PC using Finder on macOS and iTunes on Windows.
It is important to note that applications and data stored on devices will not be affected by this change. Only automatic cloud backup is affected.
This decision by Apple highlights the importance of keeping your devices up to date, not only for security reasons but also to continue to benefit from essential services. To put that into perspective, iOS 8 launched 10 years ago, in 2014, an eternity in tech terms, and it’s already nice that Apple has maintained these services for this long. Most active iPhone and iPad users today are running much newer versions of the operating system, the latest being iOS 18.
Affected users have until December 18, 2024 to take the necessary steps and back up their important data via one of the alternative methods offered by Apple.
