5 Things to Know About the iOS 15.8 Update [u]

Apple’s pushed a surprise iOS 15.8 update to iPhone and the firmware brings important under-the-hood improvements to users stuck on the aging operating system.

iOS 15.8 is compatible with older iPhone models that didn’t make the move to iOS 16. The list includes the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7, and iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone SE.

iOS 15.8 is a milestone update, but like many of its predecessors, it’s focus is on security. It doesn’t have any known bug fixes or outward facing features on board.

With that in mind, we want to take you through everything you need to know about iOS 15.8, Apple’s latest and greatest iOS 15 update for the iPhone.

11/2 Update: Apple recently stopped signing on the previous version of iOS 15 and we’ve updated this article to reflect the change. 

In this guide we’ll take you through iOS 15.8’s changes, its performance, problems plaguing the operating system, the iOS 15 jailbreak status, and more.

We’ll start with some thoughts about iOS 15.8’s performance.

iOS 15.8 Review

The iOS 15.8 update requires a small chunk of storage space on your iPhone. Most people won’t have to make room for the software and the download should only take a few minutes to finish up.

That said, if you’ve fallen behind on software updates, it could be much larger. In some cases, iOS 15.8 could require several gigabytes of space.

The installation should take 10 minutes or less to complete. It took around eight minutes to install on an iPhone 7 that was previously running iOS 15.7.9.

We’ve been using the iOS 15.8 update on an iPhone 7 for several days now and we haven’t noticed any major problems with the software thus far. Here’s what we’ve learned about the software’s performance:

iOS 15.8 Battery Life & Connectivity

• Battery life is stable right now and we haven’t noticed abnormal drain thus far
• Wi-Fi connectivity is fast and reliable
• Bluetooth is working normally
• GPS and cellular data are stable

App Performance

• Third-party apps including Netflix, Twitter, Slack, Gmail, Chrome, and Spotify are all working fine
• First party apps like Safari and Podcasts are also working properly

Speed

• iOS 15.8 feels pretty snappy and we haven’t run into any debilitating lag

If your iPhone’s struggling on iOS 15.7.9 or an older version of iOS 15, you might want to install iOS 15.8 on your iPhone today. If you need help making a decision, you’ll want to check out our reasons to, and not to, install the software.

iOS 15.8 Problems

We’re having a good experience, but iOS 15.8 is causing problems for some iPhone users. Some of these problems are brand new while others have made their way over from older versions of iOS 15.

The current list of iOS 15 problems includes abnormal battery drain, busted Wi-Fi, broken Bluetooth, issues with Touch ID, and problems with various first and third-party apps.

If you run into a problem on iOS 15.8, take a look at our list of fixes for the most common iOS 15 problems. We’ve also released some tips that could help you improve your phone’s performance and tips that could help you fix bad iOS 15 battery life.

Apple recently stopped signing on iOS 15.7.9 which means you can’t move your iPhone’s software back to the previous version of iOS 15 if iOS 15.8 starts causing issues. You can’t downgrade to anything older than iOS 15.7.9 either.

For more about the downgrade process, check out our guide.

iOS 15.8 Features

Apple’s no longer pushing new features to iOS 15 users. The most recent versions of iOS 15 have all patched up security issues and that’s precisely what iOS 15.8 does.

The official change log notes that the update brings an important security fix to iPhone users and you can learn more about it over on Apple’s security site.

iOS 15.8 Jailbreak

Developers have released a jailbreak tool that’s compatible with iOS 15 and iOS 16, but it only works with select iPhone models and select versions of iOS.

What’s Next

It’s unclear if iOS 15.8 will be the final version of iOS 15. Apple could choose to push additional versions of iOS 15 later this year, but that hasn’t been confirmed.

Apple won’t push additional iOS 15 upgrades to iPhone 8 and newer going forward. That being said, we could still see new iOS 15 software for the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone SE down the road.

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