Ad Image

Why Do People Think it’s Ok to Ignore OS Updates?

grings my gearsWith the recent release of iOS 9, I’ve been talking to a lot of people about their opinions on the new update. What I’ve come to find out is there are an overwhelming amount of people who never update their phones. They come in many forms: people who don’t understand what an OS update is, people who will literally put off an update for years because they “don’t have time”, and the skeptics who don’t trust the update. All of these people are wrong and are going to eventually be met with a pretty nasty surprise.

When talking to older people, especially when they’re carrying a smartphone for work, things tend to get a bit hazy when it comes to updates and OS upgrades. They see this notification and don’t really know what it’s for so they ignore it. We owe it to our less tech-savvy friends to let them know what an OS update does and why it’s important. Devices can’t force updates, so it will never happen if the user doesn’t approve it.

Then there are the people, and I have been guilty of this myself over the years, who are way too busy to update their devices. They’re too busy candy crushing or Instagram-ing to have a moment to restart their phone for an upgrade. People will actually put up upgrades for years and end up screwing themselves when they lose pieces of their data.

Just a few weeks ago a friend of mine finally upgraded to iOS 8 from iOS 6 (I believe). He then decided to make a Facebook status saying “This is why I never upgrade my phone! I finally upgraded because my phone was acting weird and now all of my contacts are gone!” In the comment thread he was warning people not to upgrade their phones ever. Being in the profession I’m in, I was not going to stand for that. I commented on the thread saying, “Hey, you should have upgraded almost a year ago and I bet this never would have happened. Skipping upgrades is like going from Windows 95 to Windows 8 and expecting everything to come out intact on the other side. They’re completely different and updates aren’t meant to jump over each other like that. Be mad at yourself for that one.”

Of course that was not well received, but he’s was angry again a short time later when he found out that iOS 9 was on its way out. People like that are part lazy/part skeptical when it comes to upgrades and updates. They just don’t want to shut their phones off for a few minutes and want to tell everyone that upgrades are bad to justify it to themselves. These people are dangerous especially when they work for a company that has MDM or a BYOD policy.

As I wrote yesterday, OS upgrades are no joke. People need to cooperate and understand that it’s so important to upgrade even if it’s not right away. Anyone who gives an excuse like the recent Quicksand scare for iOS or StageFright for Android is very misinformed.

In the tech world, in particular the mobile world, there will always be hacks and glitches like this because they are nearly undetectable until something goes wrong. Sticking with a dated OS is not going to protect you from security holes, in fact it makes you more vulnerable because once they are exposed, they get fixed and the only way you can fix these issues is with a software update that they make available to you for free.

So please, please update your device and if you’re using an enterprise device, make sure that all corporate end-users do as well. With all of the advances in the mobile tech world, this is virtually your only responsibility; help keep your corporate data safe and most of all save yourself a lot of frustration in the future.

Download Link to MDM Buyer's Guide

Share This

Related Posts