Have an iPhone 5, iPhone 4s, or Older iPad Model? Time to Update It

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From Nathan Parker: We have been discussing on the AskWoody Lounge that owners of the iPhone 5, iPhone 4s, or some older iPad models need to update to
[See the full post at: Have an iPhone 5, iPhone 4s, or Older iPad Model? Time to Update It]

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J9438, Myst, Microfix

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nothing wrong with another reminder considering it’s this sunday 3rd November.

Lots of people are simply not aware of this as they thought there would be no more iOS updates for their legacy devices. Wonder how many are sitting in ‘old tech drawers’ in homes.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created IT- AE

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Nathan Parker, Myst

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[OscarCP]

The problem has to do with the design of GPS Time is organized and how this time is transmitted from the satellites to the receivers, including those in the iPhones listed by Apple as in need of an update before next Tuesday. Back in the late 1970’s, when the system was designed, the existing electronics technology used both in satellites and receivers made it highly desirable to keep the number of bits transmitted, received and processed within tight limits. Also, few expected seriously that the satellites were going to last as long as many of them did. Because old satellites often took longer than twenty years before they had to be retired and also to make sure that the receivers then in use could continue to be operated without incompatibilities, the structure of the Navigation Message was not changed. As to what is this structure like: GPS Time given in GPS Week Number and GPS Second of Week. The time is atomic time, obtained by averaging the reading of a number of hyper-precise atomic clocks. Unlike “civil time” (“wall-clock time”), it does not have leap seconds included to keep pace with the very gradual slowing down of Earth rotation due to tidal friction that makes days get longer. “Wall clock” time is based on Universal Time Coordinated (UTC), that is also atomic time, but does include leap seconds to keep pace with the length of day. The difference between GPS Time and UTC, from the accumulated leap seconds, is 18 seconds at this time. So GS Time is running 18 seconds ahead of UTC. The start of GPS Time, 0 Week, 0 seconds, was set at exactly 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds UTC of 6th January, 1980.

But the problem at the beginning of this coming Tuesday is going to be caused by the limitations on the number of bits transmitted: only 10 for the Week number. So when the week count reaches a multiple of 1024 every 19.7 years, it rolls back to 0000. The usual way to deal with this is to add, at the beginning of a new week, when the GPS Second of Week is “0”, a ‘1’ to the previous week number, doing this week after week, so the week count actually used in the receivers and other equipment is continuously increasing and the time never jumps back to early 1980. This is likely to be one of the things those patches people should hurry to install will do.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by OscarCP.

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Nathan Parker

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Reality can be very strange. Very.

Although the GPS Week rollback occurred already, on 6 April this year, somehow for reasons not yet explained,  some Apple devices, in particular those with built-in GPS receivers already noted at the beginning of this thread will have a sort of mysterious echo of that on the coming 3rd of November. In fact, this is so strange that it confused me, that should have known better: I forgot the rollup already happened more tan six months ago! When it caused problems with many receivers, although one would have expected all receivers to have software capable to handle it, after the lessons learned from the first rollup, back in 1999… and given what was written in the initial version of the GPS receivers and software developer’s “Bible of GPS”, the Interface Control Document ICD-GPS-200. It made very clear that “Users must account for“ the anticipated ’99 rollback — and by implication, any further ones. Whether “users” include those that make receivers or not, those of us who use GPS directly or indirectly: just about everyone in much of the world even today (because many essential infrastructure systems such as electricity grids use embedded receivers to keep its various parts working in synch, etc.) implicitly expect the peculiarities of GPS to be “accounted for” by the manufacturers both in the hardware and the software they make and sell.

So: what has Apple wrought? Why is April’s GPS week rollback resurging now? I am not holding my breath waiting for Apple to explain that.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Nathan Parker

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Another reason to use devices with direct GPS access. WiFi/cellular or any other network dependent GPS is unreliable and fails if no such network is available. Anyway, one should refrain from OTA updates and update devices via computer if privacy matters.

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J9438

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Most modern cellphones, including those from Apple now in need of patching up before the 3rd of November, have built-in GPS receivers, so they get GPS signals and the information they carry, including timing, directly from their own receivers:

https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gps-phone2.htm

The cellphone receiver chipsets and their antennas are really, really small. Smartphones, being larger than old-style clamshells, have room for larger antennas and that means they can have better reception.

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Nathan Parker

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Great insights. Thanks for sharing!

Nathan Parker

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[J9438]

Wow! I did not know you could update your phone with a PC instead of through the cell service or WIFI. How can I do it? Maybe logon to Apple and download to the device on explorer? But then how does the phone know it is an update downloading? Can this also be done on Android phones? Thanks in advance.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by J9438.

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FWIW, if you have an iPhone 6, iOS v12.4.3 was also released for updating those models, and there may not be too many more at the rate which old models are being “retired”.

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J9438 wrote:

Wow! I did not know you could update your phone with a PC instead of through the cell service or WIFI. How can I do it?

Scroll down and you’ll see the instructions here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204204

On macOS Catalina, you’ll use Finder.

On macOS Mojave and earlier and Windows PC’s, you use iTunes.

Nathan Parker

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J9438

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