Apple has issued an official warning to folks using an iPhone or iPad introduced 2012 and older to update their devices – or risk having their GPS systems go whack.
According to the blog post, users are urged to update to avoid issues with location, date and time synchronization due to the GPS epoch rollover. We’re not going to get into too much detail about what that is, but basically GPS systems depend on highly accurate time to properly function – and time in this context is represented in weeks. The systems use 10bit data to observe time – therefore it can only reach a number of 1023 – once the number hits 1024, which is the maximum, the system restarts.
This could corrupt the software or at the very least prevent your device from telling time and location accurately. The devices that should be updated include the iPhone 5 and iPad 4th Generation (iOS 10.3.4), as well as the iPhone 4s, iPad mini 1st-Gen, iPad 2, and the iPad 3rd-Gen (iOS 9.3.6).
You have until just before 12am UTC on November 3 to update your device. If you don’t, your device might fail to receive OTA updates to patch your system; if you’re affected, you will then need to update your device in iTunes of Finder via a tethered connection.
