Apple has been working on a system for wirelessly restoring the firmware of its devices for a long time. This feature was first introduced for Apple Watch with iOS 15.4 and watchOS 8.5 updates, and then reached Apple TV with iOS 17 and tvOS 17. Now, with the release of iOS 18, Apple has made this feature available for the iPhone 16 family.
According to 9to5Mac, the iOS 18 firmware for the iPhone 16 series includes the same RecoveryOS system that allows users to restore the Apple Watch and Apple TV firmware through the iPhone. This website managed to simulate the performance of the new system.
When the iPhone 16 enters recovery mode for any reason, users can simply place it next to another iPhone or iPad to start the firmware recovery process. The other device downloads a new version of iOS and transfers it to the affected device. This means that you will no longer need a Mac or Windows computer to solve firmware problems on iOS devices.
Although any device running iOS 18 can be used to restore locked Apple phones, the feature appears to be available only on the iPhone 16 series for now. New Apple phones come with a special recovery partition that handles the entire recovery process regardless of whether the main iOS partition is booted or not.
We still don’t know if Apple plans to add the iPhone 16 firmware recovery system to previous iPhone models or if the feature really requires dedicated hardware. However, this action is a big step towards making it easier to fix firmware problems for iPhone users.
