Apple Resurrects iPhone 5s, 6, And Other Devices Running iOS 12 With Emergency Patch

If you are still using an iPhone 5S, 6 or 6 Plus, you have a rare OS update to download. Apple released an update on Wednesday for iOS 12 that patches a security hole already fixed in its newer versions of iOS.

It seems older smartphones are getting some love recently, as both Apple and Samsung have released updates for its older devices. Samsung recently sent out an update for its Galaxy S6-9 models to give the phones better GPS stability. Now, Apple is sending out a patch for some of its older hardware as well.

Apple's security patch is stated on its webpage as addressing "An out-of-bounds write issue." The tech company says it is aware of a report that the issue has been actively exploited and that its impact involves "processing maliciously crafted web content" which may lead to arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability's discovery is credited to an anonymous researcher and has been catalogued as CVE-2022-32893. So, if you are still using one of the devices included in the update you will want to make sure to update as soon as possible.

The listed devices include the iPhone 5S, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air, iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3, and iPod touch (6th generation).

You can get the update by going to Settings > General > Software Update. If you happen to get a warning about not having enough storage to install the update, there are a couple things you can do to remedy the storage woes. One way to free up space is to utilize a cloud storage service like iCloud. Another is to simply delete some of the photos/videos, or older texts that you have. You can also choose to delete some of the unused apps that you no longer use as well.