Apple Halts iPadOS 18 Release for iPad Pro M4 After Crash Complaints

Apple has temporarily paused the rollout of the iPadOS 18 update for iPad Pros M4. He stopped signing. The update is intended for these iPads, which means it will no longer be offered to users when they check for it, and Apple’s servers will not activate the update if it is installed otherwise.

Apple confirmed to Ars that it has “temporarily removed the update” to “address an issue affecting a small number of devices.”

The update is supposedly “breaking” devices for some iPad Pro M4 users; anecdotal reports from Reddit and MacRumors Forum Users Some reports suggest that some users installed the update without issues, while others ended up with unresponsive devices. Apple appears to be offering device replacements to affected users, which suggests a very serious glitch – devices can usually be put into recovery mode (or DFU) as a last resort if a software update fails.

Some people affected by the issue have reported that they first installed the iPadOS 17.7 update and then tried to install iPadOS 18.0. The 17.7 update is primarily provided as a security update for people who aren’t ready to upgrade to a completely new version of iPadOS yet, and the upgrade path from 17.7 to 18.0 may not have been as thoroughly tested as the upgrade from 17.6 to 18.0.

In any case, iPad Pro M4 owners who haven’t updated yet will need to wait — either until Apple releases a new version of the iPadOS 18 update without issues or until Apple determines that the disabled iPads are suffering from a hardware issue and not a software glitch.

The iPadOS 17.7 update is still being signed for these iPads, and users should install it if they want the latest security patches while they wait for Apple to resolve issues with iPadOS 18. Apple is also continuing to sign the iPadOS 18.0 update for other iPads, including the iPad Air M2.

This article has been updated with a statement from Apple.