The tiny 55MB update only claims to fix a few Apple AAPL -2.68% Music bugs, so what could go wrong? One week later, the answer turns out to be: a lot…
What Does iOS 8.4.1 Do?
On the surface iOS 8.4.1 should be very straightforward. Following its much hyped launch, Apple Music actually turned out to be pretty buggy. As such Apple lists just seven bullet points in its iOS 8.4.1 release notes and they are all focused on the company’s new streaming music service:
Resolves issues that could prevent turning on iCloud Music Library
Resolves an issue that hides added music because Apple Music was set to show offline music only
Provides a way to add songs to a new playlist if there aren’t any playlists to choose from
Resolves an issue that may show different artwork for an album on other devices
Resolves several issues for artists while posting to Connect
Fixes an issue where tapping Love doesn’t work as expected while listening to Beats 1 push sync for contacts and calendar (iCloud) are working again iTunes Issues
Also struggling under iOS 8.4.1 is iTunes. Notable are Apple Support Communities threads regarding failed syncing over Bluetooth and deletion of playlists.
Call, Text and Email Bugs
Somewhat undermining basic iPhone functionality are complaints that after upgrading iOS 8.4.1 some users have found their phones crash when making a call or opening the SMS app. On top of this emails in the Apple Mail app are unreadable due to graphical glitches.
Intermittent WiFi Connectivity
iOS 8 has a notorious history for troubled WiFi, but those who hadn’t experienced previous issues are now finding iOS 8.4.1 is causing new problems. A partial solution for some was a combination of phone and router reboots, but this hasn’t worked for everyone.
iPad Slowdowns
There were reports that iOS 8.4 caused slowdown issues on the iPad Air and iPad Air 2 when waking the tablets from sleep with the home button and noticeable delays with automatic screen rotation. Rather than disappearing, these are now being more widely reported after installing iOS 8.4.1.
For an update primarily targeted at fixing issues with Apple Music, iOS 8.4.1 also doesn’t appear to be doing a great job.
It has been discovered that the ‘Make Available Offline’ option for albums and playlists doesn’t work and duplicate albums and missing album artwork bugs remains rife with music collections users have uploaded.
Existing Bugs Remain
While not new to iOS 8.4.1, the update has not fixed two ongoing issues with iOS 8:
WiFried - Introduced back in September 2014 with the debut of iOS 8, it is somewhat shameful Apple (despite recognising its existence) has yet to fully address this. WiFried revolves around the new ‘DiscoveryD’ process which replaced ‘mDNSResponder’ in earlier iOS generations and causes WiFi dropouts and extreme Internet bandwidth throttling.
Apple recognised WiFried exists in iOS 8.3 and iOS 9 will revert to mDNSResponder. Of course this does nothing to help long suffering iOS 8 WiFried victims, but at least there’s not long to wait now.
Crippled Home Sharing – We didn’t expect a fix here with Apple also confirming the streaming audio functionality cut from Home Sharing in iOS 8.4 will not return until iOS 9. As such iOS 8.4.1 hasn’t delivered a pleasant surprise here.
What Does iOS 8.4.1 Do?
On the surface iOS 8.4.1 should be very straightforward. Following its much hyped launch, Apple Music actually turned out to be pretty buggy. As such Apple lists just seven bullet points in its iOS 8.4.1 release notes and they are all focused on the company’s new streaming music service:
Resolves issues that could prevent turning on iCloud Music Library
Resolves an issue that hides added music because Apple Music was set to show offline music only
Provides a way to add songs to a new playlist if there aren’t any playlists to choose from
Resolves an issue that may show different artwork for an album on other devices
Resolves several issues for artists while posting to Connect
Fixes an issue where tapping Love doesn’t work as expected while listening to Beats 1 push sync for contacts and calendar (iCloud) are working again iTunes Issues
Also struggling under iOS 8.4.1 is iTunes. Notable are Apple Support Communities threads regarding failed syncing over Bluetooth and deletion of playlists.
Call, Text and Email Bugs
Somewhat undermining basic iPhone functionality are complaints that after upgrading iOS 8.4.1 some users have found their phones crash when making a call or opening the SMS app. On top of this emails in the Apple Mail app are unreadable due to graphical glitches.
Intermittent WiFi Connectivity
iOS 8 has a notorious history for troubled WiFi, but those who hadn’t experienced previous issues are now finding iOS 8.4.1 is causing new problems. A partial solution for some was a combination of phone and router reboots, but this hasn’t worked for everyone.
iPad Slowdowns
There were reports that iOS 8.4 caused slowdown issues on the iPad Air and iPad Air 2 when waking the tablets from sleep with the home button and noticeable delays with automatic screen rotation. Rather than disappearing, these are now being more widely reported after installing iOS 8.4.1.
For an update primarily targeted at fixing issues with Apple Music, iOS 8.4.1 also doesn’t appear to be doing a great job.
It has been discovered that the ‘Make Available Offline’ option for albums and playlists doesn’t work and duplicate albums and missing album artwork bugs remains rife with music collections users have uploaded.
Existing Bugs Remain
While not new to iOS 8.4.1, the update has not fixed two ongoing issues with iOS 8:
WiFried - Introduced back in September 2014 with the debut of iOS 8, it is somewhat shameful Apple (despite recognising its existence) has yet to fully address this. WiFried revolves around the new ‘DiscoveryD’ process which replaced ‘mDNSResponder’ in earlier iOS generations and causes WiFi dropouts and extreme Internet bandwidth throttling.
Apple recognised WiFried exists in iOS 8.3 and iOS 9 will revert to mDNSResponder. Of course this does nothing to help long suffering iOS 8 WiFried victims, but at least there’s not long to wait now.
Crippled Home Sharing – We didn’t expect a fix here with Apple also confirming the streaming audio functionality cut from Home Sharing in iOS 8.4 will not return until iOS 9. As such iOS 8.4.1 hasn’t delivered a pleasant surprise here.
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