Bourbon and Beta Upgrades (an iOS 13/Catalina story)
Yesterday I had a few minutes of personal think time on my hands and was eager to accomplish something. My brain went to two places, shopping and technology upgrades. Wanting to keep my Mint budget intact for the month, I decided on upgrades. As it turned out, I was perhaps too eager to upgrade, and as a result, I birthed a hell of a mess which I named “Upgrade Armageddon”.
Now Armageddon started as a beautiful child and during the gestation period of reading and downloading I imaged great things from Armageddon. The joy Armageddon would bring to me from hours of playing, watching, interacting, and the envy from my friends was a pleasant thought. However, as many proud parents find out the reality of their little one’s future most often varies from our plans during their early years, and Armageddon was no different.
As an Apple fanboy (at 53 that was difficult to type and look at) and owner of the standard Apple inventory, iPhone Xs Max, iPad Pro, MacBook, iPods and all the required accessories, I decided to download the iOS 13 beta versions and Catalina upgrade on my devices AT THE SAME TIME. As a developer and having upgraded to beta versions in the past, I was no stranger to the process. I’ve always moved to beta versions early and although there have been a few minor bumps along the way I’ve never experienced a significant inconvenience until the birth of Armageddon.
Upgrading to beta versions, mainly a major version upgrade, may appear reckless to some people but upgrading ALL devices at the same time turned out to be the ultimate definition of stupid.
The upgrade process on all devices executed smoothly, which gave me some comfort as I moved forward. With no errors during downloading, updating, or powering on the devices, I was eager to experience the new looks, feels, and functions that awaited me. My baby appeared perfect, and I had a warm fuzzy feeling towards Armageddon. That feeling of having a bright new shiny operation system on all my devices faded quickly as Armageddon’s personality soon took over much like Skynet delivery Terminator’s to kill Sarah Connor.
My “goto” apps like Evernote, Spark, and Brave (if you haven’t checked out the Brave browser I’ll do you a solid and strongly recommend it) either stopped working entirely or functioned erratically at best. The home screens on all the devices looked great, and many of the Apple apps I tested functioned normally and with some nice enhancements however the tradeoff of almost nothing else working was not worth the early innovator badge a would proudly display my (slightly hairy) chest.
Quickly I decided this was a mistake, and to function, I would need to downgrade immediately. Easy right? No not easy at all, and as it turns out is an extremely time-consuming process.
Working for myself managing IT systems for small local governments who have no full-time IT staff looking after their servers, systems, and users I require my tech to work correctly 24/7 (yes I am a complete idiot to upgrade everything to beta versions at one time! head bowed in shame). I also code and have spent the better part of a year working on my app that is scheduled to release shortly and provide people with easy access to their elected and appointed officials at the national, state and local levels of government. The app also provides information on every election in the country (the United States only at this time, apologies to the rest of the world!). Again not having reliable tech is not an option for me.
What do I do this evening after learning my tech is about 35% useful? bourbon, of course! After a couple of silky smooth glasses with ice (sorry purists), I begin researching a solution.
So to downgrade the iOS devices (phone and tablet), I must connect them to the MacBook and restore via iTunes. Great I’ve done this before and even with my very slow Internet service (price too pay when living in the woods near a river) I can accomplish this rather quickly. So I boot up the Mac and open iTunes but wait where did the iTunes logo go? My brain quickly recalls something about iTunes going away, but I didn’t pay attention to that because I rarely used iTunes for anything (bingo guess I wasn’t the only one who didn’t use iTunes). I begin searching for iTunes and nothing on the Mac. After another Google session, I find out iTunes is no longer a “product” under the next MacOS release, which I just installed.
As of tonight, I have a MacBook with the latest beta of Catalina installed which does not include an iTunes app. I need iTunes to downgrade/restore my iOS devices which I upgraded to iOS 13. Stuck in this situation, and having swallowed my last glass of bourbon for the night, I decided to “sleep on it” and fix this mess in the morning.
What should you take away from this?
1. I am a complete idiot
2. Do not upgrade all your devices at the same time
3. Maybe research before jumping into bed with an upgrade
4. Don’t name your kid Armageddon!
Good night! :)
