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European Telcos: Please Don't Update To Apple's iOS 6.1!

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At least two of the European telecoms companies, the airtime providers, have asked their customers not to update to Apple's iOS 6.1. Specifically, please don't update your iPhone 4S to it. Here's the Austrian network:

Lieber 3 Kunde! Das Update des iPhone 4S auf iOS 6.1 kann zur Zeit Verbindungsprobleme verursachen.

And for those without German here's Vodafone from the UK:

We’re aware of an issue caused by Apple iPhone 4s handsets that have been upgraded to iOS 6.1 which impacts performance on 3G.

Some customers may occasionally experience difficulty in connecting to the network to make or receive calls or texts or to connect to the Internet. Apple is working on a solution to their software issue. These connection problems are intermittent.

While Apple’s investigations continue, we would recommend that anyone who has not yet installed iOS 6.1 on their iPhone 4s should delay doing so until Apple has confirmed that their problem has been fixed.

As to when it will be fixed well, there's a problem with anyone being able to tell you that. Apple are famous among the journalistic classes for not actually providing responses to such questions. One place I work, The Register (which is pretty much the tech world's online newspaper these days) simply never gets an answer out of Apple. It's become quite the standard joke in fact. But even the BBC has problems:

Is there a problem with the latest update to Apple's mobile operating system, and is it threatening to cause wider damage to mobile and corporate networks? I'm not entirely sure - because Apple itself is being typically uncooperative with anyone inquiring about it.

It does seem to be a deep rooted attitude there:

So what is Apple telling users to do? Is there a problem and if so, is it working to solve it?

I contacted the company on Friday afternoon, and have been seeking a response ever since. The most I've received so far is "we're currently not commenting".

Do note that this isn't just about batteries draining (something that has been a feature of the last few iOS upgrades). There are possibly more serious problems than that:

Some iPhone users have seen intermittent problems with making calls or sending texts, apparently caused by their phones continually "talking" to the network.
...
Corporate IT departments using Microsoft Exchange for mail have also experienced problems. Some reported that the upgrade can cause phones to contact internal mailboxes thousands of times an hour, slowing down mail services and draining the users' batteries.

It's all just a very slightly odd attitude for a company that prides itself on its customers' loyalty to take.