Apple's app woes are now sorted, the company says.
May 28 update below. This post was first published on May 27.
It’s only a matter of days since iOS 13.5 launched with actual life-saving potential. But a crazy bug that appeared with it led to apps refusing to open. Apple has now confirmed that the problem has been fixed, as reported by Tech Crunch.. Here’s what happened and how to make sure you’re sorted.
May 28 update: Today a new issue has arisen which the German federal cybersecurity agency warns affects the Apple iPhone default email app. This is related to vulnerabilities firs discovered by ZecOps, the American security company, and now the German organization, the BSI, has stressed that keeping your devices on the very latest software is crucial to outwit this flaw. As TechRadar Pro pointed out, the BSI said: “Apple has released security updates with iOS 12.4.7, iOS 13.5 and iPadOS 13.5 that fix the vulnerabilities for all affected iOS versions. Due to the criticality of the vulnerabilities, the BSI recommends that the respective security update be installed on all affected systems immediately.”
There are two security flaws and they are what’s called no-click vulnerabilities. In other words, they result from a memory consumption issue and they can be triggered by a malware email.
The BSI stresses that the very latest updates, as enumerated above, addressed the flaws, thanks to improved memory handling and other protocols. Until the latest software was applied, it could affect iPhones from the 6s onwards, iPads from the iPad Air 2 and even the iPod touch 7th generation.
When a bug affects something as central to the iPhone or iPad as email, you know it’s serious. It’s just the latest issue in Apple software problems. In other related news, the method recently discovered to jailbreak iPhones continues to fascinate. Today, 9to5Mac has shared a video tutorial showing how to jailbreak an iPhone using a Windows computer. This is the sequel to the tutorial which ran previously and showed you how to jailbreak the phone using a Mac. A previous error message has since been addressed in this new video, too.
The particular vulnerability which the current jailbreak exploits works across more than just one generation of software, stretching back to iOS 11. That’s millions of currently used iPhones which are affected. Of course, some people are delighted by this, to have the opportunity to jailbreak their iPhone and use apps and designs from outside the App Store. For others it’s a worry of an insecure system. Stay tuned for the next iOS update which is likely to come very soon and focus on the jailbreak vulnerability front-and-center. Anyway, back to the sharing bug...
Soon after iOS 13.5 was launched, users began to report a strange bug that rendered their apps useless. It didn’t apply to everyone but many people said that when trying to open an app, they were met with an unfamiliar message, saying: “This app is no longer shared with you. To use it, you must buy it from the App Store.”
This app is no longer shared
It turns out that the issue was related to the Family Sharing System – hence the reason that not everybody was affected by it. Only users who were part of a family account, where one family member pays for apps for the rest of the family from their Apple ID, were affected.
That Apple ID Family Sharing also applies to free apps, which is why the same, confusing message appeared on apps that were free to download.
In fact, some users who hadn’t updated to iOS 13.5, or even iOS 13, reported the same issue, so it wasn’t just limited to the latest software.
Some users found that old tech standby, turning the iPhone or iPad off and on again, worked to correct the issue.
Others deleted the app and downloaded it again, which also sorted it out. But many more were left pondering what to do. It was chaos.
Apple took action on Sunday, May 24 and as Forbes Contributor Kate O’Flaherty reported, another mysterious set of circumstances arose. Many Apple users suddenly noticed that apps were updating on their iPhone in far larger numbers than usual. Scores, sometimes hundreds of apps were updating at once. That’s only if they had set their device to automatically update apps. Those who didn’t instead saw a clutch of apps suddenly showing as pending.
Essentially, what Apple was doing was the same as those users who had deleted and re-installed the app: the update was over-writing the previous version with no discernible difference or improvement apart from the fact that the clash with the Family Sharing system was now resolved. Not an update, then, more a repeat install.
The cause is still unclear, though as 9to5Mac pointed out, it was likely down to a signing issue which made the apps behave as though they were paid downloads which had suddenly lost the right to be shared.
Now, TechCrunch says that the issue has now been resolved for all affected customers. No more details have been shared, but the fast action was necessary so users didn’t blame the app developers for a problem for which they were blameless.
If you’re still getting the issue and the disturbing “no longer shared” message, the solution is straightforward enough. Go to the App Store app on your iPhone or iPad, tap the Apple ID icon in the top right that leads you to your account and check out if you have any pending updates. Scroll through the list – there may be more than you’d expect.
Then, just click Update All, and you’re golden. You could also choose to have updates happen automatically in the future. To do so, go to Settings, iTunes and App Store, then select App Updates in the Automatic Downloads section.
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