iOS 10 Bricked My iPhone (and Might Brick Yours, Too)

What if I don't have a computer with iTunes, just a linux machine. The bricked phone is an iPhone 6s plus with 128 Gb. It was a nice phone.. until the wonderful iOS 10 update. Now stuck on the iTunes logo. Been that way for two hours.

My 12-day-old iPhone 6S got bricked -- and I mean really bricked -- during an iTunes plugged-in update today. I was running iOS 9.3.5 with no problems. Plugged in the phone to my PC, iTunes opened and said there was an update to iTunes available (new since yesterday when I last plugged it in). I downloaded and installed that iTunes update, and then I was informed that there was new software for the iPhone 6s, iOS 10. I clicked Update, and after half an hour of doing what appeared to be nothing, I got the message that the phone couldn't be updated. I was asked if I wanted to restore the phone to the previous OS. I clicked restore. Another half and hour of it doing nothing, and then I was informed that there was an error and the phone couldn't be restored, and it was dead. Unplugged it from the computer, and the phone was not even recognized when I tried to run the diagnostics in iTunes. Verizon was unable to help. I had to take it to an Apple store where they used a "Golden Copy" of iOS 10 to revitalize the phone. My iTunes backup did the rest. But this was an avoidable and completely inexcusable waste of an afternoon for me, and from I can tell countless other people.

18591439 said:

What if I don't have a computer with iTunes, just a linux machine. The bricked phone is an iPhone 6s plus with 128 Gb. It was a nice phone.. until the wonderful iOS 10 update. Now stuck on the iTunes logo. Been that way for two hours.

If you have access to a friend, colleague or family member's laptop, that will also do the trick. If you can't, a trip to the Apple Store is in order. I hope you have iCloud backups, though.

18592754 said:

My 12-day-old iPhone 6S got bricked -- and I mean really bricked -- during an iTunes plugged-in update today. I was running iOS 9.3.5 with no problems. Plugged in the phone to my PC, iTunes opened and said there was an update to iTunes available (new since yesterday when I last plugged it in). I downloaded and installed that iTunes update, and then I was informed that there was new software for the iPhone 6s, iOS 10. I clicked Update, and after half an hour of doing what appeared to be nothing, I got the message that the phone couldn't be updated. I was asked if I wanted to restore the phone to the previous OS. I clicked restore. Another half and hour of it doing nothing, and then I was informed that there was an error and the phone couldn't be restored, and it was dead. Unplugged it from the computer, and the phone was not even recognized when I tried to run the diagnostics in iTunes. Verizon was unable to help. I had to take it to an Apple store where they used a "Golden Copy" of iOS 10 to revitalize the phone. My iTunes backup did the rest. But this was an avoidable and completely inexcusable waste of an afternoon for me, and from I can tell countless other people.

I had to completely restore my phone, and I thought I was mad. I'm still finding little settings I have to readjust, and I had a fairly recent backup. It's a shame you had to go through that! At least you got into a Genius Bar on short notice, though.