iphone 6 x 3

If you’re one of the unlucky souls who updated your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus this morning to iOS 8.0.1, Apple’s buggy update, I have good news: there’s a way out. The bad news is that it requires some time and a computer running iTunes.

First, users should go into Settings > iCloud on their phone, and switch off Find My iPhone. That will disable the phone’s Activation Lock, which will make it easier to restore a backup. After that, they should download a copy of iOS 8 – iPhone 6 Plus users can do so from this link, while iPhone 6 users should download from this link.

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Once the file is downloaded, open up iTunes, and connect the affected iPhone to your computer using USB. After that, hold down the Option key (Alt on a PC) and click “Check for Update.” After that, a window should pop up, prompting you to open a file. Select the software you downloaded earlier. After that, just wait for iTunes to do its thing.

If that doesn’t work, you may have to use Device Firmware Update (DFU) mode to do a complete restore of the device. Instructions for how to do that are here. After that, iTunes should prompt you to restore the iPhone, and get things back to normal.

As you’re waiting for the restore to finish, have a listen to Jonathan Mann’s song commemorating today’s screw-up:

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