Not yet a post PC world

Apple's last major update to IOS (IOS 5) included an "over the air update" feature. The idea being that you should be able to upgrade the software on your iPad etc even if you have never purchased a Mac or a PC. Apple wants us to think that we've entered a "post PC era".

Now that IOS 5.0.1 has been released we get to try over the air updates for the first time.

When I tried to update my iPad I got the following message (after a lengthy process): "An error occurred installing IOS 5.0.1". Argh!

This error is not particularly helpful, and using only your iPad there doesn't seem to be any way to get further details about what went wrong, or to retry the update. Basically all you get is "iPad says no". So much for the post PC era :(

Anyway my next attempt was to tether to my Mac via USB and try updating via iTunes. This also failed (after another lengthy process) with: "The iPad ... could not be updated. An unknown error occurred (1654)". Still annoying, but at least there's an error number to help track down a solution.

The solution was to put my iPad into recovery mode and do a full restore (as per http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4097).

In hindsight I could probably have done the restore from my iCloud backup rather than the backup on my Mac. Maybe the post PC era isn't as far away as I thought?

Regardless, this kind of experience might be fine for us geeks, but does Apple seriously expect my Mum to be able to do this?

The on-device trouble shooting experience really needs to be a lot more robust. Ideally error messages would contain some details on what actually went wrong, along with something like "click here for suggestions on how to resolve this issue yourself, or here to make an appointment with the Genius Bar so we can fix the problem for you".

To be fair the update worked on my iPhone flawlessly.