I have had a few people ask me about updating firmware manually on the iPhone/iPad manually. A huge issue we have here in SA, is that because of our sometimes “dodgy internet connectivity”, we get disconnected quite often.
If you are using iTunes to download the latest firmware, you will notice, that if you get disconnected, more often than not, you need to restart the download every time, which can become annoying as well as expensive
So, I thought I would show you how to manually update your firmware, after downloading the update to your PC/Mac. I recommend a copy of Firefox, and this awesome download manager plug-in called Download Them All. This will help you download the actual firmware file from the Apple servers onto your PC/Mac and then update.
To download the latest firmware(file extension is .ispw) directly from Apple, you can go to this page at iClarified (bookmark it), and then choose to download with Download Them All. This way, if your connection gets interrupted, you can continue your download from the same place it stopped.
Once you have your file downloaded, open iTunes and plug your iPhone/iPad in. On your main info screen, you will see 2 options, Check for update (which will download from Apple without a download manager, and break) or Restore.
If you are on a PC, you need to hold the SHIFT button in, and click on the “Check For Update button”. If you are on a MAC, you need to hold the OPTION key and click on “Check For Update button”. You will then be asked to locate the file you downloaded (using Firefox and Download Them All), and chose that file. Once you have selected the file, iTunes will continue the installation as per normal.
And that it is :)
