Sup Appleheads,

So for some people today when attempting to upgrade their Apple iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to iOS5 it hasn’t been working. I tried about 40 times with no success. Apparently what happens when upgrading the firmware on iDevices they communicate with Apple HQ or in other words they “phones home” (hur hur). From what I’ve heard this is to make sure you’re using official Apple software. I guess this mechanism is to stop Jailbreakers and the like but today on the official launch of iOS5 it had an unwelcome side effect, it stopped you from properly (and legally) upgrading. Apparently there have been so many people wanting to upgrade that the server that checks out if you using Apple authorised software was overloaded with requests. If want to get around you computer phoning Apple HQ try this.

1. Open the ‘Terminal’ program on your Mac.
2. Type ‘sudo nano /etc/hosts’
3. Enter your computer password
4. Put a # in front of the line ’74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com’
5. Try updating again, it should work this time

!! DISCLAIMER – try this at your own risk. I don’t know the legal in’s and and out’s but it worked for me. !!

Much credit to gentschi on the Apple forum and decoding.wordpress.com for the info for this work around, cheers!

Peace,
Benet