Apple has temporarily paused the rollout of the iPadOS 18 update for M4 iPad Pros. The company has stopped signing the update for these iPads, meaning it will no longer be offered to users when they check, and Apple's servers won't activate the update if it's installed some other way.
Apple confirmed to Ars that it had "temporarily removed" the update in order to "resolve an issue that is impacting a small number of devices."
The update has supposedly been "bricking" devices for some M4 iPad Pro users; anecdotal reports from Reddit and MacRumors forum users suggest that some users have installed the update without issue, and others have ended up with unresponsive devices. Apple is apparently offering hardware replacements to users who have been affected, which points to a pretty serious bug—usually devices can be put into recovery (or DFU) mode as a last resort in the event of a botched software update.
Some people affected by the problem reported that they installed the iPadOS 17.7 update first and then attempted to install iPadOS 18.0. The 17.7 update is provided primarily as a security update for people who aren't ready to upgrade to an entirely new version of iPadOS just yet, and the 17.7 to 18.0 upgrade path may not have been tested as thoroughly as the 17.6 to 18.0 upgrade.
In any case, M4 iPad Pro owners who haven't already upgraded will need to wait—either for Apple to release a new version of the iPadOS 18 update without the problems or for Apple to determine that the bricked iPads are suffering from a hardware issue rather than a software glitch.
The iPadOS 17.7 update is still being signed for these iPads, and users should install it if they want the latest security patches while they wait for Apple to resolve the problems with iPadOS 18. Apple is also continuing to sign the iPadOS 18.0 update for other iPads, including the M2 iPad Air.
This article was updated with a statement from Apple.
