iTunes iOS upgrade vs. OTA upgrade

[trparky]

Is there any real difference between an iTunes iOS upgrade and an OTA upgrade?

Why I'm asking is that there were some glitches that I was having on the iPhone after the OTA upgrade from iOS 8.1.3 to iOS 8.2 and I decided to do a full restore of the iPhone.

I figured, what the heck? What will it cost me? Half an hour? Big deal.

So I plugged in my iPhone to my desktop, performed a backup, and then told iTunes to do an iPhone Restore. It then proceeded to download a full copy of the iOS 8.2 installation file (2.2 GBs of data) from Apple and then put the device into... I don't even know. It reloaded the OS or at least it appeared to do so. It then walked me through the whole process of restoring my iPhone backup.

Half an hour later and I'm back up and running on my iPhone, minus the weird glitches.

Why? What happened? What got fixed? How did it get fixed? What fixes were done by doing this long procedure?

 

[kch50428]

Is there any real difference between an iTunes iOS upgrade and an OTA upgrade?

iTunes will, as you noticed - download and install a full version of the iOS - OTA is only changed system files...

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

I can't tell you why installing the entire OS fixed your problems as opposed to the delta update (OTA), but I can tell you that I've experienced the same in the past and I just stick to iTunes updates simply because I can. I think OTA is nice and convenient and eliminates the need for being tethered to a computer, but my preference is installing updates through iTunes.

 

[pr1nce]

I've only done OTA updates. Never had a problem.

 

[zerog46]

From what I understand if you put your phone into DFU mode and do an iTunes install the entire is is removed from the phone and reinstalled.

 

[Garz]

I believe in installing via iTunes than OTA. I believe in installing a OS as a whole other than piecing a OS together which OTA. Just my thoughts but everybody will have their own opinion.


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