There are many good reasons to let your iPhone update itself automatically. An updated phone will be running the latest version of apps and other software, meaning the best possible user experience and likely the fewest glitches.
iOS updates also help keep your iPhone as secure as possible. And best of all, with automatic updates, you don't even have to do a thing.
On the other hand, there are also reasons to disable automatic iPhone updates. Perhaps you have an important conference call coming up and don't want the phone to automatically reboot to install an iOS update just before or during that call or are dealing with an emergency and must be contactable.
Or maybe you simply prefer to control how and when your iPhone updates — whatever the reason, it's easy to turn off automatic updates on an iPhone.
Here's how to do it for software and app updates.
How to turn off automatic software updates on an iPhone
1. Open the Settings app and scroll down to the General tab.
2. Tap on Software Update.
3. Tap Automatic Updates.
4. Tap on the Install iOS Updates toggle switch to turn it off.
This will disable the automatic installation of iOS updates to your iPhone, but will not stop them from downloading when connected to a WiFi network. To stop downloading the updates altogether, turn off the Download iOS Updates toggle on this screen as well.
How to turn off automatic app updates on an iPhone
1. Open your Settings app.
2. Scroll to and tap the App Store tab
3. In the Automatic Downloads section, turn off the toggle for App Updates.
You can now manually update apps from the App Store's Updates tab, or enable automatic updates again by toggling the above tab back to green.
