Absolutely. Because right now, my iPhone 5s has the original iOS 7 ringtone playing through its headphone jack (yes, it still has one), and it feels more futuristic than any iPhone 15.

So I asked myself a question that Apple’s servers really don’t want me to ask: Can I go back?

Fast forward to today. My 5s is currently running iOS 12. It’s slow. It’s flat. It’s sad. The apps barely open before crashing, and the once-revolutionary Touch ID feels like a relic.

iOS 12 on the same hardware feels like running Windows 10 on a netbook. The downgrade isn’t about features. It’s about feel . Here is the brutal reality: Apple stopped signing iOS 7 years ago. That means if you plug your 5s into iTunes and click "Restore," it will laugh at you (digitally) and serve you iOS 12.4.6.

You’re back.

It’s slow to boot. Sometimes it crashes. The battery drains faster because it’s a hack. But for ten glorious minutes, you are Steve Jobs’ time traveler. After two days of failed exploits, USB connection errors, and a brief moment where I thought I had bricked my $50 eBay phone, I finally saw it.

Let me paint you a picture. It’s 2013. You’re holding a champagne-colored iPhone 5s. You press your thumb on the home button—no passcode, no delay, just a click and you’re in. The screen ripples like water. That’s Skeuomorphism. That’s Scott Forstall’s ghost. That’s iOS 7 .

Spoiler: Yes. But it requires the patience of a monk and the technical know-how of a 2014 jailbreak forum moderator. Before we break our phones, let’s address the insanity. iOS 7 was controversial. It ditched the "realistic" textures of the old iOS for a flat, blurry, "depth" aesthetic. But here’s the secret: on an A7 chip (the 5s), iOS 7.0.x was lightning . Zero lag. Instant camera. And that boot-up animation? Pure dopamine.

Have you kept an old iPhone on its original firmware? Let me know in the comments—I want to live vicariously through you.

The past is a different country. And in 2026, the visa requires a jailbreak.

No. Not if you need a working phone. Not if you hate command line terminals.

The from iOS 7? It was revolutionary. But the app icons ? Those beautiful, glossy, non-conformist shapes? They made me realize something sad: Modern iOS has the soul of a spreadsheet. iOS 7 had the soul of a toy store.

Slide to unlock. The "Whoosh" sound. The Newsstand icon that looks like a wooden bookshelf. The Game Center app with those neon green felt pool tables.