How To Stop or Cancel iOS 6 From Downloading - APPLE SUCKS!

Apple has successfully made an Android customer out of me & pretty much every iPhone user I know today.  I already hated Apple's shady, corrupted way of business, but they were tolerable, and I liked my iPhone.  I've actually always hated the "phone" part of it, but loved the rest for the most part.  I've also always hated iTunes.  Everything about Apple's level of control over their users is a massive turn off, and is not something I will tolerate for long.  Today, Apple crossed the line for good.

With the recent release of the unbelievably crappy iOS 6 came A LOT of complaints.  The chief complaint was the loss of the Google Maps and YouTube apps.  Apple is so pathetic with their little vendetta against Google (since they can't come close to competing with them) that they decided their users shouldn't be allowed to enjoy Google apps either, and took the liberty of not only removing those apps from people's devices with iOS 6, but replaced Google Maps with Apple's own maps program that is the biggest, most epic failure of any major software release in the history of major corporation releases as far as I'm concerned.  It's literally as if they didn't have time to finish it (not even close), and decided to push it out there anyway.  It's almost like an April Fool's joke... 'cept it's September.  And it's not a joke.

Apple seriously thinks it's acceptable & justifiable to replace an awesome, 8 year old, extremely robust, one-of-a-kind maps application with their horrible, unfinished, joke of an app that mislabels cities & towns by a shocking number of miles, is missing key features such as Street View and transit directions, displaying the wrong location of a Sydney, Australia Apple Store (LOL), marking an entire city as a hospital, misclassifying a nursery as an airport, and pointing the next gas station to be as far as 76 miles away.  3D views are completely distorted, the Brooklyn Bridge appears to be collapsed, some satellite views are completely covered by clouds... the list goes on & on & on.  It's so bad, in fact, that Apple's CEO issued a public apology... yet they still won't give people back the best, working app on the market... Google Maps.  And for that reason, I say audios, Apple.  I'll never support them again.

In addition, Apple disallows users from downgrading their firmware.  Why?  Why would they do this unless it was yet another attempt to control their users?  I can't fathom the moronic logic behind this.  I think Apple is starting to circle the drain, and I'm glad to see them go.  Keep failing, Apple.  Keep trying to compete with Google by being even more controlling than ever, and taking more great features away from your users.  Idiots.

SO... with all of that said, I'll finally get to the point of this post... how to stop or cancel an unwanted or accidental iOS 6 download.  In my case, I realized right after tapping the "download & install" button on my iPhone, that it was possible that the loss of Google Maps & YouTube was within the iOS 6 upgrade (originally, I thought it was just if you bought the iPhone 5).  I pretty much freaked out, since I use Google Maps a lot, and frantically searched for a way to cancel it.  I was (and still am) utterly shocked at the fact that there is NO help to be found if this happens to you.  I couldn't believe it.  I eventually read that someone disabled their WiFi to at least pause the download and prevent the installation from happening, so I did that.

So, for days, my WiFi was disabled, which means I was eating up A LOT of my data plan.  Thanks a lot, Apple.  Yet another reason to loathe you.  I kept searching for answers & found nothing.  I finally found out why... I posted about it on Apple's forums, looking for help, and of course threw a few good digs at Apple for their epic fail & disastrous iOS 6 release, and sure enough, they deleted it.  Can't handle a little public criticism?  Fine... I'll blog about it, then.

ANYWAY... my hatred for Apple keeps causing me to rabbit trail off the subject :)  So, I finally figured out my own solution.  I remembered that the download needed a certain amount of space.  So, while hoping & praying that upon choosing to download iOS 6, the device didn't automatically reserve the space it needed, I started recording video with my camera.  2.5 hours worth of video to be exact... in an attempt to fill up every last bit of available space on my phone.

It finally finished, so I enabled WiFi again, and immediately checked the iOS 6 download screen.  Woohoo! The error had changed from "it requires WiFi in order to download" to "it requires x amount of space to download."  It was still paused

I figured, "Well, at least I have my WiFi back, but now I can't even download an app or take a picture."  So this solution wasn't all that great either... I continued searching for help.

About a half an hour later, I went back to check the iOS 6 download screen, and received a popup message stating that it requires "x" amount of space in order to download & that I need to make some space.  When I hit "close "or whatever to close the message, the download had reset!  It apparently timed out, cancelled the download all together, and the "Download & Install" button was back. HALLELUJAH!

So, to recap, here's what I did to cancel, stop or prevent iOS 6 from downloading:

1. Disable WiFi to initially pause the download. (Settings > WiFi > toggle switch to OFF)
2. Take as much video as necessary in order to take up every last bit of available space on your phone. (Just hit record & put the phone down... I suggest keeping it on the charger, since mine took 2.5 hours).  
3. Once you've eaten up every last bit of space, go to Settings > WiFi > and toggle the switch to ON to enable WiFi again. 
4. Take a look at your iOS 6 download screen (Settings > General > Software Update).  It should say "paused" and at the bottom, it should say something about being unable to download because it requires "x" amount of space.  
5. Wait a while... I waited 30 minutes.  Go back into the iOS 6 download screen, and you should get a pop up this time, telling you there's not enough space.  When you close the message, your download should be cancelled, and you should have the Download & Install button back!
6. Celebrate!

I really hope this helps someone with this incredibly frustrating problem.  And since I posted this all over the forums, there's a chance Apple will catch wind of this, and since they can't handle not controlling their users, they'll probably prevent this fix from working in the future.  I heard that another solution might be to disable the WiFi in your home (keep WiFi enabled on your phone), and it will time out the same way that mine did.  You just have to wait a while.  

Thanks a lot, Apple, for making this such a horrid, time consuming & frustrating process.  I hope you crash & burn & Google stomps on the ashes.