Has Anyone Run Into This Re: iPadOS...

[Dreambird]

I found this today... it's from Oct. 26th so very recent and I keep "hearing" about the option but it doesn't show on my iPad Air 2:

https://osxdaily.com/2021/10/26/ios-14-8-1-ipados-14-8-1-released-with-security-updates/#comments

It states:

    Open the “Settings” app on iPhone or iPad
    Go to “General”, then select “Software Update”
    Scroll down to ‘Also Available’ below the iOS 15/iPadOS 15 updates
    Choose to “Download and Install” iOS 14.8.1 or iPadOS 14.8.1

However when I go to the Settings app>General>Software Update on my iPad Air 2 it offers only iPadOS 15.1, no other choices. I want to upgrade from my current iOS 11.4.1 and would prefer the option to upgrade to iPadOS 14.something but the option is not there as it should be? I thought, or at least I heard the last iteration of iPadOS 14 was 14.7.something so it would seem this is a new release that would have come out when iPadOS 15 was already out too but it does not give me the option on my iPad.

Has anyone else run into this? :shrug:

[Dreambird]

OR... maybe this is the trick?

https://osxdaily.com/2021/01/26/ios-14-4-and-ipados-14-4-update-download-iphone-ipad/

Download and use the .ipsw file for iPad - 2nd Generation from here through iTunes to get "some" version of iPadOS 14 on one's iPad and then the option might show up? I'm not sure as there seems to be plenty of complaints from people floating around who are running a version of 14 and it still doesn't show in Settings as an option to choose between 14.8.1 or 15.1.

[Xairbusdriver]

I think the source of the comments is that Apple has announced they will continue to offer security updates for iOS 14 even though 15 is available. Check a few other info sites, DuckDuckGo is your friend.

[Dreambird]

Thanks for the suggestion, Jim... I'll have a look around DuckDuckGo. Luckily I've now also had a chance to see my sister's iPad as she's visiting right now and it was still running iPadOS 14.6 so when we checked her available updates she DID have the choice of going to iPadOS 14.8.1 OR iPadOS 15.1 so she chose the former since like me she'd rather wait a few iterations of the newest iPadOS  so as to let others work out all the bugs first. But... yes, you are right it's security updates, but then I had already figured that out anyway that one needs to have some version of iPadOS 14 already on their iPad to get the choice to show. 

[sluggo]

I had the red number show up on the System icon the other day. Checked software update and it indicated that I could go either way on this update. Either 14.8 or 15.1.
I opted for the latter. So far, so good.

[Dreambird]

Thank you very much for chiming in with the feedback on 15.1, Sluggo! Much appreciated

*edit**
Oh... just to mention, I don't have a Software Update item in my system preferences... under El Capitan... mine shows up in the App Store. I've always gotten everything that way for this OS and it's always worked fine except for the last security update that for some reason went badly, on restart as instructed I got a kernel panic and again on every attempt to restart. I was forced to boot into recovery mode and restore the whole thing from Time Machine. Never had the nerve to try it again until a few days ago I tried it booted from a clone and was able to do the update there so "fingers crossed" I should be able to get it to work on the MBP now as well.