iOS text bug crashes iPhones, iPads and more
Imagine receiving an innocent enough text message from a friend, only to have your iPhone screen go black and the white apple logo appears, indicating that it has restarted. That’s what some Reddit users discovered earlier this week.
The problem stems from the way iOS renders a certain string of non-Latin-based script. If users send a particular phrase in Arabic to someone on an iOS device, the device will crash. Because this is an iOS issue and not just an iPhone issue, that means it equally affects the iPad, iPod Touch and the new Apple Watch.
When a user is not actively using the phone, a text message is displayed in a banner or notification on the lock screen. iOS only displays a certain number of characters before cutting it off with an ellipsis. Trying to insert this series of dots into phrases in Arabic, Marathi and Chinese causes the phone to crash and reboot.
There’s no reason to fear accidentally crashing your phone, however. The Guardian reports that in attempting to replicate the error, it took 50 different attempts at the variation of characters before finally replicating the crash. Therefore, it is highly unlikely to happen unintentionally. However, for those still concerned about the possibility of this happening because they use these languages frequently on their phone or fear being attacked, the best thing to prevent it is to disable notification banners on your iPhone. If you’re an Apple Watch early adopter, you can prevent your iPhone from crashing by receiving your notifications on your watch.
Another method users have reported to help fix the problem is sending a photo to a contact through the Photos app, which then allows you to access the message history and delete the conversation. If that still doesn’t do the trick, there’s another helpful Reddit thread that gives further assistance with the bug.
This is not the first time Apple devices have been plagued with similar crash-inducing bugs. Typically it happens in third-party apps like Snapchat. Apple claims to be aware of the issue and promises that it will be corrected in the next software update.
Update: Apple posted an official “work around” to help users experiencing this problem.
- Ask Siri to “read unread messages.”
- Use Siri to reply to the malicious message. After you reply, you’ll be able to open Messages again.
- In Messages, swipe left to delete the entire thread. Or tap and hold the malicious message, tap More, and delete the message from the thread.
Featured Image Copyright: / 123RF Stock Photo
