Beware: typing these letters will crash your iPhone and will be unusable
Apple hasn't learned from its mistakes, just got information about a bunch of characters that can make your iPhone completely unusable. This isn't the first time this has happened, so Apple is expected never to make this mistake again.
Thanks to an investigation by security specialists, this new flaw was discovered. It didn't take long for the news to spread, and by accidentally typing this set of characters, you may have to take your iPhone to Apple's repair center.
The specific issue affects the settings section and iOS home screen. The combination of scrolling and typing certain characters causes Sprigboard, the program that manages the iOS main menu, to crash completely.
The situation necessary for the problem to arise is the following:
- Swipe right on the main iOS menu
- Wait for the app library to appear
- Type «::» in the search bar
These steps cause the device to display the lock screen, although before that an all-black screen announcing a malfunction of the iPhone is displayed. But that's not all, and typing "::" in the settings menu also causes problems.
When they are typed in search bars, what they do is cause apps to stop working and forcibly close, even though the full extent of these issues is not yet known.
Not only is "::" causing these issues, I have verified that "X":X is also causing these types of situations. Furthermore, the error was found on both iPhones and iPads that have firmware version 17.6.1, and fortunately, MacBook computers are not affected yet.
Although the situation is complicated to assess, one positive thing about all this is that the vulnerability can only be exploited by a person physically and no attacker can communicate remotely. Of course, this is still a problem for users.
A firmware update is expected to be released in the coming weeks to put an end to this problem, although Apple should speed up because users are likely to start testing to see if they have the bug or not, causing phones to crash (so if you have an iPhone don't try it).
📱💀 UN EXTRAÑO BUG PONE EN JAQUE A APPLE
😱 Tras escribir estos cuatro caracteres en el campo de búsqueda de Biblioteca de apps, el iPhone se reinicia inesperadamente. También provoca un cierre en la aplicación Ajustes.
👉🏻 https://t.co/hVrqsgaENN pic.twitter.com/EGU555yZBr
— iPadizate (@iPadizate) August 22, 2024