Apple allows the recovery of disabled iPhone 16 phones wirelessly
Apple's newly released iOS 18 reportedly includes a new feature that will allow dead iPhone 16s to be restored wirelessly using another iPhone or iPad.
iPhone users have relied on computers to restore systems of broken devices such as the iPhone 15 or earlier, which can be inconvenient for some users who may not have the right cable or a computer of their own.
Over the past few years, Apple has made great efforts to reduce its reliance on computers to operate its devices; for example, you can currently use your iPhone to wirelessly restore your Apple Watch or smart TV. It seems that this feature will soon be available for the new iPhone 16 phones.
According to a report from 9to5Mac , the iPhone 16 can be put into recovery mode via iOS 18, by placing the iPhone 16 to be restored next to another iPhone or iPad to initiate a system restore wirelessly.
The other phone downloads a new version of iOS and transfers it to the dead iPhone, without having to connect it to a computer.
While iOS 18 allows any compatible device to help restore a dead iPhone, wireless restore is currently limited to iPhone 16 models.
The new iPhone 16 phones come with a dedicated recovery partition that is able to manage the entire restore process independently of the main system state.
It is not yet clear whether the company intends to add this feature to previous versions of iPhones that will run iOS 18, which Apple began launching this week.