Technology
New iPhone Bug Reportedly Crashes Users’ Phones with a Text
In this Sept. 9, 2014 file photo, Apple CEO Tim Cook, holding an iPhone 6 Plus and wearing an Apple Watch, discusses the new products during an event in Cupertino, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
(Fortune) – A single line of text can reportedly freeze and shut down iPhones.
Technology blogs are reporting that a specific text message, when sent to an iPhone from any device, causes the phone to crash, shut down, and turn back on—and in some cases, some users are still unable to access messages again until the offending sender sends another text message. (The recipient can also return the phone to normal by responding to the sender from a different device, like an iMessage-enabled Mac or iPad, some sites report.) Users on Reddit have been discussing the problem and how to fix it.
The text message itself is not exactly something people would happen to be writing in the course of a normal day. If someone texts this to you, they are likely doing it with malicious intentions. We won’t replicate the specific message here, but it includes the words “effective,” “power,” and then a string of characters, including Arabic and Chinese letters.
