There’s Another iOS bug Crashing iPhones, iMessage and Other Apps

A bug discovered earlier this week is capable of crashing iPhones, iMessages and various messaging apps, like Facebook messenger and WhatsApp. The news was first reported by Italian blog Mobile World,

The bug is an Indian language (Telugu) character that can be sent through messaging platforms on any Apple product that runs iOS 11 or macOS. Apple users will be unable to open their message app once the bug has been sent.

According to The Verge, the only way for users to recover their message app is to have someone send another message, try to access messages and delete the thread of messages with the special character.

This discovery comes after Apple found multiple software issues before the end of 2017. Apple plans to address the new bug with a new iOS update before the spring release of iOS 11.3. While the bug crashes iMessages with iOS11 or 11.2, those with the beta version of iOS1.3 are immune to the issue.

Apple products encountered similar problems in past experiences thanks to other special characters, links or videos. 2015 brought a small string of text that would shut an iPhone down, in 2016 there was a 5-second video that crashed iPhones and 2017 had a link that would freeze an iPhone completely.

Apple will address these issues soon with an updated version of iOS 11.2.

I forgot to update my iPhone and someone bricked it with the Indian character bug.

— MalwareTech (@MalwareTechBlog) February 15, 2018