An Indian language character is crashing iPhones across the world. The Telugu language letter character sent as an iMessage or even if just inserted in a text field can make user’s iPhone unusable. Other than iPhones, the bug also affects macOS, tvOS 11 and watchOS. This means MacBooks and Apple Watches too are vulnerable to the bug. Apple has acknowledged the bug and has said that it is working
This Telugu language character is crashing iPhones globally: Everything you need to know An Indian language character is crashing iPhones across the world. The Telugu language letter character sent as an iMessage or even if just inserted in a text field can make user’s iPhone unusable. Other than iPhones, the bug also affects macOS, tvOS 11 and watchOS. This means MacBooks and Apple Watches too are vulnerable to the bug. Apple has acknowledged the bug and has said that it is working on a fix for the same.
Here’s all you need to know about this ‘text bomb’ that is wreaking havoc on iPhones.
The bug affects iPhones and other Apple devices running on iOS 11.2.5 The bug affects Apple iPhones running on iOS 11.2.5. The Apple devices running on older versions are not affected by the bug.
The character will crash any app in which it is displayed and render them ‘unworkable’. The apps include not just messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger but also others like Gmail and Twitter. These apps reportedly crash and continue to close each time the user tries to restart them.
If you receive the character in the notification, the situation is « worse » The situation is especially bad if a user receives the character in a notification on his iPhone, as it can block the iPhone’s entire Springboard (the system software that manages the Home). The Mobile World website also has a suggestion for users who face this situation. According to the website, in this case users should not try to restart the device as if they « force a reboot of the device, it will bootloop. »
The bug was first spotted by Italian website Mobile World The Italian website, Mobile World, first spotted the bug some four days back.
Apple has confirmed the bug, and rolling out a fix soon Apple has acknowledged the bug and said that it is working on a fix. An Apple spokesperson said that the company is working on a fix for the iOS 11, the macOS High Sierra, watchOS 4 and tvOS 11 versions that the bug affects. The company spokesperson further added that it has already fixed the issue in the current beta versions of the operating systems.
Apps like Telegram and Skype are unaffected by the bug Interestingly, some apps like Telegram and Skype appear to be unaffected by the bug.
