Some are calling it the “text bomb,” others are reporting it as déjà vu — a bug of mass proportions set off with little to no effort — and this time, all it takes to crash your iPhone is a single text.
The character is in Telugu, the third most spoken Indian language in the U.S., and when sent out, it crashes your phone and blocks access to your messages and apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Outlook, The Verge reports.
This is what it looks like:
జ్ఞా – This Telugu Character Makes Apple iPhones Crash, Fix On The Way
Read More: https://t.co/klYFW2nFgQ pic.twitter.com/kMIU0236Uz
— PhoneRadar (@phoneradarblog) February 16, 2018
Apple told Mashable that the bug, reportedly first spotted by an Italian blog, is only present in the current versions of Apple’s operating systems, which include iOS 11 and software powering Mac computers, Apple Watches and Apple TV devices: macOS High Sierra, watchOS 4, and tvOS 11.
The company says it will fix the problem before its release of iOS 11.3 this spring, and the public beta version of iOS 11.3 is unaffected. Older operating systems also seem to be unaffected by the bug.
Just tested this iPhone crash bug on iOS 10.3.3 and it’s immune. Must have been introduced in iOS 11 somehow
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) February 15, 2018
See the single text at work
The Verge and Mashable both tested it out. Watch:
Mashable tested the bug on an iPhone 8 running iOS 11.2.5.
So this iOS bug is pretty severe. https://t.co/f2BH5hrYXn pic.twitter.com/O5Lb5cPlgd
— Pete Pachal (@petepachal) February 15, 2018
“After logging in via fingerprint, the phone worked, but Messages did not,” Mashable writes.
The Verge tested the bug on multiple iPhones also running iOS 11.2.5.
Another iOS bug is crashing iPhones and disabling access to iMessage https://t.co/9do0xyz7k4 pic.twitter.com/15Ripq7PP8
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) February 15, 2018
For their test, the bug disabled messages and third-party apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Gmail and Outlook for iOS, but Telegram and Skype “appeared to be unaffected.”
What if I get this single text?
The Verge states that the only way to solve your bug problem (of the digital variety) is to delete the message thread either from a Mac app or desktop.
However, Mashable notes that for their test, messages would not open even after they did “a full reboot and deleted the conversation thread via a Mac.”
Your best bet is to ask someone to message you, which would essentially let you go straight into the notification in the hopes of deleting the thread all together.
Oh, what a single text can do.
