A bug in Apple’s mobile operating system is forcing iPhones all over the world to reboot after receiving a specific text from other users. The text, which is a mixture of English, Arabic and Unicode characters, has until now gone undetected by Apple.
The internet went wild yesterday as users posted the text message on their social media profiles. Now, people are sending the SMS to their friends and family just to annoy them.
However, several media reports indicate the crash only happens when the text appears on the banner notifications when the phone is on idle mode. Apparently, the iMessage is unable to decode the symbols which then crashes the app and forces the phones to reboot immediately.
Some iPhone users reported their phones did not crash when the harmful message came in as part of an ongoing conversation in a message thread from someone they know.
An Apple spokesperson confirmed the company is working to fix the bug in a statement: “We are aware of an iMessage issue caused by a specific series of Unicode characters and we will make a fix available in a software update.”
Meanwhile, you can deactivate banner notifications or send yourself a message to fix the bug using voice assistant Siri and asking to ‘send a message to myself’.
