iPhone bug: Certain character sequence causes crashes

A strange error in iOS is currently causing a stir: With just a few characters, you can crash an iPhone. This is not a real security problem, so it may take some time before Apple fixes the problem with a patch. Apple

Four characters are enough

First, a Mastodon users the problem that entering the string in question in the Spotlight search or the App Library causes the iPhone to crash. According to a report by the US magazine TechCrunch it is enough to enter “”: followed by any fourth character to trigger the crash. However, security researchers who took a look at the matter directly explained that this is not a real security problem. There is no evidence so far that anyone other than the owner of the iPhone could trigger this error by manually entering the characters.

The technology portal 9to5Mac tested the bug on several iPhones and with different iOS versions. On devices running the latest version of iOS 17, entering the mentioned characters causes Springboard, the iPhone home screen user interface, to crash and the device to perform a “soft” reboot. On iOS 18 and iOS 18.1, entering the characters only causes Spotlight search to freeze briefly without causing Springboard to crash completely.

Remembering 2015

The error only occurs when the characters are entered in the Spotlight search on the home screen or in the search bar of the app library. Other functions of the iPhone do not seem to be affected. This is not the first time that such a text error has affected the iPhone. The bug with the Telugu character in 2018 is particularly well-known, and iPhone owners had a similar experience with the “characters of death” in 2020.

In contrast to the current problem, however, these errors were more serious, as they could also be triggered by messages from others. Apple has not yet commented on the recently discovered error, but the company is usually quick to fix such problems with an iOS update. Fortunately, it is unlikely that users will accidentally use this sequence of characters in their everyday input.