Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 16-02-2018

A new software bug has been discovered in iOS 11 that lets people send a specific character that will crash an iPhone and block access to the Messages app in iOS and popular apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Outlook for iOS, and Gmail.

Italian Blog Mobile World spotted the bug, and tests on multiple iPhones running iOS 11.2.5, and found it also works on the macOS versions of Safari and Messages. Apple plans to fix the problem in an iOS update before the release of iOS 11.3 this spring.

The Verge reports, the bug itself involves sending an Indian language (Telugu) character to devices, and Apple’s iOS Springboard will crash once the message has been received.

Messages will no longer open as the app is trying and failing to load the character, and it appears that the only way to regain access to your iMessages is to have another friend send you a message and try to delete the thread that contained the bad character.

Third-party apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Gmail, and Outlook for iOS and found that these apps can become disabled once a message is received.

The public beta version of iOS 11.3 is also unaffected. It appears Apple was made aware of the problem at least three days ago, and plans to address it in an iOS update soon.

This isn’t the first time that iOS has crashed due to weird characters, URLs, or even videos. Last month a single link could freeze an iPhone, but Apple was able to resolve it with the release of iOS 11.2.5.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp has released an update that allows users to easily switch between voice and video calls. All you have to do is tap the video button while on a call.

You’ll now also see the “@” button in group chats. Tap on it to quickly scroll to unread messages where you were replied to or mentioned.

Twitter: @FaizelPatel143