A new text message is circulating on the Internet which can crash your iPhone or disable the touchscreen. The message contains several characters from the Sindhi language that causes the iPhone to crash or not to respond at all. These texts are currently circulating on various Telegram and Discord servers. We tested these texts on our devices and our iPhone running the latest iOS version 13.4.1 crashed immediately.
However, the good thing is Apple is already working on a fix for the bug. The latest iOS beta version 13.4.5 apparently fixes the issue. The particular string of text which causes the crash consists of various characters of the Sindhi language and interestingly the Italian flag. It can affect the device from SMS or from any other Instant messaging app like WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.
iOS Text Bug: Workaround
In case if your device crashes due to the iOS text bug then you can simply restart your phone. Otherwise, just wait for a minute, and iOS will recover itself. The bug most probably effects due to the way iOS manages the app notifications. You can also turn off the notifications on your iOS device to bypass the iOS text bug. However, that might not be the best option as you will miss out on other important notifications.
In the past, iOS 11 has seen cases of iPhone crashes around the world due to text message bugs. Sending a Telugu character crashed iOS devices. Also, a 5-second video crashed iPhones a few years back. Other than there were the URL bug and the ‘black dot’ bug as well.
This type of issue is not new to iOS. In most of the cases, Apple releases an update with bug fixes within a day or two. For this one though there’s nothing available yet. However, we expect the patch to release in the next few days. As soon as there’s any update we will update the article. Till then, keep following Tech Hundred.
