Are you ready to feel powerful?
A new iOS bug has been discovered and it’s a doozy. Users have discovered that if they send a very specific line of text, part-English and part-Arabic, to iPhone owners then it will cause their device’s Messages app to continuously crash or, if the device is on its lock screen, to reboot altogether.
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The line of text that causes this bug is as follows:
effective.Power لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ 冗’
The bug is limited to communication between iPhones, meaning that an Android user cannot cripple their friend’s iPhone with the message. It’s uncertain how this odd bug was discovered, though a post on Reddit dedicated to solving the mystery of how this strand of text cripples the iPhone has a number of iPhone users scratching their heads, trying to figure out the reasoning behind the issue. Needless to say it’s already causing major problems for iPhone owners who have fallen victim to it.
Fortunately, there are a couple of options you can use to get your iPhone back on its feet if you find yourself facing this peculiar problem. If the person who sent you the message sends another message to you, the problem will override the previous text strand and therefore eliminate the bug. Another option is to send yourself a message using Siri, your Mac or the share sheet, which will also put an end to it.
Apple usually moves swiftly to deploy hot fixes that will solve problems such as this one, though the company has yet to comment on the issue. Needless to say right now it is being used particularly maliciously (that’s the technical term for it, though in actuality it’s mostly being used for irritating pranks between friends), with iPhones being brought to their knees left, right and center. Hopefully Apple fixes this bug sooner rather than later, and we can no longer live in fear of seeing that fateful message pop up on our screens.
