A security researcher recently found that there was a bug in iOS that could lead the iPhone to crash when certain characters were typed in a sequence. If users typed “”::” followed by any fourth character into Spotlight Search or App Library could either the phone to either freeze or reboot.
While this wasn’t found to be a security issue, the bug can be triggered by any user manually typing the characters.
9to5mac tested this on multiple iPhone variants and iOS versions and found that on iOS 17, if users typed the sequence out, the home screen interface crashed and restarted. While on iOS 18 and 18.1, Spotlight Search froze just briefly but didn’t crash.
The issue is only restricted to typing in Spotlight Search from your home screen or on the App Library search bar.
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Apple hasn’t responded to the discovery yet.
In 2015, the hardware maker faced a similar issue called the “Effective Power” bug which caused the Messages app to crash and the devices to reboot after receiving a specific message. But the problem was much bigger because you could be sent the message multiple times and crash your phone on repeat.
