Typing These Characters Will Crash Your iPhone

This is pretty wild. Apparently, certain iPhones running different versions of iOS will crash if you type a specific string characters in the search field of the App Library.

I was able to replicate the bug on my iPhone 13 Pro running iOS 17.6.1. Fortunately, it was harmless. The screen immediately went black with a loading icon for about 2 seconds, then returned to a locked Home Screen.

This Limited-Time Microsoft Office Deal Gets You Lifetime Access for Just $39

Sick and tired of subscriptions? Get a lifetime license for Microsoft Office Home and Business 2021 at a great price!

While the hiccup appears harmless, we don’t know for sure. So, if you want to make your iPhone skip a beat, try the following.

Here’s how to check if the bug impacts your iPhone. Unlock your phone and swipe left until you reach your App Library like in the above image. Type “”:: (two quotation marks followed by two colons). Typing the following, “A”:B or A””:: also triggered the bug. Likely, there isn’t any harm to doing this 1 time or 1,000 times.

We also tried typing the same character strings – “”:: / “A”:B / A””:: in the search bar of the Settings app. Each time, the Settings app would close immediately after typing the last character. Rather than returning to a locked Home Screen like the above App Library example, the Settings app closed and the iPhone remained unlocked.

Why is this happening? No one knows for sure. Our guess is that Apple will fix it in an iOS update in the near future. Fortunately, duplicating the bug doesn’t appear to have any impact on the iPhone’s overall performance.

Previously, iPhone users were able to crash other iPhones with certain character bugs via the Messages app. It doesn’t appear that you’re able to affect another user’s iPhone this time around. This seemingly innocuous iPhone brain-fart reveals the complexities behind the iPhone’s hardware and software.

We think this mini glitch is so fascinating because otherwise the iPhone user experience is smooth as silk. Nonetheless, this does little to shake our confidence in Apple and the iPhone. Likely this issue will be fixed by Apple in the next couple of update releases.