First reported by TechCrunch, a mobile security researcher found that you can crash the iPhone’s interface by typing four characters in the search field.
Just swipe over to the App Library and type “”:: into the search field (that’s two double quotation marks and two colons). The iPhone interface will reset. Further testers have clarified that you need only type the first three characters, and then the fourth character can be anything.
This is sort of a “soft crash” as it were. It just does a reset of the iPhone’s main user interface, called Springboard.
Past character bugs have been serious by comparison because they could allow users to crash the iPhones of others with sent messages, or they caused hard resets. This interface crash requires the user to type in the characters themselves, takes only a second or two, and you don’t even have to restart your iPhone. It’s not a security risk and you don’t appear to be in any danger of losing data. This is about as low-stakes as a crash bug can be.
The same has been reported of crashing the Settings app when it’s typed into the Settings app search, but it is claimed not to affect the Spotlight search. Some say the interface just refreshes, while others say they are kicked back to the lock screen.
In our tests on the latest iOS 18.1 beta, we have found it does not work on the App Library search at all, but it does crash out the Settings app when typed into Settings search and similarly resets the Spotlight search. In no case were we sent back to the lock screen–the interface just flashed and reset.
Author: Jason Cross, Senior Editor, Macworld
Jason has written about technology for more than 25 years - first in the gaming press, then focusing on enthusiast PCs and general technology. He enjoys learning how complicated technology works and explaining it in a way anyone can understand.