New iOS bug exposed: Typing just four characters can crash an iPhone

A new iOS bug has emerged that causes your iPhone to crash when typing four characters. The iPhone crashes only briefly and returns back to normal operation.

A security researcher shared on Mastodon that typing these characters into Spotlight Search or App Library will crash your iPhone: “”:: (two quotation marks, followed by two colons).

Dexerto tested the bug on several iPhones. When we typed the characters on an iPhone 15 Pro Max with iOS 17, the Home Screen, known as Springboard, froze for nearly 5 seconds. This issue, called a “respring,” isn’t as serious as a full system reboot but can still kick the iPhone back to its Lock Screen.

When we typed the characters into the search bar in the Settings app on an iPhone 14 Pro running iOS 17.5.1, the app crashed instantly. It also booted us back to the home screen. Also, just typing “”: followed by any fourth character can crash the iPhone.

Apple

The security researcher did not reveal what was causing the crash. Researchers told TechCrunch that the bug does not appear to be a security issue. “It’s not a security bug,” said Ryan Stortz, an iOS security researcher who analyzed the bug. Patrick Wardle, who also researches iOS agreed.

So far, there’s no evidence to suggest that anyone other than an iOS device owner manually typing these characters can trigger the bug.

Apple hasn’t yet commented on this discovery, but the company typically moves quickly to patch issues like this with an iOS update. We’ve reached out to Apple for a response and will update the story once we hear back.

The iOS bug is pretty harmless since it’s unlikely you’d ever need to type “”:: during normal use. A butt dial is one of the few scenarios where this could become an issue, but the chances of that happening are quite low.