Another in a long list of iPhone flaws.

I am a semi retrobate and not all that tech friendly. But I found this article interesting, it seems that another iPhone glitch has been exposed. This has already hit social media. My question is can this become a serious issue before it is fixed?

UNDATED (CBS News) -- A particular string of character sent by text message can cause an iPhone's messaging app to crash, or shut down the phone.

The message, revealed on Reddit late Tuesday, seems to exploit an inability of the app's preview feature to correctly render the characters, which are not the standard alphanumerics or emoticons one typically texts. After repeated attempts, the app crashes, leaving the user unable to send or receive texts as usual.

If the message is received while the phone is on the lock screen, it causes the phone to reboot.

Many iPhone owners took to Twitter Wednesday complaining they were hit.

Users on Reddit reported that the text also works via the messaging app WhatsApp and that it affects Apple Watches as well as iPhones.

CNET senior editor Jeff Bakalar described the exploit as a popular prank that can only be perpetrated by someone who has your phone number. "It's probably not going to happen to you unless someone you know, who has your number, targets you," he told CBS News.

And because the string is specific and unusual, it's unlikely to be sent by accident.

There are ways to fix the lockout, or prevent it from happening.

"The person who sent you the message can send you a followup, and that seems to undo the damage," Bakalar explained. "Or, if you have a Mac, you can log into your computer and have Siri send you a text message to wake it up."

It can be avoided by disabling notification alerts, according to some Reddit posters.

Similar tricks have popped up in the past and Apple has been quick to fix them with an update.

Apple claims it won't be an issue unless someone knows your phone number. My thought is I know the phone numbers of people I don't like. I would not do this to someone, but I'm sure many other people would.

source

Oh my, this is so serial. You should turn your phone off because it's super serial. Like, end of the world serial.

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." - Carl Sagan

a reply to: WeAre0ne

Why does your mind reach towards doom so quickly? Is it pre-programming or selective reasoning?

I was being extremely sarcastic. So sarcastic in fact that I was quoting a popular TV show in jest.

originally posted by: WeAre0ne
Oh my, this is so serial. You should turn your phone off because it's super serial. Like, end of the world serial.

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." - Carl Sagan

As long as it doesn't affect our cereal, I think we'll be ok.

Just curious...did you mean "surreal" ?

No not surreal! I'm serial!

yup - it can only be abused by :

" people who know your number "

because we all know that no one has harvested lists of phone numbers used for spam

OH .... wait < sarcasm >

PS - as numbers are sequential - it would not be rocket science to bomb a large block of numbers with the caveat that only 30% are apple products

originally posted by: WeAre0ne
I was being extremely sarcastic. So sarcastic in fact that I was quoting a popular TV show in jest.

My bad.


One of my complaints is we desperately need a good sarcasm emote.

originally posted by: Greathouse

originally posted by: WeAre0ne
I was being extremely sarcastic. So sarcastic in fact that I was quoting a popular TV show in jest.

My bad.


One of my complaints is we desperately need a good sarcasm emote.

I sometimes us this one but it doesn't convey what I really feel.

a reply to: olaru12

I would rather see a picture of Rodney Dangerfield or Don Rickles.

Sorry, back on topic...

Smart phones these days, and almost all text boxes in web browsers and other applications, usually do some amount of parsing on all text strings that are to be displayed in said text box or screen. This parsing is necessary to implement features often taken for granted. Some of those features include email address detection, URL detection, emoji detection, etc. where the parser will detect said objects in the string of text, and automatically convert them to clickable links or graphics. Spell check is another reason to parse the text.

Parsing text can be a complex operation depending on the features provided, and if you know said features and what the parser expects, you can probably find bugs and or cause errors if the errors are not properly handled in code. In the years 2015, there is really no reason for an entire application to crash unexpectedly. However, it seems programmers these days in even the most highly profitable companies in the world are becoming ignorant of the concept of error handling. Issues that could be avoided with a simple "try catch" block around your code seem to be more and more common these days. Its sad to me really. But its not the end of the world.

It will just crash your application, and depending on the nature of the operating system running said application, it might hang your operating system too, and cause it to need to reboot itself. It wont do any damage though, unless of course you are in the middle of something that requires you to manually save your progress when it happens.