Typing these four characters could crash your iPhone

A newly discovered bug causes iPhones and iPads to briefly crash. All you need to trigger the bug are just four characters. 

On Wednesday, a security researcher found that typing “”:: can cause the Apple mobile user interface, called Springboard, to crash. 

TechCrunch verified that those characters do crash Springboard when typed into the Search bar in the Settings app, as well as if you swipe all the way to the right on your home screen and type them into the App Library search bar.

As others noted, all that’s needed is actually “”: and any other character. Triggering the bug briefly crashes Springboard, then reloads to your lock screen. In other tests, the bug flashed the screen black for a second. 

Apple did not comment when reached.

Researchers tell TechCrunch 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 and founded security startup DoubleYou, agreed.

There’s no evidence yet to suggest anyone other than an iOS device owner manually typing the characters could trigger this bug, unlike a bug in 2020 that crashed the Twitter app of any user viewing a tweet with a certain set of characters.