Researchers have discovered a new bug that leads to brief crashes on iPhones and iPads, involving a rather peculiar situation when users type two quotation marks and two colons (“”::) into the search bar of the device’s App Library.
According to a report from online publication TechCrunch, published on Wednesday (Aug 21), iOS security researchers have noted that the bug does not appear to pose a security threat.
The report states that the bug occurs due to SpringBoard, Apple's mobile device user interface, crashing and throwing users back to the lock screen when the four characters are typed in.
In LifestyleTech's tests, the issue has been confirmed on the iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 15 Pro, with both devices running the latest available version of iOS.
TechCrunch further reports that it has reached out to Apple for comment but did not receive a response.
A similar bug was reported back in 2015, with certain characters and symbols causing iOS devices to crash when received via iMessage.
However, unlike the 2015 issue, there is nothing to suggest that the current bug involving the “”:: characters can be triggered by receiving a message or any external input aside from a user typing it in themselves.
