A single text message made up of several emoji is wreaking havoc on iPhone users once again, thanks to a bug which causes the phone to temporarily freeze and restart.
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The string of text said to cause problems for some users is made up of the white flag, a zero, and rainbow emoji. According to several user reports, phones running iOS 10.1 or earlier which receive these characters in a single text will crash. The text reportedly caused the phone’s touchscreen to freeze, eventually forcing it into a reboot that took around one minute to complete.
In a video recreating the bug, YouTube user EverythingApplePro explained the bug works by trying to create a rainbow flag emoji, which doesn’t exist in iOS.
“It’s trying to combine all these emoji into one, but it cannot and it fails,” the video explained.
Just like with previous iPhone bugs, hundreds of users have shared the “rainbow emoji text” on social media, leading some to test the theory on their friends.
Global News contacted Apple to see if it was aware of the issue; however, a request for comment was not immediately returned.
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Fortunately, the text message bug does not appear to do any harm to your phone – it merely causes an inconvenience.
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The good news is the bug does not appear to affect iPhone users who have updated their device to the latest operating system, iOS 10.2.
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This is not the first time this type of bug has affected iPhone users. In 2015, a message containing the words “effective,” “power,” and a series of Chinese and Arabic letters caused iPhone’s around the world to crash. This particular bug was linked to the banner notification system in Apple’s iOS software, because the cryptic message must come through on a banner alert or notification in order for the phone to crash.
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Similarly, in February 2016, an iPhone prank tricked users into believing if they changed the date on their iPhone to 1970 they would unlock a special Easter Egg hidden by Apple software developers. The date change permanently disabled the iPhone.
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