Whereas some persons are certainly loving their new iPhone 16, many customers have been since their launch final month by a critical bug inflicting their telephones to freeze, ignore contact inputs, after which randomly restart. Nevertheless it appears like the top is lastly in sight, with the rollout of a significant software program replace which is known to comprise a repair.
As Macworld reported in September, quite a few iPhone 16 homeowners have complained of show “lifeless spots” which, if touched, trigger your complete display screen to turn out to be unresponsive to faucets and swipes, and the telephone to restart. Not each unit is affected, however there have been sufficient experiences to get Apple’s consideration: on Reddit, on MacRumors’ boards, and on Apple’s personal Neighborhood pages.
For a worryingly very long time, Apple didn’t seem to have observed or was unable to resolve the issue. iOS 18.01 arrived on October 3 with out affected homeowners noting any enchancment (certainly I can affirm that my iPhone 16 Plus, which presently runs iOS 18.01, had the issue this morning), whereas as of its seventh beta, iOS 18.1 didn’t appear to comprise a repair both. Nevertheless it has now been confirmed (by way of MacRumors) that the general public launch of iOS 18.1 will patch the difficulty. That is formally talked about within the replace’s launch notes, which emerged yesterday alongside the discharge candidate.
Why did it take so lengthy for such a critical bug to get fastened? Possibly Apple’s software program division has simply been busy as a result of this has been one thing of a cursed replace cycle. Solely final month iPadOS 18 needed to be pulled after bricking the M4 iPad Professional, whereas the Apple Watch confronted a mirror picture of the iPhone 16’s drawback when customers reported “ghost touches” earlier this yr.
iOS 18.1 is anticipated to roll out on Monday, October 28. It’s straightforward to replace your iPhone; merely open the Settings app, go to Software program Replace, and comply with the prompts. The replace comprises different patches and fixes, in addition to new Apple Intelligence options for the iPhone 16, so it’s properly price putting in at your earliest comfort.