iPhones have had a few small issues over the years. Between user hands blocking the antenna to a single line of text reportedly locking up phones.
New reports are out that when a specific text is sent to an iPhone can cause it to crash and reboot, occasionally still blocking some features until the original users sends a follow up text. It sounds like some kind of witchcraft if you ask me.
Normal text messages will most likely not cause these iPhone meltdown issues although the “magic text message spell” is going around online, specifically Reddit’s Apple subreddit, and people are starting to use it to play jokes on friends and enemies.
send me the text message that turns my iphone off and I will turn yours off by throwing it out of a window! 😊😊😊
— maddie stewart (@madddie_stewart) May 27, 2015
Tempted to send that text to turn off someone's iPhone lol
— Gerardo (@geriuxx) May 27, 2015
If you are concerned that you might get one of these messages, watch out for messages that contain words like “power,” or “effective,” followed by a string of characters, which could include Arabic and/or Chinese letters.
As of this point, there is no word on whether this bug is part of the iPhone iOS for some reason or completely by accident. Apply has not commented on this bug so it is looking more and more like this was not something they were aware of.
The only course of action iPhone users can take at this point is to not open text messages from unknown senders and hope that any “friends” who intentionally send this bug to you will then reply to clear the issue up.