A 5-second video has been making rounds on the internet for its ability to crash almost any iPhone within a minute, thanks to a bug in iOS.
Apple’s iOS is considered one of the most stable mobile operating systems around, and also the most secure. Some clever Reddit users have, however, find a way to crash any iPhone (or almost any iOS device) by exploiting a seemingly simple bug in the phone’s system.
As you can see in the video attached below, all you have to do is open the video and let it play using iPhone’s default media player. The crash won’t happen instantly, but it will gradually slow your iPhone down. In under a minute, it will render the iPhone completely unusable.
Why does the iPhone crash?
The video file is corrupt and it tricks the iPhone into generating a loop by exploiting a loophole in iOS’ media-player. Barely 10 seconds after watching the video, the loop forces the iPhone to crash. Currently, this video appears to affect iPhones as far back as iOS 5. Do note that it only works when viewed as a link, not when sent as a media file.
How to fix your iPhone?
If you have fallen victim to this prank, don’t worry; the lock-up is not permanent. All you need to do is perform a soft reset to get your iPhone back to normal.
Just hold the sleep/wake and home buttons simultaneously for at least 10 seconds, until you see the Apple logo. Then let go of both the buttons and boot your iPhone just as you normally would.
Dear Rehan Ahmed, there are 3 things I feel I need to mention:
1) The video you have included in this article comes from Tom Warren of TheVerge who tested the issue and reported it about 23 hours ago. Therefore, you should mention the TheVerge as the source by providing a link.
2) “Currently, this video appears to affect iPhones as far back as iOS 5”. You wrote this statement but can you show some proof that you did some testing YOURSELF to back up this statement?
I highly doubt it because EverythingApplePro on Youtube did the testing and the websites that have written about the results have given credit to EverythingApplePro. The point is, you have not done this.
3) A soft reset of an iphone means just restarting the phone by first using power button to turn it off and then turning it back on. A hard reset on the other hand involves pressing the power and home button at the same time. Get your facts straight because you have mixed up the 2 things.
these are the ignorant ppl don’t even discuss with them
I know that these people are ignorant. And even though I have pointed out these things, I don’t expect the author to have the ability and guts to accept his mistakes.
The point is to make the Pakistani people who come to this website aware of what is being done by these people; which is that the content of articles is simply stuff copy-pasted (with some changes) from the other websites with no mentioning of sources.
This is one major issue here (Propakistani Articles), referencing, and sometimes plagiarism. Should have a courage to give credits to the original author. And we know that you are not that expert to do something yourself.
Suggestion to author: Please try to complete a short-term article writing course from a foreign professor. You will better know the ethics of writing and specially including research of others.