Experts reveal lesser-known danger of typing these four characters on your iPhone

iPhone and iPad users are advised against using these 4 characters simultaneously on their phones even by mistake

UPDATED DEC 8, 2024

(L) A stock image of an iPhone; (R) A woman using her iPhone in her house. (Representative Cover Image Source: (L)Pexels | Jess Bailey Designs, (R)Pexels | Polina Zimmerman)

The Apple Co. has done a remarkable job with the creation of the iPhone. With impressive hidden features and capabilities, users are fascinated by the smartphone and choose the brand over other electronic giants. However, iPhones have a few flaws as well and one of them was recently reported to cause much damage. While several keys can lead to accessing many secret features and benefits, there are 4 characters that one should avoid typing on their iPhone at all costs, per Tech Crunch. Assumed to be a bug, iPhone and iPad users are advised against typing these 4 characters.

Representative Image Source: Pexels| Photo Mix Company — A person holding an iPhone. (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo Mix Company)

The outlet revealed that typing four characters in the Settings App or search bar can cause a slight malfunction in the device. The four characters are an open quotation mark (“) closed quotation mark (”), followed by a colon (:) and any other character. Doing any of this causes the springboard to briefly crash and the screen blacks out before reloading to the lock screen. While the damage is minimal, it is still being studied and understood. Experts Ryan Stortz, an iOS security researcher, and Patrick Wardle, the founder of DoubleYou, both suggested that the bug is not due to security issues.

iPads and iPhones piled on top of each other. (Representative Image Source: Pexels| Gabriel Freytez)

The news was also shared by a user Konstantin, @knpw, on Mastodon. Sharing a post to caution users, the person wrote, “Apparently, you can crash your iPhone's Springboard pretty easily.” They went on to reveal the 4 characters to avoid using and how to find them on the iPhone. “On your iPhone, swipe left past all your Home Screen pages to get to App Library. Then search for "":: Do at your own risk,” the post read. Several technological geeks tried their luck to figure out a way out and offered insight.

@bedast wrote, “Not quite. If you do anything, then space, then this string, it'll trigger the crash. I did it with ‘A “”::’. So, something can technically come before it, so long as there's a space separator. Without the space, no crash.” @ajn142 pointed out, “It seems “”:X where X is any additional character will trigger it.” Apple Magazine explained why this glitch could be occurring. It mentioned the concept of Unicode and revealed that iOS interprets Unicode differently. The 4 specific characters may be causing a misinterpretation in the input and messing up the graphical interface.

Representative Image Source: Pexels| Pic Jumbo — A woman scrolling apps on her iPhone. (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Pic Jumbo)

Another observation shared was that the problem occurs only on texting engines and spaces where typing is accessible thus narrowing down the possibility of where the flaw could be. While the damage is minimal, there have been cases reported where the device is unable to load back on its own without being manually rebooted. Additionally, even receiving the four-character combination from someone else on one’s device through text can cause a glitch. The problem is mostly reported through texting apps and can be avoided with a little caution until the team fixes the problem. A solution is likely to be expected in the subsequent iOS update.

This article originally appeared 3 months ago.