When Apple’s much-hyped iOS 7 mobile operating system launched last September, with it came an all-new interface design, a ton of new features, and, it soon emerged, a bug causing random shutdowns.
While the first two in the above list were broadly welcomed by Apple’s largely loyal customer base, the system crashes, as you can imagine, have been a source of frustration and annoyance for the apparently large number of iDevice users experiencing it.
‘We have a fix’
The good news is that Apple on Wednesday finally got around to acknowledging the issue and is promising a fix, although it hasn’t said precisely when it intends to sort it out.
“We have a fix in an upcoming software update for a bug that can occasionally cause a home screen crash,” Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller said Wednesday.
The bug appears to have the potential to affect any Apple mobile device running iOS 7, though the problem seems to be more prevalent with the iPhone. According to a growing body of complaints on an Apple forum which started on September 20 – just two days after Apple released the OS – the crash happens without warning and leads to an automatic reboot of the device.
During the reboot, the screen of the phone turns black or white – depending on the handset’s color – before reloading.
Just about all of the forum posters said the crashes only started happening after installing iOS 7 and occurred at random times, though many mentioned their device had low battery power when it shut down. The frequency of the crash also varied widely, with some reporting a shutdown rate of once or twice a week, and others claiming multiple shutdowns in a single day.
Muller’s statement suggests the Cupertino company could bundle the fix with the release of iOS 7.1, though with some reports suggesting a March release for the iOS update, it’s hoped Apple will roll out a solution sooner.
