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The Most Annoying iOS 12 Bug (And How to Fix It)

Published

8 years ago

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There are a lot of frustrating iOS 12 problems, but one takes the cake as the single most annoying issue plaguing Apple’s new operating system.

Lots of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users are having a great experience on iOS 12 and iOS 12.0.1. Apple’s speed enhancements have transformed devices like the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6 and many users can now hold onto their aging devices for another year.

That said, plenty of others are running into bugs and debilitating performance issues like severe battery drain, broken Wi-Fi, and busted Bluetooth connectivity. It’s not as buggy as iOS 11, but the list of iOS 12 problems continues to grow as more people adopt the operating system.

We’ve been testing the iOS 12 update on the iPhone X, iPhone 7, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6, iPhone 5s, and iPhone SE and we’ve been pretty impressed with the software. However, we’ve also run into several issues including one that we want to call out today ahead of the iOS 12.1 release later this year.

We first ran into the issue, we’ve called it the Phone App Bug here at GBM, a few weeks ago immediately after we setup the iPhone XS Max for the first time. Since then we’ve run into the problem on other devices including the iPhone X. Here’s how it goes down.

We’ll start a phone call, typically FaceTime Audio, with another person. Sometime during the phone call, the line will go silent and neither party will be able to hear one another. At first we thought it was a Wi-Fi to LTE (or vice versa) handoff issue, but that’s not the case.

At this point the Phone application will lockup, sometimes completely and the app will get froze on a screen showing the person’s name followed by “Call Ending”.

If the person the other line tries to call back, the Phone app will immediately end the second call and any subsequent calls made after that. The screen looks like this:

Occasionally, we’re able to pull up the multitasking menu to get to the home screen and our other apps, but the Phone app stays like this with no way to force close it or make additional calls. Other times the phone remains stuck on this screen with no way out.

The only fix we’ve found thus far is a restart. Power down the phone, power it back on, and the Phone app works like it should. That is until the issue happens again.

In case you’ve forgotten, here’s how to restart your phone:

iPhone 7 & Older

  • Hold down the power button until it asks you to slide to turn it off.
  • Hold the same button to power the device back on.

iPhone 8 & Newer

  • Quickly press volume up and release.
  • Quickly press volume down and release.
  • Press the side button and slide to turn off.
  • Press the side button to turn the phone back on.

Unlike some issues that popup once and go away, we’ve encountered this issue more than 15 times on our iPhones during our time on iOS 12.0 and iOS 12.0.1.

We still don’t know if there is something in particular that triggers the issue, it seems random at this point, but it’s present on all of our devices running iOS 12.

We also don’t know how widespread the issue is, but we aren’t the only ones dealing with a frozen Phone app:

https://twitter.com/alexandraxoxxoo/status/1054450723587530752

Our goal here is to bring attention to the issue so that Apple can issue a fix inside an upcoming iOS 12 update. The iOS 12.1 update is on the horizon, but there’s no guarantee the company’s first milestone upgrade includes a fix for this issue.

We aren’t holding our breath.

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