Apple Fixing iOS 7 ‘White Screen of Death’

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Apple Fixing iOS 7 ‘White Screen of Death’

Apple is pledging to fix a bug in iOs 7 that I have never experienced and never heard of.

James Joyner

January 23, 2014

Comments

Apple is pledging to fix a bug in iOs 7 that I have never experienced and never heard of.

Mashable (“Apple Promises to Fix iOS 7 ‘White Screen of Death‘”):

Since Apple released iOS 7, its completely revamped operating system for the iPhone, reviews have been mixed but mostly positive. However, a glitch that has quietly plagued iPhone users — the “white/black screen of death,” a bug that abruptly soft reboots the smartphone — will finally be addressed in a future iOS 7 update.

“We have a fix in an upcoming software update for a bug that can occasionally cause a home screen crash,” Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller told Mashable.

Some of the first reports of the glitch began to crop up as early as September on Apple’s discussion forums, and subsequently appeared on various social media channels like Twitter.

[…]

The glitch appears to affect any iPhone running iOS 7, with some users reporting that the sudden shutting off occurs once the iPhone’s battery dips down into the 30% level.

The update is rumored to land alongside iOS 7.1, which is currently in its fourth beta with developers. In addition to fixing the “white screen of death,” iOS 7.1 is expected to bring some minor UI and design changes.

I installed iOs 7 on my iPhone 4s and iPad 2 within a day or two of release and have been running it and its minor upgrades on my iPhone 5s since switching phones. Aside from the normal adjustment to the quirks of a new user interface and early incompatibility, since fixed, with a handful of apps, I’ve never had any problem with it. The only power-related glitch I’ve noticed is that the last 10 percent seems to drain instantaneously.

8 responses to “Apple Fixing iOS 7 ‘White Screen of Death’”

Hal_10000

January 23, 2014 at 9:51 am

I’ve had some issues with it: the calendar app allow goes to “list” when you do a search and you can’t put it in new appointments while searching, messages from io6 users sometimes disappear, I had issues with apps crashing until I rebooted it. Previous ios’s were a step forward. 7 was running in place at best.
JoshB

January 23, 2014 at 10:14 am

I believe this is more of an issue for the iPad Air and iPhone 5S, since they are using the new 64-bit chip. I have both and have experienced the problem, but friends on the older chips do not.
Ron Beasley

January 23, 2014 at 10:18 am

It happened to my sister while she was on a business trip leaving her cut off for a couple of days before she could get to an Apple store.
EddieinCA

January 23, 2014 at 11:38 am

I’ve had this problem since I updated – and I waited weeks to update. My iphone 5 will just die when it has 24% battery left, 17% battery left, 19% battery left, etc. Just randomly. Other times, it will go all the way down to 1% with no issues. But most of the time, it will die if it gets somewhere below 25%. I was prepared to go to the Apple Store this weekend until I read this article, becuase this past weekend it caused me alot of problems.
Jax

January 23, 2014 at 11:42 am

I’ve had frequent problems with this on my iPhone 4s, it mostly occurs when the battery is at 30% and I’m outside with my phone in my pocket. It was -40 a couple times at the beginning of December, less than 10 minutes outside and if I tried to make a phone call or respond to a text it would just flash and die almost instantly.
PJ

January 23, 2014 at 12:26 pm

It. Just. Works.
Andre Kenji

January 23, 2014 at 1:09 pm

I did not update yet.
Matt

January 23, 2014 at 5:29 pm

You don’t know about it because Apple denied that the bug even existed. I’m glad that Apple is finally admitting and even fixing the bug.