Ars Technica reports on a bug in iOS that can cause iPhones to reboot. This bug also seems to affect OS X under certain situations and extends beyond text messages on iOS. The trigger is trying to render the string in question.
A similar rendering bug for Apple has occurred previously that was also covered by Ars Technica
Microsoft has also fallen victim to font rendering bugs in the past:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms13-060.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms10-063.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms14-036.aspx
I'm not a fan of iOS or Apple, in fact I find their interfaces so incredibly frustrating that I refuse to use their products, so I find this particularly amusing:
A newly discovered and potentially worrisome iOS bug has been causing Phones to crash and automatically reboot when a certain string of characters is received via the Messages app. The string in question, which consists of both English and Arabic characters, was first brought to light via a Reddit thread before being corroborated by MacRumors late on Wednesday evening.
"Sending the string of characters to an iPhone results in an immediate respring, causing an iPhone to crash and quickly reboot," the report notes. "From there, if the Messages app was opened at a list view, the Messages app crashes automatically when you try to open it. If it was opened to the conversation where you received the message, the app will open, but attempting to go to another conversation causes Messages to crash."
Read more here.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by jmorris on Friday May 29 2015, @05:28PM
Why is it almost obligatory to accompany any discussion of a flaw in Apple's products to include a reminder that someone else, usually Microsoft, has also suffered the same problem? Come on fanboys, suck it up and own it. Apple is supposed to the the 1200lb gorilla in the room now, not the scrappy upstart, it is about time their fanboys realized it and started treating them like industry leaders.
It is almost as bad as what can only be called a genuine sense of pride when an Apple fan brags how insanely great Apple profit margins are. Hey! You are bragging that they are hosing you! Unless you own APPL you should not be doing that. Again, when everyone was on Apple Death Watch it was a self defense mechanism, the herd assuring themselves their beloved vendor was healthy and not going tits up on em. But they have the highest market capitalization in the world, they aren't a fragile flower of beauty in a crappy world of drab PC clones, again, they ARE the establishment and YOU are worshipping -the man-.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Tork on Friday May 29 2015, @06:05PM
Oh, and if you're going to complain about fanboy insecurity it would be wise of you to not debate a topic that nobody brought up. And if you do, you should at least understand what you're arguing about.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday May 29 2015, @10:22PM
I'm sure you will be happy to know that I'm a Linux user who dislikes both Apple AND Microsoft.
You'll notice that the previous Apple Unicode bug with Arabic text happened at around the same time as the Microsoft bug (2013). My point is that the two large OS corporations seem to be having serious problems dealing with rendering Unicode text, for god knows what reason.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!