Oliver Haslam on September 19, 2024, 3:52 pm

This iOS 18 Messages App Bug Can Crash The App

This iOS 18 Messages app bug can crash the app. Here’s what you need to know about this as an iPhone or iPad user.

The recently released iOS 18 software update brings with it a number of new features, but it also seems to have brought with it a new bug as well.

Thankfully, the bug only seems to be triggered when people use an Apple Watch feature that few people are likely to encounter.

According to a 9to5Mac report, those who fall foul of this issue will not be able to open the Messages app on their iPhone, iPad, or Mac until the offending chat has been deleted, leaving people open to potential data loss. The good news? The bug is only triggered when someone replies to a shared Apple Watch face in a new thread.

For now, the bug is triggered when someone replies to a shared watch face in a thread on Messages in iOS 18. The threaded responses feature allows you to have an inline conversation about a specific message that may have been sent earlier in the chat.

The issue does not currently appear to trigger iOS 18.1 beta, although those running that beta can be impacted by the issue if someone running iOS 18 replies to a shared watch face as mentioned above.

The fact that the steps required to recreate this bug are unlikely to be something most people do often should help reduce the risks, but this is clearly a bug that Apple will need to address sooner rather than later. The iOS 18.1 software update is set to be released in October, so we may see an iOS 18.0.1 update arrive before then in order to correct this issue.