A three-character text message is being used to exploit iPhone bug to crash the Apple device.
A string of three-characters including a white flag, a zero, and a rainbow sent over an iMessage is causing the receiver’s iPhone (working on iOS10) to freeze, even when the receiver chose not to open the message.
The bug was originally revealed in a YouTube video by EverythingApplePro, which is known for reporting iPhone crash pranks.
The three-character text message used in the prank is exploiting iOS in order to create a waving rainbow flag.
A French iOS developer Vincent Desmur, who claimed to discover the bug, in a statement reported by The Guardian, explained the issue is caused due to Apple handling of the variation selector and the emoji besides it.
The iOS can create the rainbow flag by just linking the white flag emoji with the rainbow emoji, using a variation selector 16 (VS16). However, in this particular string of characters a ‘0’ is also included in between the two emojis, causing the device to crash and freezing the touchscreen.
The good news is that the crash will last only for a short period of time, and users will be able to resume their work on their iPhone the moment its effect is over.
Below is the video of the iPhone crash prank done sending the three-character text message on iMessage.
