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Apple working on patch for text message bug that forces iPhones to shutdown

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A recently discovered bug can cause Apple iPhones to shutdown by sending them a specific string of text in a message. Photo: Sam Tsang

Apple is working on a fix for a recently discovered bug that makes it possible to crash a user's iPhone or iPad by sending the device a specific string of text.

The bug, which includes symbols and Arabic characters, was widely reported upon after it was flagged by users of social news hub Reddit this week.

"We are aware of an iMessage issue caused by a specific series of unicode characters and we will make a fix available in a software update," Apple said in a statement.

Unicode is an international standard for the display of text characters in multiple different languages across devices.

The bug appears to be related to how the most recent versions of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, handle the display of notifications containing Arabic characters. A specific string of characters, received as a notification, causes a major error on the device, leading to a restart.

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