iOS 18 Nasty Messages App Bug: What You Need to Know

Apple released iOS 18 on Monday, and within two days, a major bug was revealed. The bug is tied to the Messages app and can be triggered in a very specific way. The bug occurs when someone sends you a watch face from their Apple Watch via iMessage. If you’re using iOS 18 and receive such a message, you need to be extra careful. The key is to not reply to a message that contains a shared watch face. If you do, the Messages app will start to crash every time you try to open that chat.

This bug isn’t unique to you. If you trigger it by replying to a message on your watch face, the person who sent you the watch face will also experience the same issue. Both parties will notice that their Messages app will repeatedly freeze, making it difficult to access your chats. Worse still, it may prevent you from talking to other people via Messages, as the app will keep crashing.

Temporary solution

There’s currently no official solution from Apple. The only workaround available is to try to delete the entire conversation in which the watch face was shared. Unfortunately, this is quite difficult, as the Messages app will likely crash repeatedly, making it difficult to complete the deletion process. Even if you manage to delete the thread, you’ll permanently lose the entire conversation, as well as any photos, videos, or other attachments that weren’t backed up or saved to an alternate location.

It is important to note that if you delete the conversation and try to restore it from the Recently Deleted folder, the problem will persist. Therefore, this is not an effective solution. Apple will likely address this bug in an upcoming fix, most likely in the iOS 18.0.1 update. In the meantime, users are strongly advised to refrain from replying to messages containing shared watch faces to avoid encountering this issue. This is a serious issue that can cause significant disruption, so Apple is eagerly awaiting a timely fix. Stay tuned for further updates!