Smartphone manufacturer Apple is facing flak from users and critics alike after a high-profile bug became apparent. Apple was left with egg on its face again after a much-circulated text message bug was circulated midweek featuring a string of very specific characters. If not responded to, the text message will trigger a glitch in iPhones that leads devices to crash, sometimes continuously.
In the case of the text message bug, if the text is received while the device is locked, this can also cause the iPhone to reboot without warning. The bug is thought to be limited to iPhone to iPhone communication.
The bug follows on from an issue last year whereby software updates released by the company left some fuming users unable to make calls.
Apple said at the time that it was sorry for the “great inconvenience experienced by users" and said it was working "around the clock" to fix the software bug, which saw the company experience a 4 percent dip in stock prices.
In better news on the Apple bug front, the company seems to have finally put an end to software issues surrounding persistent Wi-Fi connectivity issues with the OS X Yosemite platform in the form of a new Beta version.
The new Beta dispenses with the discoveryd process that was thought to be the cause of Wi-Fi issues, instead reverting to the mDNSResponder, which was used in previous versions. Analysts say they hope that this will finally spell the end for those who have struggled with the software in the past. Developers have complained that they were often forced to reboot devices in order to fix connectivity issues and one disparagingly noted that dicoveryd users often found themselves in situations that felt "like using Windows 15 years ago."
There was better news for Apple in Asia last week, with Japanese market researchers this month showing that sales of Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, have been somewhat sluggish, an indication that Apple, which is set to unveil the new iPhone 6S, may be set to make gains in the ultra-competitive Far Eastern mobile sector.
The news comes on the back of a report from Counterpoint Research earlier this year that Apple is making gains on Samsung even in Korea, with late-2014 sales figures indicating that Apple phones now represented some 33 percent of smartphone sales, and that the October-November period of 2014 saw record-breaking sales for the American company in both Japan and Korea.
