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Apple responds to complaints about iOS 7 crashes, says fix incoming

Besides the more colorful and flatter design and several features, iOS 7 introduced plenty of bugs to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Several bugs have been squashed over the course of software updates issued in the past few months, but the recurring bugs have been application crashes and random rebooting. After months of complaints, Apple has finally responded by saying that it is aware of the issue and that a fix is coming:

We have a fix in an upcoming software update for a bug that can occasionally cause a home screen crash.

Apple has been testing an upcoming iOS 7.1 release with developers, and people using the beta operating system have noted that it feels much more stable and less prone to crashes than the public release of iOS 7. However, Apple has not confirmed if the crashes fix is labeled as the iOS 7.1 update or an earlier bug fix (perhaps iOS 7.0.5). Nonetheless, iOS 7.1 will also bring with it several enhancements, including a reversal in design for the Calendar application and icon changes in the phone app.

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Comments

  1. Jay Yanesh (@iPhone4Jay) - 10 years ago

    Mine hasn’t crashed since I jailbroke it. Its normally the other way around. Weird..

  2. Kelly (@BigBrother1666) - 10 years ago

    Can someone PLEASE help with what I think is a BUG….

    When playing music or video on the iPhone or iPad, it takes up the “Other” space. When I got my iPhone 16GB phone (5s) it showed all the music and videos from iCloud. I started to just hit the ‘play’ button on a video, the “other” space continued to grow and I had close to 6GB of just “OTHER” storage.

    This seems like a bug. I would love to get iTunes Match and be able to play all my music from my phone and ditch my old iPod classic, but I had to restore my phone and can’t really play music on it without downloading it. Once it uses the ‘other space’, there is no way to delete it.

    Here is a whole thread I found about the issue: https://discussions.apple.com/message/23643121#23643121

    Anyone else have this problem?! I like my music shuffled, and since it’s only 16GB, I can’t download too much.

    This is my major issue with ios7…

    Thank you!!!

    (I have an iPad Air and iPhone 5s)

    • therapcat - 10 years ago

      I had the same issue. Go to settings>general>usage and delete all music. Then turn off iTunes Match. Go to your PC and sync. Turn off syncing for audiobooks, podcasts and then sync music with just 1 song to your iPhone. Then Unsync music and it will remove your music from the device.
      Go back to usage and make sure the music still says 0kb or empty or whatever. Then turn back on iTunes Match.

      Also, when you delete the music from your device the first time, give it 20-30 minutes before trying to sync or reboot. It takes a little time for it to delete all the music.

      This worked for me.

    • iakex9 - 10 years ago

      Hi there,
      I also have the same problem like you. What I did was a fresh restore my i5s and FIRST transfer all the apps from iTunes over and then transfer musics. DO NOT transfer music first or both at the same time because if you do, the music will kick into “other”. I did test a couple times and it works every time. Hope it works for you too. Cheers.

  3. rogifan - 10 years ago

    Just curious, did 9to5Mac ever reach out to Apple asking them if there was a fix coming?

  4. rondrinksgrolsch - 10 years ago

    7.1 is definitely smoother, however Safari still crashes of course this is still a beta so I will wait for a final release.

    After about 80 pages of torture on the Apple Support Community they have finally admitted it in public.

    https://discussions.apple.com/message/24600814?ac_cid=tw123456#24600814

  5. sardonick - 10 years ago

    iPad and iPhone randomly restart more than 5 times per day here. “Crashes” where it just stops, goes blank and restarts are so common I thought I was using Android Gingerbread for a while. I welcome a fix, but for an 800 device, I shouldn’t have to wait for it. It should “just work”, remember?

    • oomu (@oomu) - 10 years ago

      FIVE TIMES A DAY ? O_o

      go back to apple store and ask a refund. It’s not a normal iphone (neither a normal ipad) you have.

      • sardonick - 10 years ago

        I’m not the only one. Both of mine are brand new, but I have 1 co-worker and a couple of friends still using iPhone 5 and iPad 4’s that are seeing similar random restarts. I doubt we all have “bad devices” as much as we have “bad” software. However, with my Applecare, you can bet if the update doesn’t fix it, they’ll be getting a visit, especially with as much money as I spend at Apple.

    • weakguy - 10 years ago

      Mine restart like twice a day and sometimes multitasking just doesn’t work. iPad multi-touch gestures are unresponsive sometimes as well. In short, iOS 7 is the most unstable iOS ever.

      • sardonick - 10 years ago

        Agreed. Also, the ugliest in my paying opinion.

    • HM Andrei (@hmandrei) - 10 years ago

      Mine reboots at least one time a day (iPad third generation). And another problem, it’s not smooth!

      • sardonick - 10 years ago

        I’ve noticed the lack of smoothness as well. I hate being a doom & gloom guy, but yea, it’s starting to lose the luster.

  6. Peter Johnson - 10 years ago

    iOS7 has been much more unstable than 6.1. I do hope this update helps

    But I would also ike to know when they will acknowledge and fix the problem that is affecting hundreds of group texting apps at the moment. Many users are unable to send to larger groups of mixed SMS and iMessage users from such apps due to this problem.

    This is not due to a bug in the apps, but in the API that developers must use to create a text message.

  7. Steve (@StephenWC) - 10 years ago

    None of the 7 iOS devices in my home (all on iOS7) ever crash.

    • David Vermont - 10 years ago

      FINALLY Apple, and how about an apology to users and developers for blaming web pages.

      Its only taken 2 years!!

      Irrelevant of how a web site is written, it should NEVER be possible to crash the device/browser.

      5.0.1 was the last version that Safari didn’t consistently crash.

      ‘Occasionally’ causing a home screen crash?

      I sure hope they also fix the issue where you add more than 4 webclips they get all messed up and duplicated/confused icons and names.

      Which means you can easily delete the wrong webclip, and if you try and run one CRASH.

      Also to mention these crashes often require a power+home button hard reset as the screen never comes back.

      Lets see how committed Apple are to fixing these webclip / Safari issues, being that they are outside of their 30% commission ecosystem.

      vivvvi.

    • mikabass (@mikabass) - 10 years ago

      Same here

      • crisrod63 - 10 years ago

        Same here, we have 5 of them and none have been exhibiting this issue. As a matter of fact, this is the first time I hear about this.

  8. David Vermont - 10 years ago

    FINALLY Apple, and how about an apology to users and developers for blaming web pages.

    Its only taken 2 years!!

    Irrelevant of how a web site is written, it should NEVER be possible to crash the device/browser.

    5.0.1 was the last version that Safari didn’t consistently crash.

    ‘Occasionally’ causing a home screen crash?

    I sure hope they also fix the issue where you add more than 4 webclips they get all messed up and duplicated/confused icons and names.

    Which means you can easily delete the wrong webclip, and if you try and run one CRASH.

    Also to mention these crashes often require a power+home button hard reset as the screen never comes back.

    Lets see how committed Apple are to fixing these webclip / Safari issues, being that they are outside of their 30% commission ecosystem.

    vivvvi.

  9. smigit - 10 years ago

    Safari crashes on my iPad air quite often, however my iPhone 5S is fine. The GF’s had issues with a 3rd gen iPad rebooting frequently. At least Safari retains the open tabs when it restarts on my iPad Air, orherwise it’d drive me nuts.

    If the rumours that iOS 7.1 is targeting a March or so release, then here’s hoping they can roll a stability fix out as 7.0.5 shortly.

    • Canuk Storm - 10 years ago

      I rather Apple take their time and get right. We’ve waited this long, we definitely can wait till March. A couple more betas won’t kill anyone.

  10. Andy Chen - 10 years ago

    I have noticed two possible bugs:
    1) Screen freezes when view photos in the photo app, hitting Home button to exit and relaunches the app fixes it
    2) iPhone keeps on asking me to enter iCloud password even though its saved already; never happened before iOS 7.

  11. Josie (@josie) - 10 years ago

    Occasional?! Really. My phone crashes at least a 2-3 times a day. Usually happens when using the app switcher but also have had problems when apps are refreshing their data. Most unstable release I have ever used and I have been with the iPhone since the original release.

    Here is hoping 7.1 fixes these issues

    • Ryan Morano - 10 years ago

      I thought the same thing. If this is “occasional” I’d like to see what they consider frequent.

  12. Thank goodness. I was hoping 7.1 would address the random reboots. It hasn’t happened a lot but it’s happened enough that it’s gotten to be a bit annoying. Certainly not a deal breaker like I’m gonna go Android but just really frustrating.

    Haven’t noticed a very specific pattern but I believe I’ve noticed more when I bring up the app switcher (at least that’s what happened the last time it randomly rebooted).

  13. rettun1 - 10 years ago

    I don’t have the rebooting issue as much as I used to, I don’t think it’s happened in a week or so. But for me the rebooting issue has always been more frequent than home screen crashes (maybe once every two weeks)

  14. Can someone verify they fixed constant refreshing of apps when switching? Safari, youtube, everything is affected! Worse then ios6!

  15. Charles John Thompson III - 10 years ago

    How about how on the 5S it doesn’t unlock with a valid fingerprint sometimes, but tells you when your print is invalid fine.

  16. Wayne Williams - 10 years ago

    Mine hasn’t ever crashed. Some apps do, yes, but not the whole phone.

  17. Len Williams - 10 years ago

    Over the last 2 years my iPhone 4S has never once required rebooting and has never exhibited a crash or auto shutdown or reboot. I’ve been running iOS 7 since it was first released and have had nary a problem. In fact, this is the first time I’ve even heard of these problems existing.

  18. syed ali - 10 years ago

    The new iOS 7 need lots of improvement. http://goo.gl/TBdKcM, http://bit.ly/1ef3mmO,

  19. jerimacaronion - 10 years ago

    I’m drooling as I scroll down in my wall by following 9to5Mac blog

  20. While I understand that traditional Apple connoisseurs get weak kneed at the thought of tweaking icons, how about catering to those of us who try to use the iPad as a laptop replacement and add in some mature file management like a file brower than can move files between Apps, seletivetly back up data to an external drive? You know, like every other OS can do from the get-go.

    And surely it’s outgrown iTunes. C’mon, it’s a music player. It’s appalling at managing data in third party apps, and doesn’t even have a Photos section. Spend some of your money on software Apple, you tightwads.

  21. William Parker - 10 years ago

    Iv had my Ipad air since December and mine has crashed a few times , it’s crashed in the following apps Safari,eBay,temple run2 , and sonic game plus in the BBC ,Facebook apps. And when I checked the report diagnostics sent back to Apple the log is full of Low memory issues .

  22. Larry Coile - 10 years ago

    My pad 2 is now a blank screen with a silver apple on it. It will do nothing. What can I do?

  23. Bryson Smith - 10 years ago

    I have an iPad Air, and i cannot run Pandora, or any app’s that require a login, it will load until the screen turns black, then appear to reboot (Pops up Apple logo), I’m Jailbroken on iOS 7.0.3 and i got to say, this is just horrible. I mean, that takes away ALL my social media apps, i don’t really know what to do, this is a brand new iPad Air, Parents are going to kill me if i just say “f*** apple, i’m done with this iPad” (4trollz: not cause of profanity).

  24. Mark Trail - 10 years ago

    DO NOT DOWNLOAD 7.1!!!!!!! Now everything is crashing! APPLE YOU FUCKING SUCK!!!!

    • dbld23jr - 10 years ago

      DO NOT DOWNLOAD 7.1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      SAME ISSUE IPAD5 WAS RUNNING FINE UNTILL UPGRADING TO 7.1. THE DAY AFTER UPGRADING FROM 7.0.5(or whatever) THE IPAD STARTED TO CRASH WHAT APPEARED TO BE AT RANDOM TO A CRASH A SOON AS IT POWERED BACK ON> TO NOW I CAN”T EVEN GET ANYTHING IT”S FUCKING DEAD. IT IS COMPLETELY UNRESPONSIVE. WTF I”M SCREWED!!!!!!!

      • dbld23jr - 10 years ago

        Update

        Took the Ipad to the Apple store in the Mall and it was dead. They got it to connect to Itunes, but it was unresponsive. We lost everything on it (Since Jan this year so not too much) Luckily we purchased the extended Icare coverage because we have a 21 Month old Son and they replaced it no charge.
        *********** If you do not have Icare, or are out of warranty, As soon as any crashes happen on your device do whatever you can to roll back to whatever software you had that worked.

  25. Joe Caughman - 10 years ago

    Even with the update, the ipad still crashes. Bad Apple!

  26. Ally Williams - 10 years ago

    my iPad 2 crashed after i installed the new update, its telling me to restore and start again but it won’t restore my upas or anything please help?

  27. Katelyn Salazar - 10 years ago

    I started to update my Iphone 5 and my phone powered off and now says connect to iTunes. What do I do? Is there an easier way then connecting it to iTunes I took out the SIM card and put it back in I have tried everything. Please Help!!

  28. Still reboots and apps crash. Replaced two iPads and set up at new and still does it albeit less often with the last replacement. But slowly crawling back it seems.

  29. Pritam Kataria - 10 years ago

    When is iOS 7.1 coming any date?

  30. Jeff SolarSpies - 10 years ago

    Facebook app on iPad crashing regularly to the point where it is unusable. Not sure if it is apple or facebook problem, but I am becoming increasingly disappointed that this problem exists at all. It is also surprising that a problem that has existed for months does not have a fix or workaround yet. I will use facebook from safari, but sad that my most used app on the iPad is now unusable.