The latest iOS beta, iOS 17.3, apparently has some major issues. Problems serious enough for Apple to withdraw the beta version from circulation after just a few hours.
After the release of iOS 17.3 Beta 2 this week, reports began to trickle in that some users who had installed it were seeing their iPhone stuck in a boot loop. Devices would restart without stopping and never fully charged. Consequence: Apple quickly made the beta version unavailable for download and installation.
According to a Mastodon user, the problem is at least partially related to the “Back Tap” gesture. Designed primarily as an accessibility feature, the Back Tap gesture allows users to assign specific functions to a double or triple tap on the back of their phone. “It appears that the iOS 17.3 beta 2 boot loop is caused by a Back Tap crash,” the user wrote. “Based on the crash log, it is likely that this is happening for those who have the ‘Back Tap’ feature enabled. Other accessibility subsystems appear to be affected by the same bug, but this is what crash that causes the boot loop.”
Avoid installing beta versions on your main smartphone
Affected users reported that rolling back their iOS to an earlier version, either 17.3 beta 1 or iOS 17.2.1, fixed the issue.
It should be noted that installing beta versions of iOS on your primary smartphone is strongly discouraged, as they are designed to do exactly what happened here: expose bugs and flaws.
Shortly after removing the beta, Apple added a paragraph to the release notes: “iOS and iPadOS 17.3 beta 2 have been temporarily removed due to an issue that prevented a small number of devices from booting. If your device is in this state, you can recover it by entering Recovery mode and restoring a previous version of iOS.”
The latest beta version of iOS 17, released in December, brought a major security feature, stolen device protection, as well as Apple Music collaborative playlists and some small bug fixes. The new version should not bring major new features, but only some small fixes.
Source: “ZDNet.com”