Irony: iPhone 5S Users Reporting Blue Screen of Death

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Irony: iPhone 5S Users Reporting Blue Screen of Death

Posted by timothy on Friday October 11, 2013 @12:04PM from the ok-this-feels-intuitive dept.

MojoKid writes "It's been a long time since many have seen a dreaded 'blue screen of death' (BSoD), but it's back and in the most unlikeliest of places. Oddly enough, some Apple iPhone 5S owners are reporting BSoD errors, though they're a little different from the ones you may remember seeing on Windows desktops. Rather than spit out an obscure error code with a generic description, some iPhone 5S devices are suddenly turning blue before automatically restarting. The Numbers app in Apple's iWork suite, a free program with new iPhones, seems to be the primary cause, though BSoD behavior has also been observed in other applications, according to complaints in Apple's support forum."

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Hell freezes over. by o_ferguson · 2013-10-11 12:06 · Score: 5, Funny

Guru Meditation: BSoD.

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- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
How unusual... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-10-11 12:08 · Score: 5, Interesting

Aside from the whole 'a tightly sandboxed "app" taking down the system' thing (which makes one wonder if Apple's apps follow the same rules as everyone else's, or whether there is some Nasty bug in an API), don't iDevices use a totally different design for their screen of death? Macs, certainly, both PPC and Intel, can be made to execute BSOD-level crashes; but the process looks totally different.
1. Re:How unusual... by phantomfive · 2013-10-11 12:24 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  There are plenty of bugs in iOS, even for low-permission apps. I've been messing around with the mach parser, and I've found several ways to crash the device (other people have reported similar things). The interface between userland and kernel is just complicated, and sandboxing has never been and never will be a magic bullet.
  
  That said, your second point is a good one, why would it suddenly turn blue when ever other crash just causes it to turn black with a rotating circle? Doesn't really make sense.......
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
2. Re:How unusual... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-11 12:29 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  There are plenty of bugs in iOS, even for low-permission apps. I've been messing around with the mach parser, and I've found several ways to crash the device (other people have reported similar things). The interface between userland and kernel is just complicated, and sandboxing has never been and never will be a magic bullet.
  That said, your second point is a good one, why would it suddenly turn blue when ever other crash just causes it to turn black with a rotating circle? Doesn't really make sense.......
  Because iPhone fanboys are also hipsters, and the blue screen is old enough to now qualify as "Retro". You're just not cool unless your device dies with a warm, blue glow!
3. Re:How unusual... by MightyYar · 2013-10-11 12:54 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Pffft. Everyone with an iPhone gets a blue screen. My phone is built with a CRT - they only make those at this one old Soviet factory that they recently found.
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
4. Re:How unusual... by MightyYar · 2013-10-11 13:15 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  My home phone has a _string_.
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
5. Re:How unusual... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-11 13:19 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  My home phone is a large fire and a blanket.
6. Re:How unusual... by _xeno_ · 2013-10-11 13:33 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Aside from the whole 'a tightly sandboxed "app" taking down the system' thing (which makes one wonder if Apple's apps follow the same rules as everyone else's, or whether there is some Nasty bug in an API)
  It looks to be a bug in their text-to-speech API. If you watch the video, he triggers the BSOD by starting the app speaking, then returning to the home screen (which stops the app, remember, iOS doesn't do real multitasking*), then restarting the app. So presumably it's a bug in the accessibility APIs that are used to do text-to-speech.
  * OK, yes, it does, but you know what I mean in this instance, yes? User apps are not allowed to use multitasking, so the running app is stopped.
  
  --
  You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
7. Re:How unusual... by Columcille · 2013-10-11 13:35 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  My home phone is a piece of dried mammoth hide stretched across some sticks that I beat with a rock.
  
  --
  I love my sig.
8. Re:How unusual... by MightyYar · 2013-10-11 13:36 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  You win.
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
9. Re:How unusual... by rtb61 · 2013-10-11 15:51 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  You can effectively sandbox but for it to really work it requires a major change in system design and, a major commitment to a bug free OS, OS on chip. Offers far faster boot time, keeps the OS really secure but if it isn't bug and security issue free, then you have real problems. Software coders have always been as slack as hell compared to CPU engineers.
  
  --
  Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Most unlikeliest? by ShaunC · 2013-10-11 12:12 · Score: 4, Funny

Sounds like somebody's grammar checker had a blue screen...

--
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Well by The+Cat · 2013-10-11 12:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

There is a great deal of evidence to indicate we are no longer capable of advancing software.
It has been remarked that if we built buildings the same way we build software the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
Take a look around. The government apparently spent $165 million on a web site that doesn't work.
There's no discipline in software development. It's slapped together to meet an artificial deadline. It's considered done if it compiles. It's shoved out into the marketplace so everyone can stuff their pockets and then all the developers are fired to make way for the new employees who will design the next piece of shit.
The only measure of how good software is depends on how shiny and "innovative" the user interface is. What the software actually does is utterly irrelevant.
1. Re:Well by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-10-11 12:31 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Arguably, the sheer lousiness of software is more striking because it (still, despite decades of work and the amount of money riding on some of it) crops up in the face of well heeled customers, whether retail buyers of expensive personal electronics or enterprise/gov buyers who are willing to spend nearly unlimited amounts on their pet contractors...
  
  With buildings, there is plenty of construction that's roughly on the standards of software (Just do an image search for 'Shantytown' if you doubt me...); but structural quality is mostly stratified economically. If you want a building that works, and you have the cash, you can have one. With software, the cities of the world would be a nearly random assortment of mostly shacks, some incrementally nicer than others, with a scattering of structures that were built in 3,000 BC and are in perfect condition, buildings that are constructed from graphene and carbon nanotubes; but have doors made of soggy cardboard stuck to the frame with chewing gum, and other such oddities.
  
  That's the odd thing. Plenty of kinds of engineering are hard and expensive, and sometimes subject to unexpected cost overruns and such; but we've gotten it to the point where if you live in a country with a functional society and fire codes and things, you can buy good buildings, aircraft that don't crash, and other nice things.
  
  With software... your mileage may vary.
2. Re:Well by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-11 12:32 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  There is a great deal of evidence to indicate we are no longer capable of advancing software.
  It has been remarked that if we built buildings the same way we build software the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
  Take a look around. The government apparently spent $165 million on a web site that doesn't work.
  There's no discipline in software development. It's slapped together to meet an artificial deadline. It's considered done if it compiles. It's shoved out into the marketplace so everyone can stuff their pockets and then all the developers are fired to make way for the new employees who will design the next piece of shit.
  The only measure of how good software is depends on how shiny and "innovative" the user interface is. What the software actually does is utterly irrelevant.
  Writing good software is an engineering task. As is building bridges, skyscrapers etc...
  Unfortunately CS courses are not about teaching software engineering. They're all about teaching the latest fad in computer language and off you go into the marketplace. And lets not even mention of the sunday-day programmers that barely can put 4 lines of code in javascript right.
  Put penal/civil responsabilites on those that code, and see how the whole industry changes for the better. Until that time you'll have shitty and not so shitty coders that write shitty code (hint just because it compiles doesn't mean it works correctly) because we ship code as is. It brings down your server room ? Not our fault. Just look at what software companies write in their EULAs. No other industry could do such a thing. We're not responsabile for anything. My ass you're not.
3. Re:Well by gweihir · 2013-10-11 12:46 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  There are people that can write solid, dependable, secure software and advance the state-of-the-art in this area. There are also people that can learn to do this with the right education. Both groups are small and highly intelligent. Most of them chose to go into careers where they actually have a career path, managers that do not tell them how to do their jobs and a salary in line with their talents.
  On the other side, most people writing software today are incompetent, or at best, half-competent. I have seen teams needing several months to write software that I can create in a week with significantly better quality. I have reviewed business-critical software for large organizations, where the programmers did not even understand the very basics. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/02/the-nonprogramming-programmer.html does _not_ overstate the problem.
  So we are very much capable of advancing software, but advancing software has been a game for competent experts for a while. Just look at what people are advancing other engineering disciplines, or mathematics or physics. More and more people of that quality are needed for software as well. But the culture is not there. Software is regarded as a solved problem, which is anything but true. But it drives down wages, cause bad working and career conditions and turns away many of the few people that have the required talent. Stupid.
  
  --
  Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
4. Re:Well by real-modo · 2013-10-11 18:41 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Unfortunately CS courses are not about teaching software engineering.
  Of course not. CS is a branch of mathematics. Software Engineering courses teach software engineering. Totally different disciplines.
  
  They're all about teaching the latest fad in computer language and off you go into the marketplace.
  No; as above, computer science is mathematics. Air-quote CS air-quote courses taught in community colleges and the like are misnamed, because "introduction to software construction" doesn't stroke the egos of either the teachers or their students.
5. Re:Well by Xest · 2013-10-13 22:50 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It's got nothing to do with software engineers, it's the classic project management triangle:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_triangle
  We know full well how to write good solid software, developers can do that just fine, it's a well researched area that's pretty well understood.
  The problem is that no one is willing to pay for or wait for that software.
  You can't blame software engineering for the priorities society and project managers have decided to prioritise. It's not the fault of software engineering if users want a new shiny every year rather than a perfectly secure and stable shiny every 5 years.
  Some buildings are built quickly and cheaply from kids wendy houses and tree houses, to a tramps cardboard box or buildings in a shanty town. None of which last particularly well in the face of a bomb or natural disaster because none of which are engineered to.
  It's just the way project management works, the issue you take isn't a problem with software engineering and everything to do with the project managers and the priorities forced upon them by society and business needs.
  I'm not even sure it can actually be classed as a problem though anyway, if society has pushed things this way then it just means you're in a minority that has been outvoted by society at large in wanting something stable and secure rather than something new and shiny ASAP. It just means most people have different priorities to you and so the market has bent that way, that's all. Effectively it's just working as intended, unless you're suggesting software engineers should be responsible for somehow warping reality and laying waste to the project management triangle, something no other profession has ever managed to do, and in that case you're just being unrealistic.
According to SJ... by bob_super · 2013-10-11 12:24 · Score: 3, Funny

... They're just looking at it wrong.
They didn't make a shiny golden backplate for you to waste your time looking at the screen, people!
Don't be surprised if by djupedal · 2013-10-11 12:35 · Score: 4, Funny

. . .these turn out to be forced/silent restarts by Apple on the backend, due to a laundry list of reasons best left to others - don't ask how I know.
Re:How unusual... iSky showing through? by j-stroy · 2013-10-11 13:45 · Score: 3, Informative

Could it be in the iCloud API? Native apps like Numbers store docs in iCloud.
Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-11 13:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

Apple is worse than Microsoft. People like to slam Windows 9x for being unstable, usually rightfully so, but they forget that the Macs of the time were even worse. By the time OS X came out, MS had Windows NT 4, 2K and XP out, which were all very stable. Since then, every MS OS has been stable, including Vista.

On top of that, Apple freaks out when people want to customize or doing something "out of bounds" with their Mac. Microsoft has always encouraged people to do what they want with Windows.
User apps are allowed to do real multitasking by SuperKendall · 2013-10-11 15:50 · Score: 4, Informative

User apps are not allowed to use multitasking,
User apps are allowed to do anything for around ten minutes after they are shut by the user (they may be killed sooner if they use too many resources or the foreground app needs all the resources).
User apps can also have periodic tasks that run in the background (in iOS7).
User apps can also run indefinitely in the background under some conditions, like for navigation or... for background audio. So it might be some hiccup in the text to speech system operating while the app it is attached to is running in the foreground. I would think anything reading text generally would keep reading even if you closed the application, though it would depend on the application and how it set up the audio session...

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1. Re:User apps are allowed to do real multitasking by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-11 16:58 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If you notice, the app keeps speaking until he brings up the new (annoying, IMO) running app overview screen. It then stops despite obviously having text left to speak, he touches the app to bring it in the foreground, and it crashes. My money is on the text-to-speech stopping when the overview is brought up causes a bad state, then when the app comes up it probably checks whether it's running or not, gets bad info, and then goes BOOM. I would put good odds on it being either in the text-to-speech API or in the audio API.
  
  In my own work, I found iOS 7 introduced a major flaw in the audio where it no longer acts appropriately in a particular situation in the background and I had to write a workaround -- a hack, really, but it's the only solution that doesn't require months of work -- in order for my app not to get in a bad state where it can no longer run audio again.
not only 5s or os 7? by LodCrappo · 2013-10-11 16:44 · Score: 4, Interesting

Here is video of an older iPhone and os making exact same blue screen/restart.
Seems to take different actions to trigger, but not sure this is a new bug.
From the comments sounds like it wasn't too uncommon either..
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KjyQLlEHomQ

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-Lod