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Irony: iPhone 5S Users Reporting Blue Screen of Death

Posted by timothy on 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."

16 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Hell freezes over. by o_ferguson · · Score: 5, Funny

    Guru Meditation: BSoD.

    --
    - In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
  2. How unusual... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      My home phone is a large fire and a blanket.

    4. Re:How unusual... by _xeno_ · · 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.
    5. Re:How unusual... by Columcille · · 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.
    6. Re:How unusual... by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Funny

      You win.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  3. Most unlikeliest? by ShaunC · · 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!
  4. Well by The+Cat · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 real-modo · · 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. Don't be surprised if by djupedal · · 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.

  6. User apps are allowed to do real multitasking by SuperKendall · · 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
  7. not only 5s or os 7? by LodCrappo · · 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

    --
    -Lod