Apple products are usually among the most reliable on the market. However, that doesn’t exempt them from occasional problems, which in some cases can be serious. Fans of the brand have been able to test the iPhone 16 series since September, discovering new features and improvements, but also bugs. According to reports, some iPhone 16 Pro units are suddenly freezing and restarting with no apparent explanation.
A few days after the release of the iPhone 16 lineup, complaints about the problem flooded social platforms and support forums. Most of the reports about restarts and freezes come from owners of the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max models, so those variants would be more prone to manifest them. Not all users experience the issue, but the number of complaints about it is enough to draw attention.
A bug is causing freezes and reboots on some iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max devices
Affected people claim that the screen of their iPhone 16 Pro or Pro Max suddenly stops responding to touches. Soon after, the device will automatically reboot itself. There are also cases where phones suddenly reboot when in standby mode. The bug is present on iPhone 16 Pro models running iOS 18/iOS 18.0.1 stable and iOS 18.1 beta. So, it doesn’t seem to be the same case of the battery drain issue affecting more generations of iPhones where iOS 18 seems to be the cause.
The fact that the bug is only present on some units, regardless of their software version, may raise concerns about potential hardware-related issues. Anyway, there is nothing confirmed about it yet. Some of the affected customers claim to have managed to get a replacement device after resorting to their warranty. Sadly, in some cases, the issue was still present even on the replacement units.
Also, not all affected phones are experiencing the issue in the same way. There are cases where the freezes and reboots are sporadic, while there are others where they happen up to 20 times a day.
There’s a workaround that could help
Some reports suggest that a factory reset without restoring your backup helps resolve things. This suggests that a potential bug during the restoration of iCloud backups could be the cause of the frustrating situation. However, the workaround will make the setup process for your new device more tedious.
There is still no official word from Apple regarding the cases of iPhone 16 models freezing and restarting. Hopefully it won’t take long for updates to emerge regarding the problem.
