Apple’s latest operating system, iOS 18, has hit a snag barely 48 hours after its public release. A newly discovered bug within iMessage is causing the app to repeatedly crash, leaving users frustrated and potentially losing valuable data.
The culprit? Sharing and interacting with Apple Watch faces within message threads. Replying to a shared watch face in a thread can trigger the bug, causing iMessage to crash not only when trying to open that specific conversation, but also impacting access to other conversations. This issue affects both the sender and recipient of the message.
While the bug appears to be limited to responses sent from iOS 18.0, it’s not entirely resolved in the latest beta versions either. Even though replying from iOS 18.1 might not trigger the initial crash, interacting with an affected thread on iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, or macOS 15.1 beta can still cause the app to crash.
Currently, the only way to rectify this is to delete the entire conversation thread from both devices involved.Unfortunately, this means losing all message history, including any photos or videos that haven’t been saved elsewhere.
The best course of action for now is to avoid replying to any shared Apple Watch faces within iMessage threads until Apple releases an official fix. This incident serves as a reminder that even with extensive beta testing, software bugs can still slip through the cracks.
