Don’t do this on iOS 18 — or you may lose your texts
A peculiar bug has appeared in iOS 18.
The new Apple software update, which goes live for everyone on Friday, has already become home to a weird little glitch that has potentially catastrophic consequences. According to 9to5Mac, if you reply with a threaded message when someone shares an Apple Watch face with you over Messages, you run the risk of losing your entire text history with that person.
9to5Mac went a little deeper into what exactly happens when you reply to an Apple Watch face. Apparently, once it happens, the Messages app will repeatedly crash if you try to open the conversation. Harrowingly, this affects both users in the conversation, not just the person who replied in the first place. As far as anyone can tell, the quickest solution is to delete the chat history between you and the other person.
Obviously, that's not great. The simple act of replying to a watch face shouldn't run the risk of losing years of chats with a loved one. Do not be surprised if Apple fixes this with haste.
Alex Perry is a tech reporter at Mashable who primarily covers video games and consumer tech. Alex has spent most of the last decade reviewing games, smartphones, headphones, and laptops, and he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. He is also a Pisces, a cat lover, and a Kansas City sports fan. Alex can be found on Bluesky at yelix.bsky.social.
