How to Fix Crashing Apps on iPhone & iPad

Though iPhone and iPad apps are generally very stable, sometimes you’ll encounter an application that crashes at random. In iOS, a crashing app usually presents as an app that seems to quit itself immediately, returning back to the Home Screen of the device without user intent. An app crash can happen immediately upon launching the app, crash randomly in the middle of using the app, or sometimes a crash can even be triggered predictably by a particular action that is attempted within the application. Regardless of when the iOS app is crashing, we’re going to review a few solutions that nearly always work to remedy the problem and should get you on your way to a trouble-free app usage experience again.

iOS Apps Crashing? Follow These 4 Tips to Resolve the Issue

We’re listing these tips in order of ease and difficulty, for best results you’ll likely want to try them all.

1: Quit and Re-Launch the App

Sometimes the simplest solution to a resolve a crashing application in iOS is to quit the app and then relaunch it. The idea behind this is that you’ll clear the app from memory and allow for a clean launch.

1. Double-click on the Home button to bring up the multitasking screen
2. Locate the application you wish to quit, then swipe up on the app to quit out of it
3. Hit the Home button to return to the Home Screen of iOS, then tap the app icon to re-open it again

This works to remedy some basic causes of application crashes, but it’s not perfect. If the app crashes again during usage, or if you’d just prefer to prevent further issues, keep following the next tips.

2: Update the App

Keeping apps updated is often vital to maintaining application stability and the reason is quite simple: developers identify bugs within their apps, fix them, and then push an update to the app. Of course many users will ignore app updates, but if you’re experiencing a problem with a particular app, don’t do that, keep the app updated (it’s good practice anyway).

1. Open the App Store and go to the “Updates” tab
2. Install any updates available to the application which is exhibiting crashing problems or bugs
3. Relaunch the freshly updated app

If the application crashing was caused by a bug that has since been remedied with an app update, this will resolve the problem.

Still having issues with an app crashing? It happens! Move onward, we’re not done yet.

3: Delete the App and Re-Install

Yes, deleting will simultaneously uninstall an app, but you’re going to re-install the same app again immediately. This is usually pretty quick, though some apps which are large can take a little while to download again.

1. Locate the problematic app on the Home Screen of iOS, then tap and hold on the icon
2. Tap on the (X) icon when it appears, then confirm you want to delete the app
3. Now launch the App Store and use the Search function (or visit the Purchases tab) and locate the name of the application you just deleted, then re-download it

Try opening the app again, working fine? Good, it should be.

Another perk to deleting and reinstalling apps is that it dumps app cache at the same time, which will free up some storage capacity, and those caches can sometimes be the cause of the app crashing in the first place. Some apps in particular are really bad with handling caches, a few bad oranges will bloat out cache to be absolutely enormous in size, which, when attempting to load, can lead to an instant crash from memory issues.

The delete and re-download trick has been around for a while as a remedy for a variety of app related issues, and it often still works.

And if you’ve tried all of this but you’re still having issues with apps crashing, try to force reboot the iPhone or iPad. If it’s still having issues, you’ll want to be sure you’re updated to the latest version of iOS…

4: Update iOS to the Latest Version

Updates to iOS often include bug fixes for system software, but some of those bug fixes and refinements also impact third party apps too. Additionally, some apps actually require a new version of iOS for certain features to work, or even for the application to work at all. Updating iOS to the latest version is fairly straight forward and usually without incident, and this combined with installing the latest version of an app is usually the be-all-end-all solution to a problematic app experience. Be sure to back up the iOS device before you update iOS, however.

1. Back up the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to iCloud or iTunes – don’t skip this
2. Open “Settings” > “General” > and go to “Software Update”
3. Choose “Download & Install” and let the entire iOS updating process complete

When the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch boots back into the latest version of iOS, and assuming you’ve already followed the steps above and have updated the app, the app that was crashing will almost certainly work without incident at this point.

Updating to a new version of iOS and a new version of the app really works. I had a friend run into this exact scenario recently with Instagram crashing, the app kept crashing repeatedly on them no matter what they did, initially when scrolling through a feed, and then crashing instantly upon launching the app – the only solution was to update iOS to the latest version, which immediately solved the problem.

Did these tricks work to resolve your app crashing problems? Do you have another fix that works for when an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch app crashes at random or crashes at launch? Let us know in the comments what works for you!

What to Do If You Forget Your iPhone or iPad’s Passcode

Can’t sign into your iPhone or iPad anymore? If you’ve forgotten the PIN and haven’t set up Touch ID on a modern iPhone or iPad, you’ll need to reset your phone or tablet to regain access.

You’ll lose everything stored on the device itself, although you can restore from backups. If you’ve synced your iPhone or iPad with iTunes, you can even make a fresh backup first to ensure you won’t lose anything.

Why Can’t I Bypass the Passcode?

There’s no way to bypass the PIN and regain access to an iPhone or iPad, even if you do have the username and password of the account signed into iCloud.

Enter the wrong passcode six times in a row and you’ll be informed your device is “disabled” for a period of time, preventing you (or an attacker) from trying over and over again.

On a modern iOS device, the hardware encryption keys are actually protected with the passcode you enter. This is why you always have to enter your PIN or passcode every time your device reboots — even if you’ve enabled touch ID. There’s no way around this aside from wiping the iPhone or iPad and starting fresh.

Wipe and Restore From an iTunes Backup

If you’ve previously synced your iPhone or iPad to iTunes on a Mac or PC, you can have iTunes make a fresh backup and restore that backup. You won’t lose any data if you can do this.

To do this, connect your iPhone or iPad to a computer you’ve previously synced with an open iTunes. If iTunes asks for a passcode, you won’t be able to provide it if you can’t get past the lock screen. Try another computer you’ve synced with previously. If you’re asked for a passcode, you won’t be able to back up or restore the device from within iTunes — you’ll have to use one of the below methods instead.

If iTunes doesn’t ask for a passcode, you can visit the device’s summary screen in iTunes and click “Back Up Now” to make a backup.

After the backup is complete, click “Restore iPhone” or “Restore iPad.” You’ll be able to restore it from the backup you’ve just created, setting up a new passcode while you do so. The passcode is not part of the backup. Select “Restore From iTunes Backup” while going through the setup process again.

Wipe From Find My iPhone

If you haven’t synced the device with iTunes and Find My iPhone is enabled on the device, visit the Find My iPhone page at iCloud.com in your web browser and sign in with your iCloud account and password.

Select the iPhone or iPad you want to wipe using the option at the top of the screen, and then click the “Erase” button. This will remotely erase your iPhone or iPad. When setting it back up, you’ll be able to restore from an iCloud backup or set it up as a new device. Either way, you’ll be able to enter a new PIN or passcode.

Wipe From Recovery Mode

If you haven’t set up Find My iPhone and you’ve never backed up your iPhone or iPad to a PC or Mac, you’ll have to use recovery mode to wipe it.

To do this, you’ll need a Mac or PC with iTunes installed and the included cable to connect your iPhone or iPad to the PC.

First, connect the iPhone or iPad to your computer and open iTunes. Press and hold the Power/Wake and Home buttons at the same time to forcibly restart your iPhone or iPad. Don’t let go of the buttons, even when the typical Apple logo appears. Keep holding the buttons until you see the recovery mode screen, which contains an iTunes logo as well as an outline of cable.

iTunes will inform you that “There is a problem with the iPhone [or iPad] that requires it to be updated or restored.” Click the “Restore” button to restore your device to its factory default settings. Afterwards, you can set it up from scratch and restore it from iCloud backups — if iCloud backup was enabled previously.

These methods will also work for Apple’s iPod Touch devices. If you forget the passcode to your Apple Watch, you can erase it from the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and restore an Apple Watch backup from your iPhone, too.

What to Do If You Forget Your Android Phone’s PIN, Pattern, or Password

Android normally secures your device by demanding a PIN, pattern, or full password. Your phone isn’t useless if you forget the unlock code — you can bypass it and get back in.

As Google tightens security, this has become more difficult on modern versions of Android. But there’s always a way to make your phone usable again, as long as you remember your Google account’s username and its password.

Android 4.4 and Below

Older versions of Android — Android 4.4 KitKat and older — have an integrated way to bypass your pattern, PIN, or other password if you forget it. Google removed this feature in Android 5.0 Lollipop, so you’ll have to use a different method if you have a device with a newer version of Android.

To find this feature, first enter an incorrect pattern or PIN five times at the lock screen. You’ll see a “Forgot pattern,” “forgot PIN,” or “forgot password” button appear. Tap it. You’ll be prompted to enter the username and password of the Google account associated with your Android device.

Android 5.0 and Up

This feature was removed in Android 5.0. Unfortunately, this means there’s no built-in way to simply reset your pattern, PIN, or password and gain access to your phone or tablet. This does help provide additional protection to your data, however — attackers have no way of bypassing the passcode unless they actually know it.

Android’s Smart Lock feature may be able to save you. For example, let’s say you’ve set up Smart Lock on your Android phone and have it automatically log in when it’s on your home Wi-Fi. You can take your phone to that home Wi-FI network and it will automatically unlock for you, even if you can’t remember the normal unlock code.

You’re left using a few other tricks that might work. For example, on Samsung devices, if you’ve logged into the device with a Samsung account, you can go to the Samsung Find My Mobile website, log in with the same Samsung account, and use the “Unlock my screen” option to remotely remove your device’s lock screen. Other manufacturers might potentially offer similar features if they have a device-tracking website if you’ve signed up for.

If you’ve already unlocked your bootloader and installed a custom recovery, you may be able to use that environment to remove the code. However, it probably won’t be possible to install a custom recovery without factory-resetting your device if you haven’t already done so.

Factory-Reset Your Android Smartphone or Tablet

Assuming you don’t have the easy option to reset the device using one of the tricks above, you should probably give up on the data stored on your device. You can get your device into a usable state again, but that will involve performing a factory reset, wiping the device’s storage, and setting it up again from scratch.

This isn’t as bad as it sounds, as most data on a modern Android device should just sync online. Sign in with the same Google account and you’ll have access to your emails, contacts, apps, and practically everything else. You’ll then be able to set up a new unlock code.

If your device has a removable SD card, you’ll probably want to remove the SD card before performing the factory reset, just to ensure any files stored on there won’t be overwritten. It’s probably best to shut down your Android device, remove the SD card, and then continue.

If your device has Google’s Android Device Manager enabled, you can visit the Android Device Manager website and log in with the same Google account you use on that Android device. Select the device you’re locked out of and select “Erase” to remotely erase it. You’ll be able to set it up from scratch afterwards — the lock code will be removed, but the device will also be wiped.

Note that the “Lock” option in Android Device Manager will only allow you to set a new lock code if your phone or tablet doesn’t already have an unlock code, so it can’t be used to remove an existing lock code.

If you’ve enabled another remote phone or tablet-tracking service, you can probably use its website to remotely wipe your device, too.

If you haven’t enabled Google’s Android Device Manager on your phone or tablet, that’s fine. You can factory-reset your phone or tablet even if you can’t unlock it.

The exact way you’ll do this is different on different phones and tablets. You’ll need toboot into your device’s system recovery menu and wipe it from there. To do this, you’ll need to turn the device off and turn it on while holding the correct buttons. For example, on the Nexus 4, you have to press and hold the Volume Down and Power buttons at the same time. On the Nexus 5, you have to press and hold the Volume Down, Volume Up, and Power buttons at the same time. Use the recovery menu to wipe the device.

Google offers a list of ways to access recovery mode on Nexus devices. You may have to perform a web search or check your device manufacturer’s support pages to find out how to reset it.

On devices running Android 5.1, you may have to enter the username and password of the Google account that was previously associated with the device after doing this. This prevents someone else from resetting and using your device. However, you won’t need the old unlock code to regain use of your hardware.

Modern Android devices work a lot more like Apple’s iPhones and iPads. If you forget the code, you’ll need to reset it to its factory default settings to regain access. This begins to make sense when you consider Google’s desire to automatically encrypt all Android devices out-of-the-box. The PIN or password is used as part of the key to decrypt the data stored on an encrypted Android device.

Why You Shouldn’t Jailbreak Your iPhone

There are plenty of downsides to jailbreaking your iPhone or iPad. You’ll be behind on iOS updates and forced to jailbreak each new version of iOS you want to use. More importantly, leaked security documents show jailbroken iPhones are more vulnerable to attack.

Jailbreaking has become less useful over time, too. More and more features that once required jailbreaking on iOS have become built-in as Apple added background apps, widgets, and other configurability to iOS.

Keeping Up With the Jailbreaks is Hard

All jailbreaks rely on security holes in the iOS operating system used on iPhones and iPads. When an intrepid hacker finds a security hole, they can use it to escape the usual protected environment on iOS and take control over the entire operating system. This exploit is then packaged into a jailbreaking tool people can download and use on their own devices.

That jailbroken iPhone or iPad will remain jailbroken until it upgrades to the next version of iOS. When you upgrade to the next version, your device will no longer be jailbroken — and Apple will have closed the hole, making hackers search for another one before the new version of iOS can be jailbroken. This may take months. It’s becoming harder and taking longer for hackers to find holes in iOS as Apple tightens security.

This means that, if you jailbreak, you won’t be able to install new versions of iOS immediately when they’re released. You’ll have to wait for hackers to find a new security hole and jailbreak. After you do upgrade, you’ll have to run the latest jailbreak tool — and you’ll remain stuck on that version of iOS until the process repeats itself. There’s no way around it — this is just inconvenient and more work. It’s not just a one-time process.

Jailbroken iPhones Are *Much* More Vulnerable to Attack

“Hacking Team” is an Italian security firm that was recently hacked, itself. Hacking Team sells hacking tools to governments around the world, including repressive ones. Leaked documents from Hacking Team indicate that its tools can compromise jailbroken iPhones, but not iPhones that haven’t yet been jailbroken. This means that attacks exist against jailbroken iPhones, but not non-jailbroken iPhones. Sure, it’s possible that another attack might exist somewhere, but almost all malware for iPhones has been limited to jailbroken devices.

This actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Those jailbroken iPhones were jailbroken using an exploit, and that exploit becomes public knowledge once the jailbreak tool is released. It wouldn’t be too hard for these iPhone exploits to be incorporated into a hacking tool and used to compromise iPhones for malicious purposes. That’s just speculation, of course — we’re not sure exactly how this is done.

Users who want to keep their jailbreak have to stay on the vulnerable version of iOS, while users who don’t care about jailbreaking are free to upgrade to the latest version of iOS with the security hole closed and no possibility of jailbreaking.

If you care about the security of your phone — and you should — avoid jailbreaks and stay on the latest version of Apple’s iOS.

Instability

Jailbreaks can potentially be unstable, too. The jailbreak itself may cause issues on your phone, or tweaks you install — which mess with iOS in ways normally not possible — may cause problems with your system and cause apps to crash or the phone to reboot more often.

You may need to restore your iPhone or iPad if you mess something up. That means more time spent messing with your phone or tablet.

Why Bother?

And honestly, why even bother jailbreaking? Yes, we know that there are tons of tweaks out there and ways you can extend iOS in ways that Apple usually won’t let you. However, realistically, jailbreaking has become less and less compelling.

Features like widgets, the ability for apps to run in the background, sharing data between apps, and multiple apps on-screen on the iPad have already been added or are being added in iOS 9.

iOS has become a mature operating system, and jailbreaking is less and less necessary — just like rooting has become less necessary on Android phones.

Don’t jailbreak just to jailbreak or use a little tweak. Sure, you might want to do it if there’s something you’re really passionate about — but know what you’re getting into and realize how much you’ve giving up for it.

Maybe You Should Just Get an Android Phone If You Want to Tweak

If you desperately want a phone that lets you install apps from outside the app store and do powerful things that wouldn’t normally be possible, you may just want to skip iPhones and get an Android phone next time.

Many things that aren’t normally possible on an iPhone are possible on Android even without rooting. Rooting your Android phone or tablet is often easier than jailbreaking and iPhone or iPad, and you could even install a third-party custom ROM like CyanogenMod and have it stay rooted while also receiving the latest security updates.

No, we’re not saying that all iPhone users should look at an Android phone. We’re just saying that an Android phone is probably a better choice for tweaking enthusiasts than a jailbroken iPhone.

There are some solid arguments against bypassing an Android device’s security protections, too. Using a device with an unlocked bootloader means anyone who gets their hands on it can gain access to your device. It’s often a good idea to lock your bootloader again after installing a custom firmware of your choice.

Rooting your device means a malicious app breaking out of the security sandbox could run wild in a way it normally couldn’t. That’s why Android phones don’t come rooted.

Faulty iPhone 6 Plus Cameras to Be Replaced Free by Apple

Apple has launched a replacement program for malfunctioning rear cameras on some iPhone 6 Plus models. The affected iPhone 6 Plus devices have a camera component failure which causes photos and video taken with the devices rear camera to appear blurry rather than focused (note Apple calls the rear camera on iPhones the iSight camera, and the front camera a FaceTime camera). Not all iPhone Plus models are impacted, and some iPhone 6 Plus devices with a repair-eligible serial number appear to take normal focused pictures.

Officially called the “iSight Camera Replacement Program for iPhone 6 Plus”, users who have the device can check their serial number on an Apple website to see if they are eligible for a free rear camera repair, which is done by replacing the malfunctioning camera unit. Apple states the devices impacted by the program were mostly sold between September 2014 and January 2015.

Determining if your iPhone 6 Plus is eligible for the free camera repair program is quick and easy:

• Retrieve the iPhone 6 Plus serial number from the device by going to Settings > General > About
• Go to the iSight Camera Replacement site on Apple.com and enter your serial number to check eligibility

Assuming an iPhone 6 Plus with its camera falls within the impacted serial number range, a message stating “The serial number you entered is eligible for this program. Please choose one of the service options below.” will appear, offering you three choices to have the camera component replaced: taking the iPhone 6 Plus to an Apple Retail Store, calling Apple Technical Support, or going to an Apple Authorized Service Provider. Each option will replace the defective rear camera free of charge.

If your iPhone Plus falls into the eligible range, it is a good idea to get it repaired by Apple for free – even if the camera is currently taking normal appropriately focused photos – since it’s possible the camera could later malfunction. Additionally, as we’ve mentioned in the past, Apple often repairs other malfunctioning components at the same time as a courtesy, though that’s by no means a guarantee, and any device malfunctioning due to user abuse or damage will likely not be covered by the repair programs.

If you’re going to send your iPhone in for repair, don’t forget to back it up first, ideally to both iCloud and iTunes.

The degree of the rear cameras failure to properly focus seems to vary per effected iPhone 6 Plus, but it can range from severe inability to focus the rear camera adequately at all, to mildly blurry images in conditions where the photo taken should be crisp. An example of a blurry iPhone 6 Plus with a camera eligible for free replacement is shown below:

Another even more extreme example of a failing iPhone 6 Plus rear camera is shown below, recording an incredibly blurry and strangely out of focus video at an Apple Store, apparently taken before a repair was offered:

(Above blurry camera image from yours truly at OSXDaily.com, video from a user on Apple Support Forums)

Apple states the camera replacement program will be effective for three years after an iPhone 6 Plus first retail sale.