Apple iPhone 5s Complain About 'Blue Screen Of Death' Error

by Amit Chowdhry, Contributor
forbes.com 10/11/2013 @ 9:38AM

The Apple AAPL -0.24% iPhone 5s was released three weeks ago and is distinguished from its predecessor by having silver or gold color options, a built-in fingerprint sensor and a 64-bit Apple A7 processor. Unfortunately, the iPhone 5s has an issue that has not been seen before in previous Apple products. The iPhone 5s suffers from the dreaded Blue Screen of Death(BSOD). I have not seen a BSOD ever since Microsoft MSFT +0.5% Windows 98!

What causes the BSOD error?  Many iPhone 5s users have complained that the BSOD sometimes appears while using the free Apple iWork apps that comes with new iOS devices. Others have reported that multitasking between apps seem to be a trigger for the BSOD. Once the iPhone 5s shows the BSOD for a few seconds, it simply reboots the device.  This error appears to be iPhone 5s specific and has not affected iPhone 5c users.

Apple forum users are reporting that the BSOD issue can be fixed by disabling iCloud syncing for the Apple Pages, Apple Keynote and Apple Numbers apps. In order to disable iCloud sync for iWork apps, go into the Settings of the iPhone 5s and then select iCloud.  Set the “Documents & Data” for the Pages, Keynote and Numbers apps to “Off.”

Apple recently released a software update to iOS 7, known as iOS 7.0.2.  This update fixed a bug that let users get past passcode security on the lockscreen, which was discovered several hours after iOS 7 was released to the public.  The update did not fix an issue that prevents certain iMessages from being sent, nor did it fix the BSOD issue.  Apple acknowledged the iMessages issue and said that they would patch it in a future software update.  To see what the BSOD issue looks like, check out the video below: