The iPhone issue can be resolved, but it will take some time.
Apple iPhone customers around the world have been experiencing a frustrating glitch in recent weeks. iMessage and FaceTime appear to deactivate at random and cannot be reactivated.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who tweeted about his encounter with the malware, is the high-profile victim who brought it to the public’s attention. This revealed the extent of the bug’s reach, with users in Italy to the Philippines affected by it.
Only individuals who use their iPhone’s eSIM chip instead of a physical SIM card are affected by the issue. Gurman reports that the flaw affects at least three iOS versions: 15.6 beta 1, 15.4, and 15.6. “It could have been earlier, but I don’t have any confirmation on that at the moment.”
Easy and hard answers seem to be the two options available. The simplest solution is to switch to a new physical SIM card, which is what Gurman did. Remove the eSIM account and re-create it from scratch if you don’t want to do it the hard way.
Gurman tweeted, “That’s complicated for most people and should never [sic.] be done.” A lack of texting capabilities, of course, would be a problem. “It’s not, “It just works.””
T-Mobile and Verizon customers in the United States have reported issues, but no one wants to take blame. Apple blames T-Mobile while T-Mobile claims that it’s an Apple problem, according to a commenter on 9to5Mac.
Apple and T-“annoying Mobile’s finger pointing” was the most frustrating part, a commenter wrote, after eventually getting T-Mobile to supply a physical SIM card.
Another person on Twitter had a similar experience:
A warning for future iPhones
Despite the fact that the majority of the world has yet to adopt eSIM, a simple (though time-consuming) option exists. In any case, it’s an important warning shot for Apple’s rumoured direction of travel.
Even in 2022 (or even 2023), eSIM-only iPhones are expected to be on the market, according to one analyst. It would have been impossible to simply insert an ordinary SIM card to fix this problem if it had occurred at this time. You also won’t be able to use a different temporary handset until Apple fixes any communication issues.
However, if iPhone SIM cards were abolished, the problem would be far more prevalent and hence likely to be rapidly rectified. In any case, this serves as a timely reminder that’simplifying’ phone design might inadvertently complicate matters.