iOS 9.3 Bug Making Safari and Other Apps Crash: Reports

A bug in iOS 9.3 is causing some iPhone and iPad devices to freeze when a user tries to open a link on Safari and other apps. Apple is yet to acknowledge the issue, but a report suggests that third-party apps could be triggering the problem.

Apple released iOS 9.3 last week at a media event. The newest iteration of company's mobile operating system, iOS 9.3, seems to have a bug that is crashing iPhone and iPad devices for several users. Users claim that they have observed Safari consistently hang when they long press a link. Users say that tapping on a link on Safari doesn't do anything for them. Tapping and holding the link, for some reason, is causing a crash for plenty of users.

According to a report on 9to5Mac, third-party apps might be triggering the issue. Though, the publication adds that removing the third-party app, Booking.com in this instance, didn't revert the device to a functional state.

The issue, which seems to be affecting old iPhone and iPad models as well as new, has been reported by over a hundred users on the Apple Support page. Many users claim that they are unable to open links in Messages, Mail, Notes and other apps as well.

Not everyone seems to be facing the issue, either. We didn't face any issue on a test iPad 3rd generation tablet running iOS 9.3. If you're facing the issue, however, you might want to try disabling JavaScript on your browser, as many claim, this solves the issue on at least Safari.

Last week, Apple had to pull iOS 9.3 for older iPhone and iPad models after the new operating system version was found to cause an activation lock bug. This is the second widely reported issue with iOS 9.3 we have seen in less than a week since its release.