Why does your iPhone keep restarting?
Being a tech journalist and veteran, as my profile picture unfortunately reveals, I’m quite used to reckoning with devices that just reset themselves for no apparent reason. Windows laptops at least give you a blue screen of death with some gobbledegook error message to look atmy old MacBook Pro would run out of memory and the will to live and just reboot and I accepted that as the price I paid for not paying the price of an Apple RAM upgrade. When it comes to smartphones, however, my Androids have never been rude enough to wave goodbye, but my iPhone 13 sure did. Unlucky for me I guess, and I never got to the end before doing my annual upgrade. My inbox on messaging platforms seems to suggest that random reboot and reboot loop issues are not at all uncommon when it comes to iPhones of any iteration. So, let’s look at the reasons and how you might be able to fix it without switching to Android.
The causes of a seemingly random iPhone reboot or reboot
Although the National Security Agency advises iPhone users, along with those of other devices, to reboot their smartphones on a weekly basis for security reasons, unless they’re doing it telepathically, that won’t be the reason here. No, the resets I’m talking about are the ones I’ve experienced, along with many others if you check out any Apple or iPhone support forum out there. You’re going about your business, watching a video, sending an email, catching up on social media, and bam—there’s the black screen, there’s the white Apple logo, and there’s the wait to reset and return everything. Or, even worse, the iPhone decides it needs to restart, but then gets stuck in a restart loop with the Apple logo flashing just at you, teasingly.
So what’s going on? I asked Apple who acknowledged my question but has yet to send me a response. If this changes I will update this article in due course. In the meantime, let’s explore some of the things that could be causing the mysterious reboot problems.
iPhone idle restart problem
One of the reasons why your iPhone is experiencing unexpected restart problems could be the aptly titled idle restart problem, which was covered so well recently by Kate O’Flaherty. This new security feature, yes it’s about security and privacy, was added in iOS 18.1 to protect data in case of theft or loss. Or confiscation by the prosecuting authorities, as some pointed out. Read Kate’s article for the full explanation.
Software crash or iOS update causes iPhone to reboot or reboot
If you recently installed or updated an iPhone app and the reboot problem started after that, then software corruption or some incompatibility, a bug in other words, might be behind the problem. Try uninstalling the app and restarting, sorry to make you do it again and see if the problem is resolved. Although rare, some users have complained in the past that updating to a new version of iOS has caused problems with their iPhone freezing and restarting or restarting. These issues are usually fixed very quickly with a minor update or by rolling back the update to a previous version that was running OK. Factory reset has been used successfully in extreme cases.
Hacker or other compromise could make your iPhone unstable
I’d argue that it’s rather unlikely that your iPhone has been hacked or hacked in some way, but it can’t be completely ruled out. Some spyware is known to cause system instability, for example. If you think it is possible in your case, for example, you have installed an application from an unofficial store or by following links on dubious websites, then it is worth checking. The folks at iVerify have released a free tool to check if your iPhone is infected with spyware, so that’s a good place to start.
If all else fails, blame aliens for your iPhone problems
As I said at the beginning of this article, I never understood why my iPhone kept restarting randomly. It could easily have been aliens, I decided in the end, as I’ll never really know. Seriously though, if you’re having problems restarting your iPhone that you can’t solve using the suggestions here or others you’ve found online, I’d recommend heading down to your nearest Apple Store and having them do an alien infestation check or at least see ion can help solve the problem. Good luck!
