Apple updates its operating systems to solve 'bug' that closed apps

The error caused applications running on iOS and Mac devices to crash when displaying an Indian character.

Apple released security updates for its operating systems on Monday to fix an error that caused applications to fail when a certain Indian character was sent.

The error, discovered last week, allowed a character in Telugu language (an Indian language) to close iOS apps and prevent them from opening again. The bug affected any application that could display characters, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Messages.

The updates released on Monday are iOS 11.2.6 for iPhone and iPad, TVOS 11.2.6 for Apple TV, WatchOS 4.2.3 for all Apple Watch models and MacOS 10.13.3 for Mac.

The release note of iOS 11.2.6 says that the update "fixes a problem where the use of certain character strings could cause applications to crash" and "fixes a problem where some third-party applications may not connect with external accessories" .

The problem was first detected last week by Mobile World, which noted that it is even worse if the character appears as a notification. In most scenarios, you must uninstall and reinstall the application to make it work again.

Apple said at the time that it was working on a solution that would be available in the next update.