About a couple of days ago, reports surfaced that there was a bug in Apple’s iOS mobile operating system that causes apps in iPhones to crash when users tried tapping links. Fortunately, Apple was quick to respond, this time rolling out yet another new update to its OS. Indeed, iOS 9.3.1 has now been made available on iPhone and iPad devices, and it comes with a fix for that app-crashing bug.
iOS 9.3.1’s changelog is rather short and straightforward, basically containing only the statement that describes a fix taking care of “an issue that caused apps to be unresponsive after tapping on links in Safari and other apps.”
The bug first came to light when various iOS users took to Apple’s forums, complaining that Safari or any other app would freeze whenever they tapped on a link. The bug not only affected iOS 9.3, but also earlier versions of iOS 9. What happened was that a certain number of third-party developers of mobile apps have began abusing Universal Links, a particular feature that came with the release of iOS 9. Apple introduced the Universal Links feature in order to provide a means for handling links with native mobile apps. App developers can register domain names in order to launch Internet links directly via an app, essentially bypassing Safari. But apparently, some developers registered too many domain names for their app, basically overloading the Universal Links feature.
Those affected with the bug will be delighted to know that a fix is now available. In order to update, just go to the Settings app, then go to General > Software Update, and then update your device from there.