{"id":410845,"date":"2026-01-16T12:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T12:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/410845\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T12:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T12:24:08","slug":"hundreds-of-millions-of-iphones-must-reboot-now-are-you-affected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/410845\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds Of Millions Of iPhones Must Reboot Now\u2014Are You Affected?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"iPhone<\/p>\n

Check your iPhone software today.<\/p>\n

Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Updated on Jan. 16 with new data on Apple\u2019s iOS 26 upgrade problem. <\/p>\n

This is not optional. Apple warns that iPhone attacks<\/a> are underway and has released fixes to keep users safe. The bad news is that hundreds of millions of those users are now at risk. Check your iPhone now. And if you need to reboot, do so immediately.<\/p>\n

Go to Settings > General > Software Update. If your iPhone is not running either iOS 26.2 or iOS 18.7.3, go to Settings > General > Shut Down and power the device off. Or you can press and hold either volume button and the side button until the power-off slider appears,” Apple says<\/a>. If that doesn\u2019t work, you can force it to restart<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Given the latest data suggests 50% of all eligible iPhone users<\/a> have not yet upgraded to secure those fixes, the situation has now become urgent. Resistance to the iOS 26 upgrade has been exacerbated by Apple\u2019s decision<\/a> to make the fixes available only to iPhones or newer that have upgraded. Sticking to iOS 18 is no longer possible.<\/p>\n

ForbesGoogle Starts Scanning Your Photos For People And Places\u2014Decision TimeBy Zak Doffman<\/a><\/p>\n

A reboot will kill any spyware running on your iPhone. At least until the spyware reloads, either because it\u2019s automatically persistent or because you repeat whatever action started the software running on your iPhone in the first place.<\/p>\n

While it might seem that because Apple\u2019s warning that attacks are highly targeted, most users are unaffected, that\u2019s a dangerous defense. The WebKit exploits behind the latest attacks will become more widely deployed, targeting ever more users.<\/p>\n

You should really upgrade if you\u2019re an iOS 26 holdout. If not, you must restart your iPhone weekly \u2014 at least until you update to either of those two versions of iOS. Until Apple clarifies iOS 26 upgrade numbers, we will not know for sure how close the analyst data is to the real numbers. But worry not, regular reboots are a good idea anyway.<\/p>\n

While the latest StatCounter data<\/a> on Jan. 16 continues to show iOS 26 adoption remains well under 20%, these numbers are now under investigation. <\/p>\n

Ars Technica<\/a> says \u201cwe\u2019ve taken a high-level look at all iPhone traffic across all Cond\u00e9 Nast websites for October, November, and December of 2025.” And while \u201ciOS 26 is being adopted more slowly than iOS 18 was the year before,\u201d it not as cataclysmic a drop-off as StatCounter\u2019s data suggests.”<\/p>\n

Mashable<\/a>, first to dig into those numbers, says \u201cthe adoption numbers are wrong.\u201d That\u2019s because \u201cthere\u2019s actually a bug in the reporting system, and it’s Apple’s fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

Put simply, the issue is that the Safari identifying tag picked up by analysts to measure OS version numbers when browsers load websites is reporting iOS 18 even when a device has upgraded to iOS 26. This could be falling foul of fingerprinting defenses in Safari, which deliberately obfuscate data, or a different, deliberate measure to ensure broad compatibility for Safari users visiting sites while using a new OS.<\/p>\n

ForbesIran Strikes Musk\u2019s Starlink\u2014First \u2018Electronic Warfare\u2019 AttackBy Zak Doffman<\/a><\/p>\n

The mistake doesn\u2019t hit Chrome or other browsers on iPhones \u2014 just Safari.<\/p>\n

The numbers are less stark, but still leave hundreds of millions of iPhones yet to upgrade. The corrected data, Ars Technica says, \u201cdoes suggest that \u2018normal\u2019 users aren\u2019t in a rush to get the update,\u201d albeit early adopters seemed to move as expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy December 2024, our data shows that 76 percent of iPhone Safari page views were going to iOS 18 devices, compared to just 45 percent for iOS 26 in December 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Check your iPhone software today. Anadolu via Getty Images Updated on Jan. 16 with new data on Apple\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[175875,140030,175876,100264,153901,175874,132048,165,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-410845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-apple-confirm-attack","9":"tag-apple-spyware","10":"tag-apple-update-now-warning-iphone","11":"tag-ios-26-vs-ios-18","12":"tag-ios-26-2","13":"tag-ios-26-3","14":"tag-ios-26-4","15":"tag-mobile","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}