Apple has encountered a “pretty bad” problem with its iPhones, although it hopes a newly released fix will fix the situation. Because of the problem 9-5Mac: Users say that even photos they deleted years ago are reappearing unexpectedly. Users said that after updating to iOS 17.5 last week, surprise photos started appearing in their phone’s photo libraries, and that the photos temporarily stored in the iPhone’s “Recently Deleted” folder for 30 days after the user pressed the “Delete” button were no longer there. .” (At least said one user (While 9to5Mac says it has reason to think “this claim is not true,” it reports that the old images even appear on the iPads they sell.)
On Monday, Apple released a fix for a “rare issue where photos that were damaged in the database could reappear in the Photos library even if they were deleted” — but the tech giant isn’t saying much else. “This is clearly a privacy concern,” he notes Verge. “This raises fundamental questions about how Apple stores photo data and whether iPhone owners can truly trust that their deleted data is truly deleted.” Apple has so far explained the cause and what has been done to fix the bug.
Forbes takes a step toward guessing what’s causing the problem, noting that “When you clicked the delete button, the data that made up the image was not overwritten, it was simply disconnected. Those data files would only overwrite that part. memory was needed, so something in iOS 17.5 could bring them back to life.”
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The outlet adds that it’s normal for mistakes like this to happen, but is concerned about Apple’s relative silence on the “zombie” photos, noting that it has reached out “several times” for comment, to no avail. “What’s troubling is that as long as Apple remains silent, we have no idea how far this bug has gone,” he said. “Ignoring requests for public comment on the matter does not inspire confidence that this will not happen again.” (More iPhone stories.)