Apple pledges to fix iPhone X cold-weather issues

Apple’s iPhone X might have the screen as its selling point over other iPhones, but the cold winter air might be putting a damper on that for some buyers.

“For Phrase, type an upper-case ‘I, ‘” Apple said on its website.

One user on Reddit who claimed to be using an iPhone X in -4F (-20C) temperatures reported that the screen only recognized 20 percent of touches, but that locking and then unlocking the screen fixed the problem.

It’s not been a great few weeks for smartphone screen issues, but at least with the iPhone X’s newly-discovered cold weather problems there’s an easy workaround.

The Cupertino-based mammoth has now said that they are planning to roll out a software update to fix this bug.

According to Loop Insight, which dug through the Reddit forums, it’s not immediately clear why the iPhone X will be fine in some cases and react abnormally in others.

Unlike the Pixel 2 XL’s blue tint, burn-in, and grainy display issues, the iPhone X’s touch problem doesn’t seem to be rooted on hardware. Most users have said that the problem disappears after several minutes. Apple notes that “Low or high-temperature conditions might cause the device to change its behavior to regulate its temperature”.

The update is now available to download to the iPhone and iPad and you can download it by going to Settings General Software update. Apple recommends operating its iOS devices in temperatures 32 degrees and 95 degrees Fahrenheit. In some instances, users have even found the screen stops working completely.

We can expect a software update for the iPhone X soon considering Apple appears to have already started working on the issue. It uses facial recognition to secure data on the phone, instead of a fingerprint sensor, so cold weather-users won’t have to remove their gloves to unlock their phones.