You probably have by no means listened to PJ Vogt’s Search Engine podcast, you’re lacking out. Vogt is among the most inquisitive minds on the market. He can flip any seemingly inane truth into an intricate story that usually results in sudden locations.
Not too long ago, he got here throughout an odd truth: iPhone audio messages mentioning the identify of a particular restaurant chain wouldn’t get delivered. He got down to discover out why, and he did it. Kind of.
Spoiler Alert
Simply as Gui Rambo says within the publish we’ll get to shortly, right here’s my truthful warning: you actually, actually, actually ought to hearken to the Search Engine episode earlier than studying on.
First, as a result of I don’t wish to rob you of the journey Vogt takes you on, whereas he discovers why an iPhone simply received’t obtain audio messages that point out a particular restaurant chain.
Second, as a result of I’m satisfied Search Engine will turn into one among your favourite exhibits. You’ll be hard-pressed to not point out one thing you realized from an episode in your subsequent pub dialog. Belief me.
OK? OK.
So, as Vogt and cybersecurity skilled Alex Stamos work out, the issue is that when iOS transcribes the audio message, it interprets the ampersand in Dave & Buster’s as code as a substitute of an precise ampersand textual content character.
Because it seems, in instances like this, Apple ought to do what is thought in programming as “escaping,” which mainly tells the system that it ought to interpret a particular character as textual content as a substitute of code.
Adequate for most individuals, however not ok for Gui Rambo. He needed to know what (and the way) precisely crashed within the system when the iPhone acquired the audio message containing the point out of Dave & Buster’s. So he did a little bit of spelunking of his personal.
In his latest weblog publish about it, you possibly can see the error logs and precisely how iOS behaves when it expects code that by no means arrives. It’s also possible to see what occurs when the audio message will get parsed and transcribed, and every thing falls aside.
For what it’s price, Apple already confirmed to Vogt that it plans to repair this bug in an upcoming iOS replace, so if you wish to take a look at it for your self, you’d higher do it quickly.
FTC: We use earnings incomes auto affiliate hyperlinks. Extra.
