On social media, some iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max users are reporting a weird issue affecting their new handsets. These users see horizontal lines during startup. The lines are either green or yellow or a combination of both and go away soon after the restart process completes, and the Home screen appears.
According to MacRumors (opens in new tab), users on Reddit (opens in new tab) claim Apple Support has confirmed the lines result from a software bug in iOS 16, not a hardware issue. Other Reddit users claim the issue began showing up with the iOS 16.2 software release, although still others say it happened on older versions of iOS 16.
To date, Apple hasn’t officially mentioned this bug’s existence or whether iOS 16.3, now being tested by developers, will resolve it. MacRumors, however, says at least one Reddit user claims “an Apple engineer informed them over the phone that Apple is working on a software patch for the issue, but the exact details are unknown.”
Possible software bug
As first mentioned by MacRumors, the horizontal line issue has been discussed by iPhone 14 Pro users on both Reddit, three Apple Support forums (1 (opens in new tab),2 (opens in new tab),3 (opens in new tab)), and the MacRumors forums.
Software bugs are common, and Apple typically solves issues like these promptly. So assuming the problem is real and is solved with iOS 16.3, Apple’s likely to push the update out to customers sooner, not later.
The iPhone 14 Pro, our best iPhone of the year, and the iPhone 14 Pro Max arrived in September. Since then, Apple has pushed out various software updates, the latest being iOS 16.2. That update, released earlier this month, includes multiple new features, including Freeform, Apple Music Sing, and Advanced Data Protection for iCloud.
We’ll continue following this story and let you know when a fix is issued. However, if you’re having a problem, it’s best to contact Apple Support (opens in new tab).