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Bizarre iMessage bug deletes last word of certain texts

Bizarre iMessage bug deletes last word of certain texts

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iMessage bug
iMessage bug

Today news of a bizarre bug affecting Apple's iMessage platform is quickly spreading across Twitter. The bug appears to render the final word of certain messages sent from an iPhone or Mac invisible to both sender and recipient. Two phrases have been confirmed as affected by the issue, with one oddly including President Barack Obama. Attempting to send "I could be the next Obama" followed by a trailing space will result in Obama's name being hidden from the received message. Everything looks fine until you hit the "send" button, after which — on both screens — the final word vanishes and is replaced with blank space. Oddly, copying and pasting the message (blank text and all) reveals the original composition. We've been able to confirm the strange issue firsthand on various iPhones.

"The best prize is a surprise" seems to be another phrase that triggers the phenomenon. And though it's only being widely publicized today, iPhone owners have been complaining about the issue (which extends beyond the above samples) for several months now. An Apple support forums thread from December points out the repeatable problem on Mac OS X Mountain Lion, with later posts concluding that the visual bug only affects iPhone (messages show up properly on iPad). We've reached out to Apple for comment on the situation.