Apple products are usually among the most reliable on the market. However, that doesn’t exempt them from occasional problems, which in some cases can be serious. Fans of the brand have been able to test the iPhone 16 series since September, discovering new features and improvements, but also bugs. According to reports, some iPhone 16 Pro units are suddenly freezing and restarting with no apparent explanation.

A few days after the release of the iPhone 16 lineup, complaints about the problem flooded social platforms and support forums. Most of the reports about restarts and freezes come from owners of the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max models, so those variants would be more prone to manifest them. Not all users experience the issue, but the number of complaints about it is enough to draw attention.

A bug is causing freezes and reboots on some iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max devices

Affected people claim that the screen of their iPhone 16 Pro or Pro Max suddenly stops responding to touches. Soon after, the device will automatically reboot itself. There are also cases where phones suddenly reboot when in standby mode. The bug is present on iPhone 16 Pro models running iOS 18/iOS 18.0.1 stable and iOS 18.1 beta. So, it doesn’t seem to be the same case of the battery drain issue affecting more generations of iPhones where iOS 18 seems to be the cause.

The fact that the bug is only present on some units, regardless of their software version, may raise concerns about potential hardware-related issues. Anyway, there is nothing confirmed about it yet. Some of the affected customers claim to have managed to get a replacement device after resorting to their warranty. Sadly, in some cases, the issue was still present even on the replacement units.

Also, not all affected phones are experiencing the issue in the same way. There are cases where the freezes and reboots are sporadic, while there are others where they happen up to 20 times a day.

There’s a workaround that could help

Some reports suggest that a factory reset without restoring your backup helps resolve things. This suggests that a potential bug during the restoration of iCloud backups could be the cause of the frustrating situation. However, the workaround will make the setup process for your new device more tedious.

There is still no official word from Apple regarding the cases of iPhone 16 models freezing and restarting. Hopefully it won’t take long for updates to emerge regarding the problem.

Amazon has given its basic Fire TV Stick what seems to be a rebranding and has even shaved off a few dollars from its pricing. When you visit its old listing on the website, you’ll see a note that says “There’s a newer model of this product,” which links to the new Fire TV Stick HD. We call it a “rebranding,” since its specs seem pretty much identical to the company’s old basic streamer. It can stream in full HD resolution, comes with HDR support and ships with an Alexa-powered remote control. You can press the Alexa button on its remote to search for shows and launch apps with just a voice command.

The device can run the most popular streaming apps, like Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and Peacock, and its remote comes with special buttons for Netflix and Prime Video. Unlike the old version that set you back $40, though, the new Fire TV Stick HD has a base price of $35. That’s only $5 more than the version that ships with a “lite” remote that has few buttons for control. If you want a streamer that’s capable of handing 4K shows and movies, though, this isn’t the model to go for. Amazon has several options to choose from, namely the Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Stick 4K Max with 16GB of storage and the Fire TV Cube that offers hands-free streaming with its built-in mic and speakers.

What if I told you the Meta Quest 3S is in some ways just a more powerful Quest 2 with color passthrough? “Yes, of course it is,” someone who’s read our coverage might say, but iFixit shows just how true that is in the teardown video it published today.

The first hint of that is the headset’s Fresnel lenses, which iFixit’s Shahram Mokhtari writes in a blog post are “100% compatible” with those used by the Quest 2. The headset has the older headset’s IPD adjustment mechanism, as well; and it shares the same single LCD panel, rather than using one panel per eye, like the Meta Quest 3.

Legacy parts aside, iFixit found that the 3S uses two IR sensors for depth mapping instead of a single depth sensor. That “rare iterative improvement over the Quest 3” performed “exceptionally well in unlit spaces,” Mokhtari writes in the blog. And of course, it uses the same Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 SoC as the Quest 3, and works with Meta’s newer Touch Plus controllers, which are sold separately.

As iFixit notes, none of this should be considered a bad thing. The changes make the headset cheaper — the Quest 3S costs $299.99, while the Quest 3 is $499.99. It also means that if those reused parts break, it’s not hard to find replacements for them, since the Quest 2 has already been around for four years.

Behind the scenes of one of the biggest social media platforms has been an epic struggle with a valuable payout — user data. But not just any user data mind you. This struggle allegedly involves Nexon Korea Corporation, a South Korean video game maker, trying to obtain the data of copyright infringers on the Discord platform.

Nexon Korea Corporation is behind well-known video games such as MapleStory, MapleStory2, Sudden Attack, The Kingdom of the Winds, Dungeon & Fighter, Grand Chase, Dave the Diver, and Elsword. And it seems that Nexon has had multiple criminal copyright infringement complaints against other Korean servers that players use to run Nexon’s games, including one such culprit who is currently on the run and wanted by Interpol.

Dune: Part Two director Denis Villeneuve‘s return to Arrakis is coming sooner than anyone — including him — thought. The filmmaker stated several months ago that he planned to take a bit of a break between Dune: Part Two and its intended sequel, Dune: Messiah. However, coming off the immense success of Dune: Part Two earlier this year, which received rave reviews from both critics and casual moviegoers alike and earned over $700 million at the box office, it sounds like Villeneuve has thrown his original vacation plans out the window.

Speaking with Deadline, the French Canadian filmmaker revealed that he is going to go “back behind the camera faster” than he thought he would and that his “break” from Frank Herbert’s Dune world is already over. “I’m in the writing zone right now,” he said, referencing the script for Dune: Messiah. Villeneuve did not confirm the specific timeline he now has in mind for the sequel, but he did note that he is likely going to make Messiah much faster than he originally planned.

“Let’s say that I thought that after Part Two that I will take a break, that I will go back in the woods and stay in the woods for a while to recover. But the woods weren’t really suiting me, and I would go back behind the camera faster than I think,” Villeneuve explained. “That’s all I can say.”

The director didn’t reveal during his conversation with Deadline when he intends to actually start filming Dune: Messiah. “These movies take a lot of time to be made, so it’s best not to say out loud when I might shoot,” he noted. He did, however, reportedly react to a potential 2026 start date with a “perplexed” expression. Whether that means he intends to shoot the film before 2026 or at some point in that year remains to be seen. Earlier this year, Warner Bros. did, notably, set a Dec. 18, 2026 release date for Villeneuve’s next “event film.” Assuming that project is indeed Dune: Messiah, Villeneuve would have to start shooting it much earlier than 2026 to meet that date.

The filmmaker did confirm that most of Dune: Part Two‘s core cast members will return in Dune: Messiah, including Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and Florence Pugh. Anya Taylor-Joy will also appear in the sequel after making a brief cameo as an adult version of Paul Atreides’ sister Alia in Dune: Part Two. The director went on to remark that Dune: Messiah, which he says will “finish the Paul Atreides arc,” will be “completely different” from its two predecessors.

“The story takes place like 12 years after where we left the characters at the end of Part Two,” he teased. “Their journey, their story is different this time, and that’s why I always say that while it’s the same world it’s a new film with new circumstances.”

Dune: Messiah does not yet have an official release date. Both Dune: Part One and Part Two are available to stream now on Max.