How to fix iPhone 16 Pro Max Freezing issues?

I had the exact same issue until Sunday night. It was driving me crazy. I was lucky enough to be able to back up my phone (which had been initially set up from an iCloud backup) to my iMac, then wipe the phone and start over by restoring from the iMac. After that it worked perfectly.

It was a real pain too, because getting the phone to back up to the iMac and restore to factory settings kept getting interrupted by the phone crashing and rebooting, but it finally worked after several attempts.

Since I traded in my old phone when I picked up my iPhone 16 Pro, I resolved the issue by backing up my iPhone 16 Pro—which I had restored from my iPhone 12 Pro—to my Mac. Then, I restored my iPhone 16 Pro from that Mac backup. I've had no issues since then.

If the Restore screen appears on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

follow the restore iphone instructions and upon setting up the second (or third) time, select the iphone to iphone data transfer option. should take ~ 2 hours.

What worked for me was the backup step from this guide I found on another thread 7 Proven Steps to fix iPhone 16 Freezing issue so instead of iCloud backup I used a Mac to backup data and then restored from it skipping the iCloud it's been two days now the phone is running smoothly now hopping the issue didn't pop up again. 

[Edited by Moderator]

This issue are popoing up for those user who have transfer their data through icloud and had beta version in previous phone. I got a solution which works for me.

You can just try to turn on Beta Software update and get it updated. Its will start working correctly. I see no freeze nothing. Its working properly now

Update: So far as of now the fix for me was to erase the phone completely and then restore directly from my 12 Pro Max. So far everything is loading the way it should. I am also able to get into all my messaged too which were also a problem! YAY. Praying it stays the same

follow these instructions. and when ready for setup after the reset, select the iphone to iphone data transfer option. transferring from iCloud does not work and will more or less brick your phone. apple needs to fix this, but you can follow these instructions to fix on your own.

will take ~2 hours.

If the Restore screen appears on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Here’s the fix:-

Say hey Siri. Ask Siri to power off the phone. A power off icon will appear on your screen. Select power off. Switch on your phone again. Check if your data is compromised by dialing *#21#. If everything on your screen shows disabled, your phone is safe from hacks.

So I let my new iPhone go through the entire restore process. Took forever because it kept freezing up. But as soon as the restore was finished the phone is acting totally normal now.

Make sure you restore the phone to factory settings using a computer then you do the phone to phone transfer For some reason when you restore to Factory settings on a computer it fixes the glitch

Let it complete the restore, the phone will still lag. Then take a backup on your mac local. Reset the phone and restore using mac. It might work, I am trying the same as I traded my old phone too.

I've had the same issue, my iPhone 16 pro max gets to sign in screen & just spins, 5 hours yesterday it sat there.

I've been on the phone to Sky tech support & they can't sort it out either, so I'm sending it back.

Follow up - like several others , was trying to update with iCloud. Everything was freezing. It took a couple of reboots, but I was finally able to get through the reset procedure and then set up the phone directly using my old phone instead of iCloud.