iOS 9.3 - Safari/Mail freezes after clicking links on iPhone 6S

Thank you PAperson for the huge effort you have put into this! I just hope that Apple acknowledges this and awards you with a golden apple 😍 (or something).

So I am on the latest version build and have tested that it did not contain the fix for our linking problem.

All is done and now I only can sit back and wait for the next version of IOS to appear.

Meanwhile I shall not upgrade my iPhone 6 to 9.3 nor shall I re-install Booking.com on it and will continue to forward my incoming mail to gmail and use either Chrome or Puffin to visit the web.

Maybe - just maybe - I even take time to go out and enjoy the nice weather and forget about constantly being hooked-up to this virtual world of ours?

Shift out of the e-world and enjoy the lovely weather - yes, good plan. I have steps to finish coating, laundry and other e-work. :-)

It is quite apparent that this was a bug uncovered during beta. They either chose to ignore it or they didn't see it due to the enormous number of various feedbacks they got and couldn't investigate every single one. We'll never know. I was in software development. When a huge deadline is looming and you know a bug couldn't be fixed, you rely on management's "good" judgment to do the right thing. We had to release software to production knowing there was a bug. We assessed the impact and weighed the options of releasing or not. Sometimes we told users to avoid the affected function until it could be fixed in the next release but sometimes we just hoped for the best when it came to some obscure features. No software is perfect and in the case of something as complex as iOS, I'm sure their bug fix list is long. I don't envy those who are tasked to test the almost infinite number of test cases and user scenarios. I hope they don't just rely on automated test scripts. We can speculate what happened within Apple in this particular case but given their style, they will never tell the public how such major bug slipped through (or let through). I am just hoping that forum like this makes them take notice and improve their own process. And of course they won't tell us if they do. Hope the fix is coming soon and good luck to all.

First, your in-depth posts have provided me with invaluable information about my phone and its development; thank you!

This may be a totally uninformed question, but I have been trying to follow your posts and wonder if 1. the version does matter, and 2. does the method of update matter? My version of 9.3 is 9.3 (13E234). I updated the day the update came out via the phone (6s plus) through General, Software Update. The link issue did not occur immediately, but only on Monday, just after someone sent me a text with a Flipboard link about the problem. I was able to follow the link and read about this issue, but ironically, when I went back to the text to sent the link to someone else, it froze. Then my native iPhone mail app crashed with any links. I have tried the JavaScript and all the other early "work-arounds" to no avail. My only saving grace is that I also have a Gmail app, where I get most of my emails, and those links go to Chrome, which works fine. Prior to this issue, I have had intermittent problems sending and receiving mail outside of the home wifi, particularly Gmail, which is why I have the app, as I can't trust the native mail app to get my email. Those mail issues got considerably worse after the 9.3 update. My husband has the identical phone, but he updated through iTunes, and has no such link issues. His version number is also 9.3 (13E234), and he did log into iCloud during his installation. I also updated his very old iPad to 9.3, but DID NOT log into iCloud during the install, and it has no issues. So, I am just providing this information for your impressive research, in case you think there is any bearing on the particular version number, or the method of install.

Same problem as everyone else. iPhone 6 Plus no longer responds to safari or mail links. I tried the method described here, but to no avail.

At the moment, the iPhone is unusable as a web accessing device. This has to be the biggest screw-up ever from the company. 😟

Repeating a suggestion buried deep in this huge thread:

Forward mail to Gmail, use the "Inbox" app to read it. Add Chrome app -- links will open in Chrome instead of Safari. So far that's worked fine for my 6-Plus. And, for some reason, my wife's 5C works fine despite installing IOS 9.3.

Happy to chime in! I have an iPad Air 2 (Safari freezes etc.) and an iPhone 5s (working smoothly), both updated to iOS 9.3 a couple of days ago. Yet today I was invited to update both to ... iOS 9.3. What to think of it?

At the risk of boring the socks off previous posters, let me say again, this problem NOT unique to the update 9.3........I have had this difficulty for the past 2 weeks and I did not update. As a long term and faithful customer of Apple I am quickly losing faith with the company due in no small part to their 'deafening silence' regarding this 'bug'. Shame on you Apple!

It´s amazing... 5 days and no "official" answer...

Apple is just a blurred shadow of what it used to be...

Well said, marinabay116!

The bug it's not exclusive to 9.3 iOS and iphones 6. It happened in erarlier version of the iOS and in ipads. And the lack of an official statement, before a satisfactory solution form Apple, is not compatible with the most valuable company of the world (and with all that was announced at the last keynote).

This is just as bad as the worldwide BIS outage

Mine stopped working before upgrade. I upgraded hoping it would sort the issue. Apple Please help! Chat is unavailable - 2 days now!

I was able to get through on chat. They were clearly aware of the issue.

I told them that the forums are on fire with folks discussing this issues, and that they better get someone official to get on and at least acknowledge it.

They said:

1) Engineering is working on a fix - no timeline given though

2) There is a separate group in support that handles the forums, and that they would pass on my recommendation to them

I have the same issue with my phone, and it stopped working before the latest update, the same as some other users. it's crazy that we have to figure this out by ourselves through a forum, they should just let people know that they're working on it! i thought I'll need to get my phone replaced. seriously Apple, why not just explain what's going on?! lets hope the issue gets sorted out soon...

I have a 6splus, 128Gb, same issue