Accidental privacy violations are one of the biggest concerns consumers have when it comes to smartphones, and that seems to be what’s happening with some iPhones. Two members of the Reddit community said that their smartphones are reproducing conversations of other iPhone owners, and at the moment no one can say for sure what is causing this.
The first mention of the problem appeared a few days ago, when one of the Reddit users wrote that he heard a conversation through his iPhone 16 of a man who was driving a car and talking to someone on the phone. The surprised user checked his iPhone and made sure that no applications were currently running on it. Moreover, the conversation of the unfamiliar man continued for some time and ultimately it turned out that he had been in an accident. After that, nothing of the kind happened, but two days later the problem repeated itself, and the user heard through his iPhone someone talking on the phone shouting obscenities.
Another iPhone user described the problem in a similar way, but in his case the conversations he heard were more mundane. His smartphone reproduced a phone conversation between a man and his work colleagues. The user also checked the smartphone for applications running in the background, but did not find any, which left him confused.
It is currently unknown what exactly causes this behavior on some iPhones. It’s entirely possible that this is a privacy-related bug, and Apple is aware of it. An official statement from the manufacturer may appear if more users encounter this problem.
Reddit users have suggested several other possibilities, including carbon monoxide poisoning, which could cause hallucinations. However, a more likely source of the problem seems to be a possible bug in iOS 18. Apple has already had several failed software updates for its devices this year, and iOS 18 could join the list. According to some users, the iPhone simply plays audio in the background from YouTube or some other application, without even indicating that it is running.