Many of us can turn to the internet communities when something’s wrong with our phones.
Thanks to social media, there's always someone ready to share advice.
Keeping in line with that theme, one iPhone user turned to the popular Internet forum Reddit for help.
Advert
After running into an issue while updating their iPhone through iTunes, user Separate-Spirit-1944 came across a mysterious icon.
The attached screenshot showed an icon of two phones side by side.
Of course, the internet being the internet, many used the opportunity to jump in with jokes like: "Your phone is asking for another phone to cuddle with," and "In 9 months you get an iPhone mini".
But eventually, someone gave a real answer.
Advert
"Prompting you to use another iPhone to restore the phone," they replied, explaining what the icon could mean.
Advert
"If you hold another one close by you should get a notification on the other iPhone to restore the erased phone. Might have errored out during the update".
Surprised at what it means, another user replied: "An iPhone can wirelessly restore another iPhone? That’s awesome. Would’ve saved me a tonnnn of hassle back in the day".
Turns out, they were right. The restore icon is a relatively new addition to iPhone 16.
According to Apple: "Your iPhone 16 or iPhone 16 Pro might display an animation asking you to move it closer to another iPhone or iPad if it experienced an issue during a wireless software update.
Advert
"If your iPhone 16 or iPhone 16 Pro displays an animation of devices being moved close together, you can use another iPhone or iPad on iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 to restore it."
However, being that this popped up after an update means the alert could have been triggered by a glitch during the software update.
And it's not like problems were uncommon in the recent iOS update. Users reported issues with the new photo gallery, emoji size, messaging, battery life... the list goes on.
Advert
But the tech giant is due to release iOS 18.2 at some point this week which should smooth out some of these bugs and bring some cool new features.
Apple quietly issued a second release candidate for iOS 18.2 last Monday (9 December) indicating they’re still tweaking it before the final public launch.
When it does drop, one of the most exciting updates will be Apple Intelligence’s new AI features.
With tools like Genmoji and Image Playground, users will able to create custom emojis and cartoon-like images just by typing a short description.