USERS of the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are reporting touchscreen lock-ups, system freezes and unexpected restarts after failed Face ID attempts. The issue reportedly affects biometric authentication for protected content, including Apple’s Passwords app, locked private-browsing tabs in Safari and third-party apps that require Face ID. The article does not provide figures for the number of affected devices and describes the reports as coming from users and community forums.
The failure can reportedly be reproduced by opening Passwords, deliberately preventing Face ID from recognising the user, and then tapping the screen to retry authentication. On some devices, touch input stops working, the phone returns to the lock screen and then crashes. Users speculate that the redesigned sensor arrangement or software logic in iOS 27 could be involved, but the cause has not been confirmed. Apple had not issued an official response at the time of publication, and there is no confirmed fix.
Until an update is released, the article advises users to reduce the chance of an initial authentication failure by using suitable positioning and lighting.