Earlier this month, it was revealed that Apple was investigating “ghost touches” on Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra Watch 2 devices.
Apple said it was investigating the issue and said a software update would likely be coming.
Where did these reports of “ghost touches” come from? Well one source was the Apple Community forums, where some users reported their Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 were “hacked”.
“Was chilling then felt the haptic feed back triggering on my watch. Looked at it and someone was scrolling through looking at my fitness and health app and trying to get my personal info. Also they where trying to get into my photos. I stared pressing the button to return home and they popped up the keyboard and typed “We are in control”. Then the stared to set alarms and checking my location. So I tried to take the watch off so it locks. Then they started to type in my password so the knew the numbers just not the order. They guessed wrong, so it locked for 1 min and then I factory rest it and unpaired it. And reset all my passwords,” said user “Alpha_Imperium” on February 1.
We’re a bit skeptical that someone typed “We are in control” unless there’s evidence of this.
Extended discussion on the matter took place on Hacker News, trying to dissect what was causing the issue. Many suspected it was a faulty touch display and even possibly water causing erratic touches.
One Apple Watch Series 9 owner showed a video of their watch going literally insane, which this user suspected was being hacked. They noted it wasn’t even possible to turn the watch off, as the random touches would cancel the prompt:
Hacker News user “summarity” said in response to the video, “I have the same issue. It’s clearly a bug and maybe both the funniest and most serious one I’ve ever had to deal with. In my case I was waking up to my watch using itself. It changed contacts, added locations in maps, placed and cancelled two calls to emergency services and more. I then made the mistake of taking it off my wrist. Now the screen is locked and the watch will continue to enter wrong PINs, locking itself for more time every time. You can’t shut it down – the watch will start to type and dismiss the shutdown dialog (or call 911 again!). I haven’t gotten around to taking it to an Apple Store and have returned to my Garmin watch.”
This is a super bizarre Apple Watch bug. It seems to replicate a bunch of random touches to the point where phone calls and passcode attempts are made, even when it’s off your wrist, making it seem like the device is being hacked. Again, these look like “ghost touches” instead of something actually trying to take over Apple Watches.
Are you dealing with any issues with your Apple Watch Series 9 or Ultra 2 acting like it’s ‘cracked out’?
