The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are reaching more and more people, which means any issues related to the pair will start popping up right about now. Lo and behold, a number of owners are complaining about a strange issue which rears its head when they’re trying to charge their new phone.
One such user took to Apple’s forums to talk about his iPhone XS Max. The handset usually charges without any questions, but there are times when it refuses to do this. He tried to get to the bottom of this by plugging it in while the screen was switched off. It didn’t charge for about 10 to 15 seconds.
iPhone XS ChargeGate Issue
At this point, he picked it up and the display switched on. The charging symbol appeared at this point. He says he only uses Apple cables, so this strange problem can’t be linked to a third-party cable. His issue was echoed by several other people in the discussion thread, with some noticing this even on a wireless charging pad.
YouTuber UnboxTherapy also investigated the issue by testing 9 iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max units. Some of them exhibited the issue and others didn’t. AppleInsider couldn’t replicate the problem on its iPhone XS Max, iPhone X, or iPhone 8 Plus. Strangely enough, an iPhone 7 and 12.9-inch iPad Pro got affected by the problem.
Also Read: iPhone XS users say their selfies are too smooth, dub it BeautyGate
This suggests that the matter could be linked to a bug in iOS 12 and not an actual hardware concern. Perhaps Apple’s USB restricted mode has something to do with this. The option cuts data access off if an iPhone hasn’t been unlocked in a long time to prevent cops and robbers from hacking the device.
USB restricted mode ideally shouldn’t affect a wall charger, but the pattern being observed here is similar. Something is definitely off, but Apple is yet to comment on what people are already calling ChargeGate. We’ll let you if it says anything official about the matter.