- Apple removed a Czech keyboard character in iOS 26 that some users had in their passcodes—locking them out permanently.
- A university student’s Reddit post exposed the bug, and Apple engineers started working on a fix within nine days.
- The fix is coming in a future iOS 26 update, but at least one affected user has already decided to switch to Android.
A single missing character on Apple’s Czech keyboard has locked at least one iPhone user out of his device for months—and the fix is still weeks away. Connor Byrne, a 21-year-old university student, used the caron/háček (ˇ) as part of his alphanumeric passcode on an iPhone 13. When iOS 26 launched in September 2025, Apple removed the character from the Czech keyboard layout. Byrne’s passcode became impossible to type.
The issue is deceptively simple. Most iPhone users opt for a four-digit PIN. Byrne chose a custom alphanumeric string instead—a more secure approach that’s standard advice from security researchers. One of his special characters came from the Czech keyboard, which iOS 26 altered without warning. The result: no way to authenticate, no way to unlock, and months of photos and personal data trapped behind a keyboard that no longer works.
Apple’s iOS engineers became aware of the issue about a week ago through Byrne’s post on Reddit, reported The Register. Cupertino apparently began working on an internal fix a few days after the post surfaced—and a few days before The Register published its story. Apple spokespeople have not responded to requests for comment.
How One Character Change Broke iPhone Security
The bug exposes a blind spot in Apple’s quality assurance process. iOS 26 introduced sweeping changes to keyboard layouts across multiple languages, but the team apparently didn’t account for users who incorporated non-standard characters into their passcodes. The caron/háček sits on the Czech keyboard’s lock screen layout, where it’s accessible without unlocking—a feature that made it viable as a passcode character in the first place.
Looking at the lock screen keyboard after the update, Byrne noticed something immediately wrong. “There’s two of the same character right next to one another,” he told The Register over email. The replacement character was a duplicate, suggesting the removal was a formatting error rather than an intentional design decision. That’s the kind of thing a single QA pass should catch.
The implications go beyond one frustrated student. Any user who chose a non-English keyboard character for their passcode could face the same fate with future iOS updates. Apple doesn’t warn users when keyboard layouts change, and there’s no fallback authentication path if your passcode character disappears from the available set. It’s a design that assumes keyboard layouts are immutable—until they aren’t.
The ‘It Just Works’ Reputation Takes Another Hit
Byrne’s case is the latest in a string of Apple software quality issues that have eroded user trust. iOS updates have previously created security gaps that affected user data, and the frequency of post-update bugs has become a recurring complaint in Apple communities. The difference here is the severity—a user permanently locked out of their device with no self-service recovery option.
Apple’s response time has been reasonable by its own standards. Nine days from Reddit post to internal fix is fast for a company that typically bundles patches into scheduled releases. But Byrne isn’t waiting around. “Even if they deliver on the fix, I’ll purchase an Android soon because of how much better the cameras are,” he said. The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is his top pick. One character. One keyboard layout change. One lost customer.
Apple plans to ship the fix in an upcoming major iOS 26 release. The company has not confirmed whether it will address other keyboard layout changes that might affect passcodes in non-Latin scripts.
