14 DAY TRIAL // UPDATE: Story updated with more videos plus two workarounds for this bug that appears to be quite widespread in the latest betas of iOS 10. We're also receiving info that Apple is already aware of the bug and working to fix it in the next beta. Original story below (latest update at the end of the article).
If you’re a long-time iPhone user, you’re probably bored with what your iPhone’s home and lock screens look like, and this only happens because of Apple’s obsession with OS limitations as it doesn’t allow you to change more than your wallpapers.
There are websites out there that provide you with ways to customize your iPhone, but in many cases, they don’t offer more than a collection of backgrounds for the lock and home screens. But you can forget all of these because iOS 10 beta 4 gives you the best way to make your iPhone unique.
What we have here is a feature (not a bug) that makes home screen icons flash, pulse, and disappear, which are all visual effects that you never knew were possible on the iPhone. Now, don’t ask us how we did it because we really don’t want to share this super cool customization method don’t know how it all happened, but hopefully, it’ll never go away.
On a more serious note, this is the kind of bug that you’d never expect on the iPhone in such an advanced beta of iOS, especially given the fact that we’re less than a month away from GM, but Apple will certainly fix it in the next update.
And if you’re asking, no, it doesn’t go away when restarting, and no, resetting is not a solution since we’re using that iPhone as a daily driver (we know we weren’t supposed to, but it’s more fun this way).
UPDATE, August 12: Sharing is caring, so you can thank Apple for making this bug feature available on all iPhones running iOS 10 dev preview 5 and iOS 10 public 4 because, yes, we were able to reproduce it on both versions.
So here's how you can have it too (you know you want it, and you're going to try just to see if the same thing happens on your iPhone too): simply hold your iPhone in hand and shake it like you're preparing a margarita and rotate the screen several times.
You'll notice the bottom icons flashing a little bit, and this is just the beginning. Tap the phone icon, go to the keypad, and then press the Home button. Lock the phone and unlock it. The more you do all of these, the worse it gets.
Also, check out the videos below to see the same bug on two iPhones running the latest dev and public betas.
UPDATE, August 13: More people have confirmed this issue and it turns out that we've also found two different workarounds. You can prevent this from happening by setting the home screen wallpaper to "Still" (from Settings > Wallpaper > Home Screen) or by turning Reduce Motion on (from Settings > General > Accessiblity > Reduce Motion). A fix for this is very likely to land in the next beta.
Note: read this article on a sarcastic tone, and in the end, this is just a bug that you'd better not come across.
