Apple’s iOS 11.3 is disabling iPhone 8 touchscreens repaired by third-party shops

If you happen to own a second-hand **iPhone 8** or one that was recently repaired before you purchased it, you could be in trouble thanks to Apple’s recent iOS 11.3 update. [caption id=“attachment_4427521” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The Apple iPhone 8. Apple[/caption] According to Motherboard, iPhone 8 owners who had got their screens repaired or replaced by a third-party repair shop are facing problems where their touchscreens have stopped responding after installing the latest iOS 11.3 update that was released on 29 March. While the new update gives users better information about their smartphone’s battery performance, it also breaks iPhone 8 devices that have had a screen replacement at third-party repair shop. The source mentions that users can see the contents of the display (the homescreen) but cannot interact with it, rendering their iPhone 8 unusable, hopefully until a software fix arrives. The issue is reportedly caused by a microchip that powers the display. While third-party repair shops have been able to replace screens without any problems, iOS 11.3 created a problem by killing the touch functionality. “This has caused my company over 2,000 reshipments,” Aakshay Kripalani, chief executive of repair shop Injured Gadgets, a Georgia-based retailer and repair ship told Motherboard. “Customers are annoyed, and it seems like Apple is doing this to prevent customers from doing third-party repair.” As of now, there is nothing that a user affected by the problem can do to make their iPhone 8 working again, apart from heading to an **Apple** retail store and paying up to get their screen replaced, once again. Indeed, this is not the first time that a software update has affected iPhones serviced at third-party repair shops. So it is unclear whether the move was intentional or a mistake. Back in 2016, owners that got their Touch ID buttons replaced by third-party repair shops saw an ‘ Error 53’. The issue was fixed with the release of iOS 9.2.1.