The iPhone’s iOS 14 resets default apps to Apple’s Safari and Mail after reboot

Users appear to have found the first major bug in Apple’s iOS 14 iPhone software. The free software upgrade, which Apple made publicly available Wednesday, included features many users had long asked for, including better ways to organize apps, living programs called widgets on the home screen, and the ability to change which default apps the phone uses to browse the web or send an email. That last one doesn’t appear to work.

A growing chorus of Twitter users are posting about the bug in Apple’s default email and default web browser options. The way it works is that whenever they set the default browser to Google’s Chrome, for example, it works as expected and tapping any link in an app or browser will open Chrome on the iPhone. But then, if they restart the phone, iOS 14 changes that default back to Apple’s Safari.

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Apple, Google and Microsoft didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. CNET was able to confirm this bug on an iPhone running iOS 14, as was 9to5Mac, which earlier reported the issue.

The bug is a reminder that although Apple’s been publicly testing its new iOS 14 iPhone and iPadOS 14 software since the since announcing it in the summer, the company’s rarely able to fully iron out bugs before release. This is partly why CNET’s reviewers recommend backing up your phone to the cloud or to a computer before any upgrade.