iPhone

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iPhone is a smartphone made by Apple that runs iOS and is used by many in the community to read and post to the IndieWeb using both native apps like those by micro.blog and web apps like Monocle.

How to

How to design for

Many people use an iPhone (or Android-based phone) as their primary or only computing device.

Make sure your personal website has a responsive design so it's more friendly and usable on such devices.

Troubleshooting

IndieWeb community members have encountered the following odd/unexpected non-trivial problems with their iPhones and have found the following solutions.

Rather than turning this into general iPhone trouble-shooting (there are other resources for that), please only include non-trivial/critical problems you personally have encountered in more vulnerable situations like when away from home, traveling, etc. where it would be very helpful to have a quick community curated wiki reference to use.

Excess Mobile System Services General Data Usage

Sometimes (particularly when using a data-only eSIM while in Europe), an iPhone can mysteriously (like for no user-necessary reason) consume GIGABYTES of mobile/cellular data, which is particularly bad if you are using a fixed amount of data eSIM.

How this problem shows up in the "Settings" app:

Choose "Mobile [or "Cellular"] >"
Scroll down to "MOBILE DATA FOR ..."
Note a "Current Period" number in the GB like "3.20 GB"
If you see "⚙️ System Services" with a number in GB like "2.54 GB" you may have this problem. Select it.
If you see "General" at the top with a number in GB like "2.41 GB" you likely have this problem.

Assuming you have already turned off all the settings for using mobile data in the background (iCloud backups, mobile-assisted wifi etc.).

The one solution that seems to work on an iPhone 16 (web search/document your model if you have this problem) is Force restart iPhone (Apple Support), with another restart added:

Precautions:
- make sure the iPhone is *unplugged* from power or a laptop etc.
In quick succession:
- press and release left side volume up button
- press and release left side volume down button
- press and HOLD the right side power button
Now wait:
- watch for the screen to go dark and a white Apple logo to appear
- keep pressing the right side power button
- watch for the screen to go dark and a white Apple logo to appear a second time
- release the power button

This seems to stop the mysterious "General" use of gigabytes of data, anecdotally at least until sometime the next day. If you ever do this reset and see more "General" use of gigabytes of data, you may want to do this reset every morning.

2026 anecdotes

Tantek Çelik:

2026-177…2026-182 iOS 18.7.8 appeared to fix the Excessive System Services / General Mobile Data problem, with very minimal usage after 5 days.
2026-184 update: after 7 days of use in Germany, System Services / General ate 1GB+ mobile data as of that morning (possibly the night before) without explanation or reason. Problem is still there :(
- 09:41 "General" 1.05GB
- 12:54 "General" 1.14GB (of "System Services" 1.27 GB of total 2.02GB in "Current Period)

Showing Two White Phones on Screen

Sometimes by doing the above reset, especially if you do it when your iPhone happened to be connected to a laptop to charge the iPhone, you may see a weird black screen showing two white phones that bounce/overlap together and separate.

The solution to this seems to be:

disconnect the iPhone from any laptop, or other power source
do the volume up/down/powerbutton reset documented above

(solution was found via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=airj364ftLo — please replace this with a non-video more authoritative reference if you can find one)

Previously

Previously, IndieWeb community members could use the native app IndiePass to post to their personal sites. IndiePass was archived as of early 2026.