iOS 13.2.2: New iPhone update fixes major bug with Apple operating system

Problem forced phones to shut apps

Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller talks about the new iPhone 11 Pro during a special event on September 10, 2019 in the Steve Jobs Theater on Apple's Cupertino, California campus (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Apple has released an iOS update that fixes a major issue with the iPhone.

Downloading and installing the new version of the operating system will stop iPhones and iPads killing off apps when they ran in the background.

The change had been causing frustration to iPhone users who would move away from an app and come back to find it had been shut down and their progress had been lost.

Apple allows apps to run in the background when they are shut on the iPhone, which means they can still pull in information and are ready to be opened once more. Eventually, however, they will shut to clear space in the iPhone's memory – but the latest update made that happen aggressively and quickly, leading to strange behaviour on the phone.

Some users had feared that the change was permanent and intentional, and that Apple had made the decision to try and stop so many apps running in the background. But the new update confirms it was a bug and that it has been fixed.

The patch notes make clear that the new update – numbered iOS 13.2.2 – includes a change that "fixes an issue that could cause apps to quit unexpectedly when running in the background" along with other bug fixes.

The same update also solves problems where iPhones might temporarily lose phone or data service, where messages might not properly show and other problems.

There are no new features in the update, which can be installed through Settings but will probably make its way onto most iPhones automatically at some point.

iOS 13.2.2 is the seventh update that Apple has pushed out to the new iPhone operating system since it was released in September. The company has released substantially quicker updates than usual this year, as it attempts to deal with a number of bugs in the software.