Hello,
I maintain 2 phones--a GOS pixel, and an iPhone--and I recently upgraded my iPhone to an iPhone 17 Pro. I had my phone fully shut down--yes shut down, NOT restarted but powered on and in BFU state--and my iPhone just received a phone call. It:
- Vibrated for about 2 seconds as if it were normally receiving a phone call
- After about 2 seconds, it stopped vibrating for some reason (not normal behavior for a phone call)
- Displayed the normal screen you would anticipate when receiving a phone call:
- There was a slider at the bottom of the screen to answer the call.
- The screen displayed who was calling me (by name, not phone number)
- Even though vibration stopped at about 2 seconds, this screen persisted until the time at which a call normally proceeds to voicemail.
- Was NOT able to actually answer the phone call
- i.e. I was not able to actuate the slider on the bottom of the screen and answer the call.
- At no point did I receive indication that the microphone was now active, indicating the phone call was now going through.
- Required me to hold the power button in order to turn the phone on after the call ended (went to voicemail?),
- The Apple logo appeared, and it was apparent that the phone was actually booting--further indicating that the phone was, in fact, fully powered down at the time of the phone call.
When powered back on, I did message the person I received the phone call from and verified they did make the call.
I was under the impression that when powered down, iPhones act more like an Apple AirTag and only allowed connections via NFC (for access to Apple Wallet cards) or Bluetooth (for location tracking updates--AirTag behavior). I was also under the impression that when shut down, the phone would go into a BFU state, rendering the user contacts (where a phone number is attached to a name) unreadable due to encryption keys being removed from memory.
Question: Is this normal? Is indicating the reception of a phone call a normal operation for an iPhone which is fully shut down? Is the cellular baseband supposed to be powered on when shut down? Is contact data supposed to be accessible in a BFU state?
I appreciate any thoughts.