Combination of iOS 18 and or Apple Voice Control Settings seems to have bricked my iPhone?

iPhone 14 Pro Max updated to iOS 18.1.
Enabled Voice Control under accessibility settings.
Lost access to inputting through keyboard. Then lost access to Siri so I could not use voice input.
Apple support told me to connect the iPhone to iTunes on my Windows 11 laptop and try run the update function after force restarting my iPhone. Tried twice and it didn’t work.
Found another Apple Support document that said to do the same thing with the Apple Device app (available on the Microsoft App Store). Was able to use that to initiate the update process twice. Neither time worked. So, I tried the restore option. That started to work but then failed (error screen shot posted below). And my iPhone seems frozen in the middle of a restore.
Apple Support told me to try an alternate computer. But they seem to fail to understand that I can’t restart my iPhone.
I’m currently using my old iPhone 11. I have that phone setup with almost everything I need. I just haven’t installed my 2 esims from my iPhone 14.
So, is there some way to restart my frozen iPhone 14 (that doesn’t respond to the steps for a forced restart)? Or should I install the 2 esims on my backup iPhone 11 and consider buying an iPhone 15 or 16?


I had a similar problem with my iPhone 3GS many moons ago… The only option was to leave it to run the battery down, then charge it up and watch it restart.

In my case it was a duff memory chip that caused it to freeze, but the only way to restart is to remove the power, and as the battery is sealed into the case, the only way around it is to wait for the battery to die and then restart it on mains power.

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Thank you. Letting the power bleed out worked…

After the battery drained, I was able to try restore on my home PC again. Still no luck.
I’m going to try it again on a work PC, if I can get the access to download iTunes or the Apple Devices app. I’m not holding my breath.
If I have to replace my phone, I can continue on using my backup iPhone 11. Or I can upgrade to an iPhone 15 or 16. Other than the price, is there a big difference between the 16 and the 16 Pro?

AI performance, graphics performance and the telephoto camera being better on the Pro models.

I went from a 13 Pro to 16 Pro, because of the camera, but it was a close call. One thing I have noticed, the 16 Pro runs noticeably cooler than the 13 Pro - playing games, for example, would make the iPhone 13 Pro hot to the touch, the 16 Pro hardly even gets warm (I play Bloons TD6, for reference).

Is there an Apple Store or authorised repairer in your area? I’d book an appointment with them, it would be cheaper than buying a new phone… If it is an Apple Store and the phone has bricked itself, they might replace it with a refurb unit…

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Good call. A local repair shop was able to complete the restore. Thanks!

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I now have my iPhone 14 up and running with 2 sims.
I also have my iPhone 11 intact, running over wifi.
Not all of my iMessages have copied over from my iPhone 11to my iPhone 14. How can I get these messages across?

Mine came across… I didn’t need to do anything. But that was old phone to new phone, in your case, it is active phone to backup phone, then restored active phone and the messages on the backup phone aren’t syncing, correct ?

Is iCloud sync for messages activated? Have you tried restarting both devices?

This is true and should work👍

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It turned out to only be a handful of messages that didn’t copy over. But when I added a response to each messages thread on the iPhone 11, the response and the rest of the messages thread copied to the iPhone 14. Weird to me, but it’s all good now. Thanks again for everyone’s help.

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