Apple earlier today seeded the second betas of iOS 17.3 and iPadOS 17.3, only to pull the beta from availability a mere three hours later. The new seeds are no longer available to download and install, either as a download from the Developer Center or over the air.
Apple removed the second iOS 17.3 and iPadOS 17.3 betas following reports from a number of users that the software had bricked their devices. iPhone owners on the MacRumors forums, Twitter, and Mastodon, who installed the new seed reported that their devices were stuck in a boot loop.
As reported by MacRumors, the only fix for the boot looping is to restore a stuck device. Once the bug has been fixed, Apple will once again release the new beta seeds.
Some reports indicate the boot loop issue could be related to the Back Tap setting. A log shared via Mastodon by developer Guilherme Rambo indicates that a Back Tap setting caused his device to crash and that several other affected users also have Back Tap enabled in some capacity.
While Back Tap may be involved, some users who had Back Tap enabled were able to successfully install the update. Meanwhile, other users who did not have the feature on also experienced the boot loop issue.
MacTrast and Apple both warn users not to install any betas on their daily driver iPhone or iPad. Instead, only install betas on a device set aside for testing purposes.
