Your last resort if your iPhone has ever encountered firmware issues like boot loops or bricking would be to connect it via cable to a PC or Mac and restore its firmware through iTunes. Using RecoveryOS, you can restore your iPhone 16’s software wirelessly, according to 9to5Mac. iPhone 16s would be able to be wirelessly restored from an iOS 18/iPadOS 18-compatible iPhone or iPad.
Apple has been providing RecoveryOS to Apple Watch and Apple TV devices for some time now, so it’s good to see it finally come to the iPhone. iPhone 16 users will be able to simply place their affected device on top of another iPhone or iPad (connected to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth), and the new version of iOS will be downloaded and transferred wirelessly to the affected device.
New iPhone 16 models reportedly come with a dedicated recovery partition that handles the entire process even if the main iOS partition is not booted. We will have to wait and see if RecoveryOS requires additional hardware features or if it will be available to older iPhones and iPads.
