u/Daco_Ger

My girlfriend’s iPhone 16 (purchased in January 2026) is stuck in a recovery / boot loop and we’re running out of ideas.

Timeline:

• The iPhone froze during normal use
• We force restarted it (Volume Up → Volume Down → Hold Side Button)
• After that it entered recovery mode
• We connected it to a Windows PC and used Apple Devices
• We first selected “Update” (not Restore)
• The update process ran for around 30 minutes
• No error code appeared
• After finishing, it immediately went back into recovery mode

After that:

• We fully restored the iPhone
• We connected her iCloud account again
• Restored all data/apps from iCloud backup
• The phone started working normally again

But then:

• She tried logging into 1–2 apps
• Suddenly the phone crashed again
• Now it is back in the same Apple logo → recovery mode → repeat cycle

No error codes have appeared at any point.

iOS version: 26.5 (Build 23F77)

Has anyone seen this exact behavior before? Could this be software, corrupted backup data, storage-related, or possibly hardware (NAND, battery, motherboard, etc.) Any ideas or last things to try before contacting Apple?