Matt surprised me with a new iPhone 13 Pro Max about 3 years ago.  It has been working beautifully.  As with most people, my phone has become an extension of my body. I use it for reminders, photos, communication, entertainment and so much more.

Around late May 2025, the screen on my iPhone 13 Pro Max turned lavender.  I freaked out, did a forced restart and it came back to life. I did not google anything or look into it because it was “fixed.”

Then around 10 June, it happened again.

My phone was a light lavender and if you tried really hard you could still see pieces of the home screen (the keyboard, the battery power and wifi).  At some points it turned a light grey but mostly it was lavender.

Things to Know

HOT:  My iPhone 13 Pro Max often got hot.  At first I thought it was because we were in the tropics and it is freakin hot here!  I would often shut it down and remove it from the case to let it cool down.

BACKUP:  I backup my phone every month.  Because I have lost my phone and dropped it in the water.  Each time needing to recover my data.  So, it is a monthly ritual for me to backup my phone.

I had backed up my phone on 3 June and it turned purple on 7 June.  Luckily the only data I will lose are my photos. My notes are backed up on my GMAIL account

What is the Purple Screen of Death? 

The Purple Screen of Death is caused by software or hardware issues.  In some cases it can be caused by water intake and or extreme heat.  The iPhone 13, in particular the iPhone 13 Pro Max is particularly susceptible to the purple screen of death!

Fast forward to today, June 7, I am idly playing my Words With Friends game and all of a sudden my iPhone 13 Pro Max screen turns lavender.  Ooh no.

This time I tried the soft reset and forced restart and got nothing but a relatively pretty pinkish purplish screen.

Crap!  What do I do now?  I checked in with Google and Sheldon, my Chat GPT friend.

Soft Reset

The first thing to do is try a soft reset.  Hold the side button and Volume Down until the Apple logo appears.

We did the soft reset and continued to get the purple screen of death.

Forced Restart

We tried a forced restart a number of times.  In case you ever need to do a forced restart, this is what you do:

• Quickly press Volume Up
• Quickly press Volume Down
• Hold the side button until you see the Apple logo

The screen should go completely black and then the Apple logo should appear.

This is a hard reset but no data will be lost.  This warranted no results with my iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Forced Shutdown

Next we tried holding the Volume Up button and the side button simultaneously to force a shutdown. 

This first gave us a black screen but as we continued to hold it down it came back as a lavender/purple screen. 

As we continued to hold the buttons it would “vibrate” and then it tired to initiate emergency services.  Eeek gads.  We closed out of that quickly and then removed our SIM card.

iTunes on the Computer

We connected the phone to my PC and pulled up iTunes.  Our hope was that it would show up as a device so we could either force another restart, update the software, and/or force a restore.

After loads of unplugging and plugging in and trying a multitude of connectors we finally saw the iPhone 13 on iTunes. 

However, it failed every time we tried to update the iOS and failed when we tried to restore.  The phone is still lavender. 

Forced Restore

The only way we could force a restore back to factory settings is to connect the iPhone 13 to our computer.  It took awhile to have the computer recognize the phone.  Many failed attempts, trying different cables and connectors, again.  But we finally connected the two and tried to force a restore.  Guess what?  It failed.

Note: All data will be lost during a force restore.  Be sure you have a back up of your phone’s data before you do this or you will lose everything.

DFU Restore

This is absolutely the last, last resort. The DFU restore is a deep-level restore process that reloads firmware and software on the device, essentially erasing everything and starting fresh.  This should only be used when all else has failed to restore your phone.

If the DFU restore does not work it may indicate a hardware issue.  

The DFU restore is not reversible once it has completed

What to Do?

We are in the very remote Bay of Islands which is part of the Lau group.  There are NO resources, no stores, no villages within miles of us. 

We cannot buy a new iPhone from the U.S. because Apple decided not to include a SIM slot in all U.S. phones.  This is not a big deal to most Americans because they can use e-sims.  However, they don’t use e-sims in the small, remote countries we visit. If we want to have internet access away from the boat and to have a local phone number – we have to buy a local sim card which requires a sim card slot.

A friend of mine is coming from NZ to Taveuni and offered to bring me a iPhone 16 Pro Max which would cost about $1600 USD.  Yikes.  I started researching the new iPhone 17 Pro Max and realized it would be in my best interest to wait the 4 months to buy it.  The new iPhone 17 Pro Max benefits over the iPhone 16 Pro Max

• Longer battery life
• Cooling system to keep the phone from over heating
• Improved resolution on both front and rear cameras
• Larger memory and storage capabilities
• Faster chips
• And a few other features

The question is….. “Can I live without my phone for 5 months?”  It is early June and the phone does not come out until mid-September.  I will have no way to get the phone to Fiji once it comes out. I will have to wait until we get to New Zealand in November.

Temporary Fix?

We had an old iPhone 5 on board.  We charged it and to our surprise it booted right up.  It is on old iOS 10 software so 95% of my apps don’t work. And I can’t use it to restore my old phone as there is not enough storage. 

We have an old Pixel6 which I can use to take photos along with the DJI camera. So, at least I can continue to take photos and update the blog, Facebook, and Instagram.  But of course, I cannot restore my iPhone to the Android phone.

I’ve been able to download a lot of apps on my computer: WhatsApp, Pic Collage, KeyPass, Chat GPT, Instagram, and WordPress. I can access a lot of other sites on a web browser: No Foreign Land, Instagram, Open CPN, and Navionics.

Is it ideal, no!  But, it will work.  At least I hope it does. I was struggling to adapt on day #2!  

As of now, it has been almost 2 months without my iPhone.  At times it has been incredibly frustrating like when we want to use a map app for onshore adventures or when I want to use Recipe Keeper and Matt is on his iPad.  But, we’ve both adapted…only 3 more months to go.

Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog post occurred in early June 2025.

Don’t miss our blog on the beautiful, breathtaking Bay of Islands.