My phone appears stuck in some kind of recovery loop that I cannot get out of thus far and there's no progress indicator or anything else in the recovery mode.

Apple's hardware quality (with the exception of the insane evil idiot within Apple who fetishizes super thin power cables that keep breaking) is still mostly fantastically good, but their software keeps on really disappointing.

Hey, but at least they changed a pistol emoji to a water gun. Thanks for focusing on the important stuff Apple.

First my iPhone (SE) restarted and was suddenly wiped (could restore most via iCloud backup), then the update bricked the phone and I have to restore an old version via iTunes. Not the greatest experience so far..

Had this issue with my device (6s) as well.

I have to update iTunes, get the latest recovery image and restore.

Bad QC from Apple.