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CHANGING THE DATE of your iPhone to 1 January 1970 could render it useless and unable to reboot.
A bug in iOS will brick an iPhone if you change the settings to that date, which is the furthest back you can set it.
The bug only affects those iPhones and iPads with a 64-bit processor running iOS 8 and newer. This includes the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 6 and 6s range, iPad Air 2, the iPad Mini 3 and 4 and the 6th gen iPod Touch.
When you do save it like this and turn the phone off and on again, it doesn’t reboot. Instead, it just displays the Apple home screen without changing.
Trying to reboot it by connecting it to iTunes doesn’t work and for now, it looks like the only way to fix it is to bring it to an Apple store or a repair shop that’s approved by Apple.
Some people have claimed that swapping SIM cards around or waiting a few hours will fix the problem, while others have said that some time zones aren’t affected by the bug.
In a Reddit thread discussing the bug, a theory from redion1992 explains why only certain territories are affected by this.
In some time zones, setting the date to 1 Jan 1970 will set the internal clock to a number less than zero, as the time is stored in GMT (as the number of seconds since midnight on that date) and then the offset is applied before display. In other time zones, setting the clock will result in a positive time value. Best guess is that this is triggered by having the time value less than zero.
For operating systems, the furthest date it can go back to is known as the ‘epoch’, a reference point for it to figure out the correct time and date. In the case of operating systems like iOS, 1 January 1970 is the epoch while others like Microsoft DOS goes back to 1 January 1980.
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You know that scene in Fr Ted where Dougal is told not to push the big red button and he gets that look in his eye? That’s the urge I’m feeling right now.
Haha! Yes, I’m experiencing the same reaction here.
I’m going to slowly leave this article now, and lock my phone away for its own safety.
You took the words right outta my mouth!
Its utter bollo……..
Iv just tried it and my phone seems fi8iiijjhhhhhhggghnjj@#####=========_
I don’t believe it. I’ll have to check this for myself
“hey buddy, can I borrow your iPhone there for a second”
Why would you??
Because I’m a non-conformist!
Surely if you have an iPhone you are ?
Why would you post the how to recreate a bug that bricks a phone? The mind boggles!
So that people won’t do it.
People are stupid. More have obviously tried this since it has gone public.
Why would anyone set their phone to that date anyway ? More to the point why would anyone buy an iPhone !
No way! I simply have to try tha
Why change the date to 1970 bet before this no one was dreaming of changing to 1970
You know a bunch of idiots reading this are now going to change the date on their phones to see if it works why post this article ?
so idiots can be punished.
Idiot tax, like the lotto.
Unix based OS doesn’t like being told it is existing before Unix time started. Not really a surprise, is it?
A few weeks ago, I kept on getting blank emails from that date, how strange.
You know a bunch of idiots are going to do that to OTher people’s phones…..
That is an excellent suggestion
Why would you ?
I tried it on my phone, nothing happened. Buy then I have an android phone, and I don’t have to worry about this shite.
Why I why would anyone in their right minds buy an iPhone. It will be interesting to see how this latest cynical update which detects repairs will affect sales. I reckon an enormous amount of iPhone users have had to have screens replaced. Apple’s continuing 1 year warranty is a disgrace, no other company would get away with it.
2 year warranty under European consumer law
Furthest the date goes back on an iPhone is 1982
Repair shops need the cash, 10% of the population are lunatics so seems like a good marketing ploy. Don’t press button scenario.
Mental note, An IPhone is not the phone to use on my time travels .
Well you’d be buggered pre cellphone towers anyway.
Good man Quinton. Excellent article as always.
Even more bad news from Apple, last week we were told getting your iPhone fixed from a 3rd party vendor will also render it useless. Cheap parts, cheap labour making them, over priced and generic pieces of shit…. And the sheeple keep on buying them….
The Y2K bug was way ahead of its time
Why would anybody even feel the urge to do that? Although, a lot of those feckin’ hipsters have iPhones I suppose.
One little observation here… Why in the name of Jaysus woukd anyone want to set their phone to January 1st 1970… I Mean it’s not as if it’s Oct 26th 1985! I could understand the back to the future fans giving that a go!
Anyone know if there is a jail break for iOS 9.2 ye?
Eh, why would you do that?
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