Connecting it to a PC in iTunes or booting into DFU mode seems to work but doesn’t actually fix the problem; the device remains bricked. This notion was reflected upon when one of the iOS users suffering from a bricked iOS device revealed that their iPhone was bricked after being switched from Beijing to New York’s time zone.
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Apple Insider reports that a new time and date related glitch could potentially harm users’ Apple Inc. You then need to manually turn back the date on your device by scrolling through dates all the way back to 1970.
iPhone bug: Set your iPhone’s date to January 1, 1970, and you’ll kill it. It will prevent the device from being able to boot up, the battery will eventually die, and you won’t be able to do anything with it at all.
Going from that point forward, it’s not a huge deal.
Obviously this isn’t something you should try out just for kicks but, if you’re curious, YouTube user Zach Straley has a pretty good demonstration of what sending your iPhone back 46 years will do. The company also recommends contacting Apple support if you have a device affected by this problem.
While it is disappointing that Apple’s customer care hasn’t given these agitated users any backup option, we have faith that Apple will soon roll out with a solution to avoid causing its users any more inconvenience. For those foolhardy enough to believe anything originating on 4chan, setting phones back to the date caused iPhones to brick, with no apparent fix.
Hence, the best bet is to take the device to your nearest Apple store.
The problem arises when the date on an iOS device is manually changed to May 1970 or earlier, according to Apple, which has addressed the bug on its support page.
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Your iPhone or other iOs device is great and a lot of fun, and sometimes it is hard to resist temptation when you find out you can do something.
