Brick your iPhone, iPad or iPod by setting the date to 1/1/70? Here's a way to fix your device

Are you the type with a personality that forces you to do things that you're not supposed to? In other words, when your parents told you not to talk with your mouth full, did you start talking as soon as you took a bite of food? When your teacher told you to stop running in the hallways, did you speed off like Usain Bolt as soon as she walked away?

Then you most likely decided to set your iPhone or iPad to January 1st, 1970 even through we told you that by doing so, you would brick your device. So there you sit with your bricked iOS device, kicking yourself for not listening. But the good news is that there is a way to bring your iPhone or iPad back to life.

Before we tell you what to do, we should point out that according to a report published today, the reason why this date bricks 64-bit iOS devices has to do with January 1, 1970 being the first day of the Unix epoch. Unix machines keep track of time based on the number of seconds since that date; the time is stored as a 32-bit number and 64-bit iOS devices act a bit squirrely near the zero mark.

O.K., let's say your iPhone or iPad is bricked because you changed the date back. How can you fix your iOS device? All you need to do, according to a published report, is run the battery down all the way. Discharging the battery completely will return the device to the current date. 

Just to refresh your memory, the devices affected are all iPhones starting with the Apple iPhone 5s, all iPads starting with the Apple iPad Air, the Apple iPad mini 2 and later, and the Apple iPod touch sixth generation.


source: ArsTechnica