Don’t Try This At Home: Destroy an iPhone by Changing the Date

OSXDaily ^ | February 11, 2016

[Swordmaker]

This stupid user trick essentially puts the UNIX of the iPhone back to the ZERO data point and you wind up with some divide by zero errors. It is similar to the errors that would have occurred when the clocks of Windows computers would have rolled over when the new millennium started had not a lot of work been done to change things in programming before that deadline (remember all of that?) The UNIX roll over date is still in the future, but the UNIX starting ZERO date was set at 01.01.1970:00,00,00 and the number of possible seconds it can count will run out on 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038.

Apple made it as difficult as possible for a user to reset the clock back to 01/01/1970, dropping the user out of the setting not once, but I think, four times, and then requiring a reset of the iPhone for it to take. However, the system should have not permitted that time setting at all. That needs to be fixed.

[Swordmaker]

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! Do not allow a friend to offer to show you a neat trick on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch! It will BRICK your device, perhaps beyond even the Apple Genius Bar's ability to fix it quickly. It's possible this trick could even hit Android devices as they are also UNIX like devices as it takes advantage of a quirk built into the UNIX system having to do with the limitation of the clock. JUST DON'T DO IT. Apple has made it difficult to do this STUPID USE TRICK, but it is still possible, they should have made it impossible. -- PING!

STUPID iOS USER TRICK BRICKS iOS DEVICES!
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[envisio]

Change date? Why?
You mean, like, it won’t make calls anymore?

I don’t get it and please don’t use up alot of energy explaining it because I probably still won’t get it.
And that’s just fine by me. I got one more day of waterfowl season so I’m going to the woods to be quiet.

[LoneStar42]

Wow.

[Wolfie]

Yeah, but will it break the iPhone?

[beebuster2000]

just tried it and it worked fine, reset itself.

[al baby]

Yes but it sent all your stuff to Valerie Jarrett’s Bidet server

[Organic Panic]

Beat me to it. Unix time began Jan 1 1970.

[TomGuy]

I have a Motorola Moto E.

I am not going to try that because I do not want to “brick” my phone.

[What is ‘bricking’ a smartphone?]

[21twelve]

Kind of like turning your desktop into an anchor.

[Lajmaiz]

My teenage son did this. Going to the Apple Store today.

[Vermont Lt]

The software, if the date is reset to that date, apparently would result in some of the boot-up software getting results divided by zero. And as everyone knows, you cannot divide by zero. It makes computers very upset.

I am not going to bother with this, but my wife needs a new phone, so I might try it with hers.

[Talisker]

I would imagine an update could be made where that date is simply not allowed to be inputted at all.

[SamAdams76]

I wish I could go back to January 1, 1970, knowing what I know now.

[Adder]

It makes your smart phone dumb as a brick=useless.

[BushCountry]

Y2K is still alive!

[NorthMountain]

Yeah, but will it break the iPhone?

I think it might do something bad to your phone.

Maybe.

I'm not sure, though.

I have an idea!!! Why don't you try it and tell us what happens?

[NorthMountain]

I wish I could go back to January 1, 1970, knowing what I know now.

Yeah ... buy AAPL and MSFT.

[Rockpile]

I seized up an I-pad to frozen on the Apple logo by doing an incredibly moronic stupid stupid stupid idiot halfwit bozo imbecile action.....

I downloaded upgraded software from Apple.
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

A kid at the Apple store took it to the backroom and got it running after awhile.

[jimmyray]

I never allow updates to software, except my antivirus. if it ain’t broke... Don’t update. Probability is good that it will be broke afterwards!