In the 1970's, Steve Jobs was just barely getting Apple Computer started in his parent's garage. The iPhone wouldn't arrive until 30 years later.
Although, if you take today's iPhone - either the iPhone 6S or the iPhone 6S Plus - you can rewind the date back to Jan. 1, 1970. As to why one would want to do that in the first place, however, is beyond us.
Should an iPhone user decides to do so, they'd soon find themselves without an iPhone to use. Manually setting an iPhone's date to that specific time period will brick an iPhone.
Basically, to brick an iPhone is to render the smartphone completely useless. Calls, texts, and gaming would be impossible - the device won't even boot up. A bricked iPhone is simply that - an expensive glass and silicone brick.
Fortunately. Apple has a solution coming soon.
"Manually changing the date to May 1970 or earlier can prevent your iOS device from turning on after a restart," the company says. "An upcoming software update will prevent this issue from affecting iOS devices."
According to a YouTuber named Tom Scott, manually resetting the date on an iPhone or iPad to any time between Jan. 1, 1970 and May 1970 will trigger the bug. Scott says it all boils down to how the iOS represents time and interprets it by counting the number of seconds that have elapsed since Jan. 1, 1970.
Since word got out about this quirky bug in iPhones and iPads, however, some users have started tweaking the settings themselves just to test out. Naturally, of course, they all ended up with dysfunctional smartphones.
The more ambitious of them have tried to get replacements from Genius Bars across different Apple Stores. Others were successful, most were turned away. While reports on Reddit reveal that some customers were intentionally bricking display models of iOS units on display at Apple Stores.
As for when Apple will release the fix on the 1970's bug to its iDevices is still unknown. The company's only advice is to contact Apple Support. Otherwise, users can try restoring their device through iTunes, but that doesn't hold any promises. As they say, the best cure is prevention, so just don't do it.
