Roger Fingas
Apple on Monday posted a new support document, acknowledging the existence of a recently-exposed date settings bug in iOS that can render a device unusable.
"Manually changing the date to May 1970 or earlier can prevent your iOS device from turning on after a restart," the document states. When the bug was originally made public, it was believed that users had to rewind iOS' date all the way back to Jan. 1, 1970.
The company is promising to fix the issue in an "upcoming software update," but without offering any other specifics. Apple also isn't offering any temporary solutions for salvaging a device.
Any 64-bit hardware running iOS 8 or 9 is believed to be susceptible to the glitch, which will most frequently leave it stuck at the Apple logo, unable to finish booting. Even the full complement of restore options won't work.
Anecdotes have hinted that some devices may spontaneously recover on their own several hours later, but with extremely slow performance if so.
The issue became more serious over the weekend, as online trolls began trying to trick people into resetting their date. In most cases, people falling victim to the glitch will have no choice but to get a replacement device from Apple.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
23 Comments
Once the battery fully discharges, you'll be able to go in and fix it. iOS devices reset the date once all power is lost.
I wonder: if someone sets the date to January 1, 1970 (for example), would the problem resolve itself 5 months later (virtual "January" -> virtual "May")? Or would it be "stuck" on the set date? I won't dare test that theory, but am curious about it.
The thinking is that this is a UNIX bug, whereby an integer is created to measure time for any date and that resetting the device date to Jan 1, 1970 sets that integer to zero. No problem, until the device receives a notice or event that occurred "before you reset that date", which would then calculate as a negative date integer and brick the device. As noted the easiest solution is to let the battery run completely down to zero and reboot the device.
I understand the teen techie wannabe crowds are invading Apple stores and setting the dates on display models to brick them. I understand people are doing this on purpose in the hope of getting a new replacement iPhone. I understand that morons are morons the world around and are bricking their phones just to see what happens or because their dumbass friend told them to.
But it’s all Apple’s fault isn’t it. Nobody had discovered this bug for years until some OCD whack job figured it out by accident. Nobody would have reason to set their iPhone’s time and date that far back until said whack job posted it. Now the idiots and slack jawed losers are running with it. But it’s all Apple’s fault isn’t it.