iOS may arguably be the most stable mobile operating system out there but that doesn’t mean it does not have any bugs. That’s what people are discovering over the Internet, it seems. According to a video that has surfaced, and a variety of different reports from iOS-based device owners, there’s a quick trick of the iOS clock that can brick your device just by switching things around. According to reports, and as made evident in the video below, if you set your iPhone’s clock to January 1, 1970, your device will go on lockdown and you won’t be able to bring it out.
While the device works fine after the change, the bug reveals itself once it is restarted, as the iPhone gets stuck on the Apple boot logo. Interestingly no current solution seems to be working to fix this problem as users who got their iPhone bricked failed to get it to work after DFU or Restore. The bug affects all 64-bit iPhone, iPad or iPod touch models running versions from iOS 8.0 to iOS 9.2.1.
Anyone who cares about his or her device should avoid testing this bug on the device, as once your iOS device gets affected you will have to send it to Apple for repairs. If you are brave or perhaps stupid enough to give this bug a try, which could result in your device getting bricked, then you can do so by Going to Settings > General > Date & Time and then turning ‘Set Automatically’ toggle off. After that you can change the date to January 1, 1970.
According to the reports, the bug affects all iOS devices that are running iOS 8 or newer, and if it’s manufactured with a 64-bit processor. It doesn’t seem to be an issue for 32-bit processors. So if you have an iPhone 5s or newer, you should definitely not try this trick out. As for A-series processors that are 64-bit, that’s the A7, A8, A8X, A9, and A9X.
You are wholeheartedly discouraged from trying this on your iOS devices. We don’t want our readers to brick their iPhones permanently.Users who are jailbroken can install the ‘BrickingDate’ tweak from http://repo.ziph0n.com/ to prevent anyone from setting this date on their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.
Date Bug Can Bricks Your iPhones if You Set a Specific Date On it