Sending Your iPhone Back In Time Will Unsurprisingly Brick It

While some iPhone owners are already dealing with bricked devices from the dreaded "error 53" issue, another issue has been discovered that if users aren't careful, could leave their phone unusable after a simple change of the date. The hive mind on Reddit has found out that any iOS device with a 64-bit processor will be left bricked if its date is set to January 1st, 1970. We're going to warn you that from here on out, you really shouldn't try this with your own iPhone, unless you enjoy some serious troubleshooting at the Apple Store.

Basically, what happens is that once the devices date is set to January 1st, 1970, it will be stuck in the boot-up sequence. Some users have managed to recover from the crash, with solutions including waiting 5 hours to try turning it on again, removing the SIM card, or completely draining the battery, while others say the only option was to take it to an Apple Store.

Fortunately it isn't very easy to fall victim to this bug, as it requires users to go to Settings and turn off the set date & time automatically option, then manually set the date to January 1st, 1970. If you're still dying to try this yourself, why not do yourself a favor and just watch the video below to experience the whole process.

To clarify, this only affects iOS devices with 64-bit processors, which means the A7, A8, A8X, A9, and A9X (that's the iPhone 5s or newer), and they need to be running iOS 8 or later. So older devices with 32-bit processors aren't affected.

SOURCE Reddit