Warning iPhone Users

[Cute Prince101]

‘Blast from the past’ iPhone hoax will render your smartphone unusable



A NEWLY discovered bug renders iPhones useless if the system date is set to January 1, 1970.
Why would you reset the date and time on your phone to 46 years ago?
Well, because you may have been tricked by an intenet troll.
A hoax image originally posted to 4chan appears to be a screenshot from the Apple website, purporting to share the news of a retro mode on iPhones that can be enabled by setting the device’s date to January 1, 1970.



“The original Macintosh introduced the world to computers, forever changing the way people experience technology, and allowing people to do things that were never possible before,” the post reads.
“With this Easter egg, warp back in time with a class Macintosh theme to relive the magic on your iPhone. Change the date on your iPhone to January 1, 1970, press and hold the power button to reboot your device, and prepare for a wild ride.”
It’s a wild ride, all right. A ride that will render your device unusable.
The hoax is believed to be so powerful that even an expert at an Apple Genius Bar may not be able to help restore your phone.
The bug affects iPhones, iPads and iPod touches with 64-bit processors running iOS 8 or iOS 9, including the iPhone 5S or newer, the iPad Air, iPad mini 2 or the 2015 sixth generation iPod touch or newer.



News Source:

Note: I tried it on my iPod Touch (5th Generation) to test it, and now i'm unable to set it back to normal, says that January 1st 1970 is the current date today, I can however i can use the device without any problems, just the system date won't let me put it correctly.

but if you did it on an iPhone it would be a different story, so don't do it, this post is just a warning notice in case someone tells you to try it.

Also don't know if android OS is affected as well, i don't want to try it.

 

[gb2000ie]

Yea - when the internet tells you to do something "because it is cool" - BE SUSPICOUS!

This only affects 64bit iOS apps - so modern iPhones, modern iPod touches, and modern iPads, but not older devices that use 32bit processors.

This exact bug is in iOS, so it will not affect Android. I can't promise that Android does not have a but of it's very own that is similar.

BTW - what's so special about 1970? It's zero-hour for Unix and Linux computers! Time on Unix/Linux machines (that includes Macs, iOS devices, and Android devices) is stored as the number of milliseconds since noon GMT on 1 January 1970. Putting the date to that time, or a time before it will set the counter to zero, and that is clearly tripping up the iPhone somehow. Perhaps there is a line of code that divides by the timestamp, but does not first check for zero, who knows. All we know is that Apple didn't test what would happen if the phone went back to 1970. It's not the kind of thing you would immeiately think to test though.

Also - Apple are aware of the issue, and will be issuing a software update to fix the bug shortly. In the mean while, if you didn't get the memo and just did something because the internet told you to, and your device is bricked, contact Apple Support.

I always said there was somthing dodgy about the 70s

B.

 

[c750dt]

I tried it out and it looks pretty cool.

 

[gb2000ie]

I tried it out and it looks pretty cool.

What? You broke your phone and it looks good broken?

B.

 

[c750dt]

No, it actually gave me a command prompt and a retro logo. J/K I don't even own any Apple products.

 

[ihno]

I will try it on my sister's iphone.

 

[Cute Prince101]

Just an update note to my previous one

I was successfully able to reset the system date on my IPod Touch back to the correct date, i had to do it very slowly by putting it on a certain year and then go out of the date and time section on the device and then back in it again and constantly do that until i get it to the present date.

 

[zachak]

iteresting!

 

[gb2000ie]

If you're curious about how this kind of bug happens, why not watch a cute English guy explain it



B.

 

[Shelter]

GB this guy was marvellous (and great that there have been German subtitles) - but honestly I haven't understood anything. - Nontheless it was very interesting.
And now again I'll knowing why I'm not an IT man. I'm a simple user, I know my phone and my PC inside out - but as I said only as a user. The same with my car - I'm a good driver and I know everything what I have to do in my car that it will be running. But if something will happen - I'm really a dead duck. -

 

[gb2000ie]

GB this guy was marvellous (and great that there have been German subtitles) - but honestly I haven't understood anything. - Nontheless it was very interesting.
And now again I'll knowing why I'm not an IT man. I'm a simple user, I know my phone and my PC inside out - but as I said only as a user. The same with my car - I'm a good driver and I know everything what I have to do in my car that it will be running. But if something will happen - I'm really a dead duck. -

There's not much to know about cars - it all comes down to "suck, squeeze, bang, blow" (I made my boss spit out her coffee with that observation last week). That's how a 4-stroke engine works - stroke one, the piston moves down while the fuel inlet valve is open pulling fuel and air into the cylinder (suck), then all the valves are closed as the piston moves up and squishes the air and fuel (squeze), then the sparkplug fires, causing the fuel + air mixture to explode, pushing the piston down the cylinder and making the wheels turn (bang), then the exhaust valuve is opened, and the piston moves up again pushing the waste from the explosion out of the cylinder (blow).

In the case of this iPhone bug, there there are just two things you need to know:
1) computers stores dates as a single big number - the number of miliseconds since midnight UTC on 1 January 1970.
2) when computers store numbers, they store in a fixed space, and when you run out of space, you cycle round - like an old mechanical mile counter on a car - if you only had 4 places, and it said 9999 and you drove one more mile, it would say 0000. Now, what happens if it says 0000 and you drive one mile in reverse? it goes to 9999!

So, when you put the iPhone in 1970 it's date is at or close to zero. If you do some calculations that involve subtracting one date from another, you'll make the date go around, so your phone will think that the time since the last charge is a few times the age of the universe, or something equally nonsensical. That is what is causing the crashes.

Hope that makes sense.

B.

 

[Shelter]

There's not much to know about cars - it all comes down to "suck, squeeze, bang, blow" (I made my boss spit out her coffee with that observation last week). That's how a 4-stroke engine works - stroke one, the piston moves down while the fuel inlet valve is open pulling fuel and air into the cylinder (suck), then all the valves are closed as the piston moves up and squishes the air and fuel (squeze), then the sparkplug fires, causing the fuel + air mixture to explode, pushing the piston down the cylinder and making the wheels turn (bang), then the exhaust valuve is opened, and the piston moves up again pushing the waste from the explosion out of the cylinder (blow).

In the case of this iPhone bug, there there are just two things you need to know:
1) computers stores dates as a single big number - the number of miliseconds since midnight UTC on 1 January 1970.
2) when computers store numbers, they store in a fixed space, and when you run out of space, you cycle round - like an old mechanical mile counter on a car - if you only had 4 places, and it said 9999 and you drove one more mile, it would say 0000. Now, what happens if it says 0000 and you drive one mile in reverse? it goes to 9999!

So, when you put the iPhone in 1970 it's date is at or close to zero. If you do some calculations that involve subtracting one date from another, you'll make the date go around, so your phone will think that the time since the last charge is a few times the age of the universe, or something equally nonsensical. That is what is causing the crashes.

Hope that makes sense.

B.

Thanks GB for this clarification in simple words. I'll try to understand that. And I'm admiring you and every other IT men for their knowledge in these things. For me it is so as if I would try to read a Chinese newspaper.

But nonetheless it is a very interesting field of knowledge. I'll try to read more about it.