Reports from a new virus that will make your device completely unusable arrived on Thursday. This brand new kind of bug will disable your phone completely if you set its clock back to January 1, 1970.
An image title “Blast from the past” asks users to seek out an easter egg to go back in time and put a retro Apple logo theme on your display just by changing the date on your phone to January 1, 1970.
The result is a disaster. Doing this will damage your phone to the point that the only way out will be an actual physical fix, or even buying a new phone. Connecting the disabled phone to your computer and trying to reboot it via iTunes won’t work.
“Hello, I was playing around with my Date & Time settings and I changed the time to January 1st, 1970. I shutdown my phone and restarted it, the result is a bricked iPhone. I’ve tried restoring, updating, but nothing seems to be working,” one user posted about on an online Apple help forum.
The bug appears to affect only newer devices which use 64-bit processors like iPhone 5S, iPad Air, iPad Mini 2 and the sixth-generation iPod Touch.
Apple has not commented about the new bug yet, perhaps because it has been very busy taking care of a lawsuit over claims about controversial “Error 53”.
On Thursday, the law firm Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala filed a class-action lawsuit claiming that Apple’s Error 53 has destroyed iPhone 6 and newer devices.
Apparently, the error 53 comes when the Home button containing the Touch ID sensor on an iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, or 6s Plus is replaced, on installing an iOS 8 update or an iOS 9 update. The law firm reported the phone becomes “bricked” or permanently unusable when users attempt one of these procedures.
The problem becomes more troubling because the phone can never be used again. If you are lucky and get to repair the phone, it wouldn’t include the Home button.
An Apple spokeswoman said in a statement last week that the Touch ID sensor and the phone are connected to guarantee the Touch ID features remain secure. So, if iOS detects that the pairing fails, Touch ID, including Apple Pay, is disabled so the device remains secure.
Source: WIRED