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iPhone prank could make device unusable
Wavy ^ | 17 Feb 2016 | Susan Campbell

Posted on 02/17/2016 2:17:17 PM PST by for-q-clinton

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — A digital prank making the rounds on Facebook has been ruining iPhones everywhere, and it now has Apple’s attention.

The company has acknowledged that the prank is actually a bug that will prevent your phone from restarting.

The message looks like an old Macintosh ad, and asks people to set their phone back to January 1, 1970 to experience a special feature that allows you to “relive the magic” of the past.

Indeed, when the date is set back and you restart your phone, it will leave your phone stuck on the greeting screen.

According to ZDNet, the iPhone 5 and newer, the iPad Air, the iPad Mini 2, and generation six of the iPod Touch are all at risk.

Apple is willing to provide support for anyone’s phone that has been affected.

The company also promised “an upcoming software update will prevent this issue from affecting iOS devices.”


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: apple; garbage; ios; iphone
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Seriously? This is like windows 95 type bugs. How can this be an issue with today's devices?
1 posted on 02/17/2016 2:17:17 PM PST by for-q-clinton
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To: Swordmaker

This may be old news to you, but in case your ping list hasn’t heard. You may want to warn them about this nasty DOS attack.


2 posted on 02/17/2016 2:17:53 PM PST by for-q-clinton (If at first you don't succeed keep on sucking until you do succeed)
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To: for-q-clinton

Plus, now iPhone’supprt ISIS.


3 posted on 02/17/2016 2:19:17 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: for-q-clinton

For those who want to experience what it was like to use an iPhone in 1970...


4 posted on 02/17/2016 2:20:21 PM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: for-q-clinton

Imma letchu finish but right now,

Imma brick yo I-phone!


5 posted on 02/17/2016 2:23:32 PM PST by Cletus.D.Yokel (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alterations: The acronym defines the science.)
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To: for-q-clinton
Just press +C.
6 posted on 02/17/2016 2:25:27 PM PST by Rio (Proud resident of the State of Jefferson)
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To: for-q-clinton

My 1970 Iphone was limited compared to todays models. One of the limitations was my service was limited to the amount of cable I could carry and without charcoal it was worthless for making pictures.


7 posted on 02/17/2016 2:25:46 PM PST by Raycpa
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To: for-q-clinton

Relive the wonders of the days gone by when YOU DIDN’T HAVE A CELLPHONE!................LOL!...........


8 posted on 02/17/2016 2:27:00 PM PST by Red Badger (READ MY LIPS: NO MORE BUSHES!...............)
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To: Raycpa

The rotary dial is the thing I remember most about it...


9 posted on 02/17/2016 2:27:55 PM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Buckeye McFrog

And I remember that I didn’t have to say, “Sorry...could you repeat that...lost the signal...” half a dozen times during a conversation.


10 posted on 02/17/2016 2:32:00 PM PST by Milton Miteybad (I am Jim Thompson. {Really.})
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To: for-q-clinton

11 posted on 02/17/2016 2:33:45 PM PST by for-q-clinton (If at first you don't succeed keep on sucking until you do succeed)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Especially if someone had a lot of 9’s or 0’s in their number.


12 posted on 02/17/2016 2:35:45 PM PST by Raycpa
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To: for-q-clinton

reminds me of the old .sony file on the macs back in the day,,
I only read about it of course..


13 posted on 02/17/2016 2:43:16 PM PST by ßuddaßudd (>> F U B O << "What the hell kind of country is this if I can only hate a man if he's white?")
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To: for-q-clinton

I understand that if you remove the battery, it will resolve the problem. You need to purchase a pentalobe screwdriver,
but the procedure is fairly straight forward.

Here is a youtube video showing how to ‘unbrick’ the phone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofnq37dqGyY


14 posted on 02/17/2016 3:08:24 PM PST by PDGearhead (Obama's lack of citizenship)
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To: PDGearhead

Actually, you just momentarily disconnect the battery and the
date and time will reset.


15 posted on 02/17/2016 3:12:15 PM PST by PDGearhead (Obama's lack of citizenship)
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16 posted on 02/17/2016 3:17:41 PM PST by DoughtyOne (Facing Trump nomination inevitability, folks are now openly trying to help Hillary destroy him.)
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To: Raycpa
"Especially if someone had a lot of 9's or 0's in their number."

Rotary dials actually figured into area code designations for that very reason. That's why the original NANP area codes for high population areas were given codes with lower dial pulse counts (i.e. 212 for NYC, 213 for L.A.) than those with lower population densities (i.e. 602 for AZ, 701 for N. Dakota, etc.)

17 posted on 02/17/2016 3:22:15 PM PST by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: for-q-clinton

Almost certainly incorrect, for anyone west of GMT.

Modern operating systems, and possibly even newer versions of Windows, don’t store time as a date, they store it as a number of seconds since midnight GMT Jan 1, 1970.

A theory has been posted on other threads that setting the time back to 1 Jan, 1970 will cause “time” to be set to zero, resulting in a division by zero error. This is almost certain nonsense, as “time” would only be zero at exactly midnight GMT, and for the life of me I can’t imagine any practical application for dividing by the current time.

A vastly more likely scenario is that this issue only affects devices configured in time zones between the east side of the date line and GMT. In those cases, if you set the date to 1 Jan, 1970 and the time early enough to be before midnight GMT, the OS would store the value of “time” to be a negative number. For those of us (in a time zone) east of GMT, setting the time to any time on 1 Jan, 1970 will result in a positive value of “time”.

Now, if you set your date to 30 Dec, 1969 I can see you being pretty screwed.

A bug, yes, but no where near windows 95 level.


18 posted on 02/17/2016 3:42:00 PM PST by Darth Reardon (During the Great Depression, World War I was referred to as the Great War)
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To: Darth Reardon

I’m a a tech dunce——why was the date Jan 1,1970 chosen?

.


19 posted on 02/17/2016 3:44:22 PM PST by Mears
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To: Red Badger
LOL!!!
20 posted on 02/17/2016 3:48:04 PM PST by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -w- NO Pity for the LAZY - Luke, 22:36)
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