Latest iOS 9.3 Beta Unbricks iPhones Affected By 1970 Bug

Earlier this month we reported that 64-bit iPhones were affected by a weird bug in which if you set the date to the 1st of January, 1970, it will cause the phone to brick. The only way to fix it is to either send it back to Apple, or disconnect and reconnect the battery by yourself, a move that we reckon might be a tad risky.

Now Apple did promise a fix would be arriving in a future update and it turns out that the update is none other than iOS 9.3. In fact according to user reports, it seems that the latest beta of iOS 9.3 has already addressed the issue. This has been confirmed by some users who had posted on the MacRumors forums.

According to the post, “This update fixed the 1970 date bug. Had two retail units stuck in boot loops do to some pricks setting the date to 1970 and restoring in DFU mode did not help. But restorting to this BETA update made both devices go back to normal.” Thankfully since the iOS 9.3 bet is open to the public, iOS users can go ahead and check it out.

However if you’d rather wait for the final release, we have no idea when iOS 9.3 will be out. The update features a ton of new features and changes which might explain the relatively heavy beta testing, but hopefully we will see its release in the near future. In the meantime users who have bricked iPhones due to this bug might want to check this potential fix out.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: ios 9, iPhone