Apple iPhone 1970 retro bug. Beware!

Currently circulating the interwebs is a not-so-funny prank that promises to add some groovy new styling to your iPhone. Some clever so and so's over at 4Chan discovered that by setting your phone's date to the 1st of January 1970, you would actually brick your phone (render it useless). There's some pretty good reasoning behind why it does this, and it all has to do with binary and how the iPhone handles it's date/time. But we won't bore you with that stuff.

Back to 4Chan, instead of warning people or Apple about the bug, the users there decided to play a prank. Much in the same vein as previous pranks of this style, someone created a very convincing image in photoshop that looked like an Apple ad. Here is the ad (remember, it's fake and following the instructions WILL brick your phone!)

Pretty convincing right?

Luckily, there is an easy fix for this if you have fallen for the prank, but you will need the special tools to open the phone. Disconnecting the battery from the iPhone's main board will reset the date/time on the phone and you'll be back to normal, albeit a bit wiser.

If you don't have access to these tools, or want it done professionally, bring it to Techrevive! You'll be in and out in less than 10 mins.