滨听often wonder what makes people do things they have never been done before. For example, who is the guy who first looked at an oyster, pried it open and while gazing at the snot-like interior said, 鈥淗mmm, I wonder what that disgusting mess tastes like?鈥濃�� and then ate it? Or smoking? What was going on with that first fellow who thought, 鈥淗ey, I wonder what would happen if I took a bunch of these dried leaves, rolled them up and set them on fire while they were in my mouth?鈥�
People are weird.
Well, adding to the 鈥淲hy on earth would you do that?鈥� file is whoever decided they wanted to see how far back in time they could reset their iPhone. According to a Reddit post from last week, someone got it in their head to do just that, and discovered that Jan. 1, 1970 is the furthest back you can set the date of your iPhone. But, please don鈥檛 try to do this yourself (seriously), because in finding out this little tidbit of useless information, it was also discovered that setting your phone to that date will cause it to crash permanently for some reason.聽
Now, Apple isn鈥檛 commenting on the problem.聽
However, some tech pundits have surmised that the problem stems from the fact that Unix time began at midnight GMT on Jan. 1, 1970.聽
Unix is an operating system like Apple鈥檚 iOS or Microsoft鈥檚 Windows. Many gadgets, like the iPhone, use this Unix time as the basis for their own clocks. So, it is possible that when someone who is not in the GMT zone sets their iPhone back to Jan. 1, 1970 (again, seriously don鈥檛 do it), the phone thinks it is somehow existing before time began and, just like when Star Trek鈥檚 Captain Kirk forces a computer to try to reconcile an illogical statement, it goes bananas and shuts down.
For some reason, people have read this information, and then (amazingly) tried it on their own phones to see if the news was indeed correct. You can search through YouTube and find videos they made of the process. Sure, I guess it鈥檚 cool for the sake of posterity to see someone set his or her phone to the date (it does still work right after the date change), then power it down and attempt to restart it.聽
It鈥檚 on the restart that the iPhone hangs, according to the posted video and forum posts on Reddit. However, why brick a perfectly good phone? Even if it is an old model, you can still get a few bucks for it on Craigslist or use the AtHome app to turn it into an Internet security cam you can keep tabs on with another phone.聽
So, my advice for you is to leave the time travelling to science fiction characters.
Granted, Apple will likely try and fix this interesting little glitch in a future update; however, until that time you can be absolutely assured that despite warnings and proof, some people will nevertheless still try the Jan. 1, 1970 reset on their own iPhones 鈥渏ust to see what happens.鈥�
Like I said鈥� people are weird.
