This bug can completely disable your iPhone

Apple is currently working on a fix for this problem

Apple fans discovered last week that manually changing an iPhone or iPad's date to January 1, 1970 will "brick" the device rendering it completely useless.

Once the phone crashes, there is reportedly no way to fix it without getting help from Apple, or in some cases, you might have to buy a new device.



The bricking only reportedly happens in 64-bit iOS devices running iOS 8 or later.

Some say the bug is caused by the Unix Epoch. The date January 1, 1970 is time zero for any device that uses Unix, which means that it actually sets the clock to a series of zeroes. Therefore, setting your phone to that date crashes your phone.



A post on Apple's support website has confirmed that an upcoming software update will fix the bug.

Until then, make sure you do not change your phone’s date to January 1, 1970 and keep a password to protect others from accessing your settings.

This article originally appeared on Huffington Post.